Children's home run by North East Lincolnshire Council

Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 1 SC394101 Registered provider: North East Lincolnshire Council

p.1

Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

p.1

Information about this children’s home

A local authority operates and runs this home. It provides care for up to four children and young people whose plan is to live in a medium- to long-term residential setting. The manager is suitably qualified and has been in post since 2013.

p.1

Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

p.1

good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

p.1

good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

p.1

good

The children‟s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

p.1

good

Date of last inspection: 16 January 2018

p.1

good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

p.1

good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 2

p.1

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

16/01/2018 Full Good 14/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 03/10/2016 Full Outstanding 01/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 3

p.2

Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person(s) must take to meet the Care Standards Act 2000, Children‟s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the „Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

p.3

Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child‟s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child. (Regulation 12 (1) and (2)(a)(i)).

p.3

Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that all the children‟s and young people‟s missing person action plans are up to date and consistently followed. When taking children and young people on holiday, assess any potential risks from sharing bedrooms and sleeping areas. Act on the outcome of these risk assessments. Clearly detail in risk assessments that, when a child or young person is absent from the home, whether and at what interval, staff should check their whereabouts and safety. 30/11/2018

p.3

Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children‟s home that helps children aspire to their potential, and promotes their welfare.

p.3

Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— promote the child‟s welfare. (Regulation 13 (1)(b)).

p.3

Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that regulation 44 reports rigorously assess the effectiveness of how well the children and young people are safeguarded. 30/11/2018

p.3

Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children‟s home that helps children aspire to their potential, and promotes their welfare.

p.3

Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the 30/11/2018 Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 4 registered person to— use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1) and (2)(h))

p.3

Requirement Due date

In particular, evaluate the missing from home incidents, analyse the data for trends or patterns, including information from return home interviews. Regularly review and evaluate risk assessments and risk management strategies to ensure that they are implemented by staff so that children and young people receive the best possible care. Improve the regularity and quality of key-working sessions and discussions with the children and young people about their welfare. Ensure that these are appropriately recorded with clear aims and outcomes. Ensure that the children‟s and young people‟s six-monthly planners reflect the care strategies planned and include clear aims and objectives. The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for the children (“a quality of care review”) at least once every six months. The registered person must supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review within 28 days of

p.4

Requirement Due date

the date on which the quality of care review is completed. The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (2)(c) (5)) 30/11/2018

p.4

Recommendations

 Staff should encourage children to express their views about whether they feel safe both within and outside the home („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 43, paragraph 9.10). In particular, encourage young people to talk about scaling questions and ways to improve their safety in relation to concerns about their welfare.  The registered provider should ensure that the independent person they appoint has the skills and understanding necessary to: − relate to children in a home‟s care; − assess all relevant information; and − form an impartial judgement about the quality of the home‟s care. („Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟, page 65, paragraph 15.8) Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 5

p.4

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children and young people benefit from a caring and nurturing environment. Relationships between staff and the children and young people are open, honest and based on trust. This helps the children and young people feel safe and build positive attachments to the staff.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There is a homely atmosphere, and there was plenty of decoration and preparation for Halloween. The children and young people have a good say in what happens in the home. They can pick their bedrooms, choose the decor and decide on activities and meal choices. There are new wishes and feelings cards that they fill in and the staff respond to. As a result, the children and young people have been on trips to theme parks, purchased new clothes and have agreed incentives for improved school attendance.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff endeavour to provide the children and young people with new experiences to help develop their skills and broaden their horizons. Staff have been creative in helping one young person find employment. The children and young people enjoy regular holidays and trips abroad.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There has been a significant improvement for the children and young people in their education. At the last inspection, attendance was low and most of them were on reduced timetables. Since the beginning of this term, all the children and young people have been in full-time education. Their attendance and achievements have increased. This is a credit to the children and young people and the staff who constantly promote education and work collaboratively with the local authority to get the best for the children and young people.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff promote the health of the children and young people, ensuring regular health checks and following up any health concerns. The staff have a good link to the local child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS) team. This helps improve the children‟s and young people‟s emotional health, confidence and self-esteem. Positive, safe sexual health and healthy relationships are promoted to help keep the children and young people safe.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children and young people see their relatives and friends regularly. Staff support these relationships and ensure that arrangements are in line with the children‟s and young people‟s care plans. To promote positive friendships, staff include the friends of children and young people in activities, day-trips and holidays. This helps the children and young people to develop and sustain their social networks and promotes their identities.

p.5

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff regularly talk to the children and young people about their welfare and safety. However, details of these discussions and the impact that staff have on the outcomes for the children and young people are not consistently recorded. New planning documents Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 6 for the children‟s and young people‟s care are not complete. This makes it difficult to target specific aims and outcomes for the children and young people and to review progress. The impact of this is mitigated as staff know the children and young people well, and the desired outcomes are regularly communicated between the staff.

p.5

improvement to be good

The staff work hard to keep the children and young people safe and free from harm.

p.6

improvement to be good

The staff are effective at providing appropriate structure, routines and boundaries for the children and young people. This incorporates professional advice and guidance from the local CAMHS team. This promotes the children‟s and young people‟s emotional well- being and helps overcome barriers to their progress and development. For example, staff have helped the children and young people improve sleep patterns and reduce the amount of „I want‟ demands.

p.6

improvement to be good

The children and young people benefit from the caring and professional way that the staff respond to their concerns, indicators of bullying and allegations of harm. This helps to make the home a safe environment. Staff regularly talk to the children and young people about acceptable behaviour and how to manage their emotions appropriately. As a result, the children and young people behave well. Staff rarely use sanctions, and physical intervention is used safely and as a last resort.

p.6

improvement to be good

Risk management practice is based on individual written risk assessments that detail how to protect the children and young people. These are comprehensive and tailored to the children‟s and young people‟s diverse needs. Consequently, the staff know what the risks are to the children and young people, and they implement a range of strategies to reduce these risks. One area not covered by a written risk assessment was how safe it is for the children and young people to share a bedroom or sleeping area when on holiday.

p.6

improvement to be good

The staff have been particularly successful in reducing the number of times when the children and young people are missing from the home. The staff are proactive in using the children‟s and young people‟s social networks to find them when they are missing. The staff are persistent in looking for the children and young people and have good links with the police.

p.6

improvement to be good

Partnership work with the police is helping the staff to develop new individual missing person action plans for each child and young person. However, not all of the existing plans are up to date, and these do not always correlate with the children‟s and young people‟s risk assessments. For example, there was a discrepancy in whether staff should check on a young person‟s whereabouts every two hours or every three hours.

p.6

improvement to be good

The time taken to report a missing child and young person to the police is not consistent over different occasions. Although there may be a rationale for this, it is not recorded. The children and young people are always offered an independent return home interview to explore why they were missing. Access to these records is limited, and it is not Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 7 evident that the records are analysed for patterns and significant information in order to promote safety.

p.6

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

There is insufficient monitoring, oversight and evaluation of care practice and record- keeping. This has not yet impacted on the outcomes for the children and young people.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The last management review of the home was completed six months late. Therefore, evaluation of the quality of care is not up to date and is not contributing to continuous improvement. The last review did not include any views of the children and young people, their parents and social workers and or information about how these views impact on service improvements.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The monitoring visits and reports completed by one of the two independent visitors are not consistently challenging of care practice and safeguarding arrangements. For example, the impact of limited education timetables of the children and young people and significant events such as fire starting and other risk-taking behaviour were not sufficiently addressed.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Of the five recommendations made at the last inspection, the manager has only implemented one. Practice regarding the four other recommendations has not improved. This includes the quality and consistency of key-working records, missing from home action plans, independent monitoring reports and engaging the children and young people in discussions about their safety.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Generally, there is good communication with partner agencies, schools, the police and social workers. This helps ensure that the children and young people receive good all- round support for their diverse needs. On occasion, significant information has not been shared with the children‟s and young people‟s reviewing officers. This compromises the level of independent scrutiny of the children‟s and young people‟s care plans.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The staff are a cohesive team, their morale is high and there is low staff turnover. They support each other and receive good support and supervision from the management team. Staff complete a range of training and are encouraged to develop their skills and experiences in different but relevant areas of practice, for example through a 10-week course about the role of the police. This gives the staff better insight and understanding and improves working relationships. The staff have achieved the required qualification or are making good progress in achieving this. Consequently, the children and young people benefit, as their care is from an experienced, committed and dedicated staff team.

p.7

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The manager and staff want the best for the children and young people. There are individual plans in place to continue to improve the children‟s and young people‟s progress and development. Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 8

p.7

Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people. Inspectors considered the quality of work and the differences made to the lives of children and young people. They watched how professional staff work with children and young people and each other and discussed the effectiveness of help and care provided. Wherever possible, they talked to children and young people and their families. In addition, the inspectors have tried to understand what the children‟s home knows about how well it is performing, how well it is doing and what difference it is making for the children and young people whom it is trying to help, protect and look after.

p.8

Information about this inspection

Using the „Social care common inspection framework‟, this inspection was carried out under the Care Standards Act 2000 to assess the effectiveness of the service, how it meets the core functions of the service as set out in legislation, and to consider how well it complies with the Children‟s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the „Guide to the children‟s homes regulations including the quality standards‟. Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 9

p.8

Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Child Care Management Team, Civic Offices, Knoll Street, Cleethorpes, North East Lincolnshire DN35 8LN

p.9

Inspector

Simon Morley, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC394101 10 achieve excellence in the care of children and young people, and in education and skills for learners of all ages. It regulates and inspects childcare and children‟s social care, and inspects the Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service (Cafcass), schools, colleges, initial teacher training, further education and skills, adult and community learning, and education and training in prisons and other secure establishments. It assesses council children‟s services, and inspects services for children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

p.9

Inspector

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.10

Inspector

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.10

Inspector

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.10