Children's home run by Bright Futures Care Limited in Bolton

Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 1 SC456537 Registered provider: Bright Futures Care Limited

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to four children who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties, learning disabilities and/or sensory impairment.

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Information about this children’s home

The home is part of a private organisation that also offers specialist educational provision and care and accommodation for young people who may have learning disabilities.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 14 to 15 November 2018

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Date of last inspection: 8 November 2017

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

08/11/2017 Full Good 27/03/2017 Full Outstanding 02/12/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness 30/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 3

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Recommendations

 A record of supervision should be kept for staff, including the manager. The record should provide evidence that the supervision is being delivered in line with regulation 33(4)(b). (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.3)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people with complex needs make exceptional progress across all areas of their development due to the excellent standard of care they receive from the staff team. The progress that some young people make is phenomenal, considering their individual starting points.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff promote young people’s progress at school. Some young people who had not been attending school prior to moving to this placement now have high levels of attendance. School and home staff work closely together, to ensure consistency for young people and to ensure that young people are well supported at school. Young people make good progress at school because of the support that they receive from staff. One school report identifies that: ‘[Name of young person] has become a lot more confident when in class, enjoying time to walk around his surroundings, to the point where [the young person] will sing songs and dance with us.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people become increasingly healthier due to the support that they receive from staff. Staff ensure that young people have detailed health plans in place, which identify individual health needs and how staff will meet these. Staff support young people with very complex needs to attend essential appointments, for example supporting one young person to have dental work. Staff work well with health professionals and follow specialist advice to ensure that young people’s health needs are met. For example, they have worked well with one young person’s physiotherapy plan, which has resulted in improvements to the young person’s gait and walking.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people make sustained progress in their emotional and behavioural development, due to the excellent care and support they receive. A child and adolescent mental health professional wrote that: ‘[Name of young person] is engaging with [an] increasing number of activities, and staff members are continuing to support [the young person] to develop self-regulation and manage his own behaviours in the most appropriate way. I am very confident that [the young person] is currently receiving the best possible care.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The experiences of living in this home enhance young people’s lives. Staff are committed to supporting the young people so they can enjoy positive experiences in a safe way. Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 4 Young people have been supported to engage in activities such as going to an indoor ski centre, Snowdonia and Blackpool. Staff keep a good photographic record of these activities, which shows young people’s enjoyment of these experiences.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Each young person has their own individual staff team. This is a unique approach that ensures consistency in care and the opportunity for young people to develop positive relationships with the staff who work with them. Some members of staff have worked with the young people for long periods of time, which has enabled the young people to develop close bonds with the staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people receive exceptionally well-planned care. This work is underpinned by an assessment that is completed by a private multi-agency consultancy service. This service provides occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and physiotherapy advice and support. This assessment informs staff members’ practice. Staff ensure that they set achievable targets for young people, which helps them develop skills in areas such as self-care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff meet the needs of young people who live a long way from home, exceptionally well. They transport young people to contact with family members, sometimes at a significant distance, and they supervise contact when this has been identified as necessary. This helps young people maintain family relationships in a safe way.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Family members were complimentary about how well staff communicate with them and found this reassuring, especially when young people are a long distance from their home. One parent said, ‘I don’t reckon that [name of young person] could be in any better place than this.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people are supported to make choices using their chosen method of communication. Because staff know the young people exceptionally well, they communicate well with the young people and anticipate their needs. Some young people have made good progress in their communication. For example, one young person’s verbal communication has increased considerably since being in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff have developed a new children’s guide, which is creative and relays all the required information to young people in a way that is meaningful to them.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Young people become increasingly safer in this home, due to highly effective planning and risk management. For some young people, self-harming behaviour has reduced significantly over the last 12 months. This is because staff know the young people well and know what strategies will work with each young person to reduce their anxieties. For example, one young person responds well to walking, so staff ensure that they incorporate walks during his daily routine. One independent reviewing officer commented that, ‘[Name of young person] now goes on daily walks, his speech has improved, his self-injurious behaviours have reduced significantly.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 5 Staff are highly effective in managing young people’s complex and challenging behaviour. Staff are supported in managing young people’s behaviour by a private multi- agency consultancy service. They produce a sensory diet, which is an individualised plan,

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

which details the most effective sensory strategies for staff to use with young people to manage their behaviour.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Physical interventions have reduced since the last inspection. This is because staff know young people well and they are intuitive to triggers to behaviour. They use a wide range of creative de-escalation techniques based on young people’s needs and their sensory diet, which reduces the need for physical intervention. As a result, young people are helped and supported to manage their behaviours and feelings in a safe way.

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Young people in this home do not go missing. This is because of high levels of staff supervision, which ensure that young people are safe in their home and in the community. Staff ensure that each young person has a missing-from-home risk assessment in place and they know what action to take if a young person does go missing. The manager and staff demonstrate a good knowledge of young people’s individual risks. Staff ensure that there are thorough, high-quality risk assessments in place, which identify young people’s needs and risks and how to respond appropriately to these. This ensures that young people are kept safe. One parent commented: ‘[Name of young person] is safe in the home and staff keep him safe.’

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How well children and young people are helped and protected: outstanding

Staff understand the safeguarding policy for the home and how to respond to an incident of abuse. Staff recruitment is rigorous and carried out in accordance with safer recruitment policies.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers have high expectations for what young people can achieve and ensure that staff provide an excellent standard of care, which contributes to young people making significant progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager is exceptionally child focused and knows the young people very well. He has high but clear standards for his staff and, as a result, the home is fully meeting its aims and objectives as stated in the statement of purpose.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff like working in the home and feel well supported in their roles. It is a stable staff team, and some members of staff have worked in the home for a significant amount of time. This benefits young people by giving them the opportunity to develop enduring and positive relationships with staff members.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

There is a strong focus on professional development within the organisation and all staff have personal development plans in place. They are supported to progress within the organisation, should they wish to do so. This ensures that staff remain motivated and assists with staff retention. The home is introducing a mental health first aider scheme Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 6 to further support the staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff have regular supervision and the management team has introduced new trackers for supervision to ensure this is all up to date. The manager, however, does not have records of his own supervision, which does not demonstrate how he is supported in his role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

When new staff join the home, their induction training prepares them well for their roles. They complete their mandatory training in a timely way and the organisation has introduced a mentoring scheme to support new staff. Staff are positive about the support that they have received from their mentors.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Most staff are up to date with mandatory training and have had training in autism spectrum disorder. New staff receive sensory training as part of their induction, which they utilise in their practice. The organisation has introduced a new online training system, which provides staff with a wide range of training opportunities. The management team has introduced a new tracker system for training, to monitor staff access to training courses.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has made significant improvements to the home environment since the last inspection. There has been an extension added to the home, which has added some extra living space. This was developed with the young people’s needs in mind, giving them extra space as they move into their teenage years. Adaptations are made to young people’s bedrooms to ensure young people’s safety, but also ensuring that they are personalised and homely.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Professionals are highly complimentary about the level of care provided by staff and how this has contributed to the exceptional progress that young people have made.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The management team has identified that external monitoring was not providing robust enough challenge to support it in the development of the service. As a result, the provider has commissioned another service to undertake the external monitoring visits.

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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.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 7 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: SC456537 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Bright Futures Care Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Regency House, 45–51 Chorley New Road, Bolton, Lancashire BL1 4QR

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Inspectors

Sarah Billett, social care inspector Jenny Brady, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC456537 9 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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