Children's home run by The Drive Care Homes Ltd

Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 1 Registered provider: The Drive Care Homes Ltd

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Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is owned by a private company. Its statement of purpose specifies that it will provide care and accommodation for up to three young people, aged between six and 18, who have mild to severe learning disabilities. The registered manager has been registered with Ofsted since August 2017.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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good

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

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good

Date of last inspection: 6 February 2018

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

06/02/2018 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 3

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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.

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Requirement Due date

The education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

help a child who is excluded from school, or who is of compulsory school age but not attending school, to access educational and training support throughout the period of exclusion or non-attendance and to return to school as soon as possible. (Regulation 8 (1)(2)(a)(viii))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, children should be supported to sustain or regain their confidence in education and be engaged in a daily routine with suitable structured activities. 11/03/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (‘case records’) for each child which—

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Requirement Due date

include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child;

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Requirement Due date

are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, this refers to the need to confirm the statutory provision (if any) under which the child is provided with accommodation. 11/03/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (‘a quality of care review’) at least 11/03/2019 Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 4 once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating—

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Requirement Due date

the quality of care provided for children;

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Requirement Due date

the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children.

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Requirement Due date

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 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c)(5))

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Recommendations

 The home should ensure that the home presents as a homely, domestic environment. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)

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Recommendations

 The children’s home’s staff should seek to identify and provide appropriate opportunities for young people to develop themselves as part of the home’s plan for their care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 31, paragraph 6.4) Specifically, the registered person must ensure that written records of goals and targets set for young people include details of the young person’s achievements and progress and provide evidence that such goals and targets are continually revised.

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Recommendations

 Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5) In particular, behaviour management plans and risk assessments should include up-to-date information and be consistently monitored

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that the workforce plan includes a detailed process for managing and improving poor performance. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8) Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 5  The home’s records on each child represent a significant contribution to their life history. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.5) Specifically, the registered person should organise children’s files in ways that promote staff’s good understanding of children’s histories and in ways that evidence the progress that children have made while living at this children’s home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are happy in this home and have formed good, trusting relationships with the staff team. They benefit from high levels of staff supervision and engage well. As a result, children learn new skills in several areas, including developing self-care and independence skills.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All of the children currently have little or no access to education. Support plans do not engage the children in daily routines that include suitable structured activities. As a result, opportunities to maintain their individual learning needs are missed.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

High staffing levels help to support good behaviour management. Staff use their good relationships with the children to de-escalate challenging behaviours. One child who had been excluded from education because of high levels of challenging behaviour had significantly reduced these incidents within a short time of moving into the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy good health and are supported by staff to learn independent living skills based on their individual understanding and needs. Consequently, children grow in confidence and their behavioural issues reduce. A parent commented, ‘My son has developed trust in this staff team, he listens, and incidents of challenging behaviour have reduced.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff team is attuned to the needs of children who are non-verbal, understands their individual needs and encourages the children to participate by utilising a range of communication methods. For some children, effective use of the pictorial exchange communication system ensures that their views are included in all plans.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff monitor children’s health carefully. They seek additional services when required and have influenced improvements in some of the children’s health by following advice and guidance regarding changes to their medication. This caring approach is indicative of how the staff focus on the needs of the children. Staff strive to support healthy living and regular exercise. Children are supported to learn the importance of limiting portion sizes and reducing the intake of junk food. With staff support, one child has made good progress in diversifying his food intake.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff seek to engage the children in activities that promote their individual interests. One Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 6 child enjoys swimming and taking walks in the community. Others enjoy trampoline and story time. Staff carefully plan to ensure that the children are fulfilled and occupied. This has helped to reduce their negative behaviour effectively. A social worker said, ‘Consistent routines have played an effective part in managing the behaviour of [child X]. If he isn’t occupied he will do random things.’ The home has a significant amount of indoor and outdoor space. However, the house would benefit from a more homely and child-friendly environment.

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

The staff team is highly effective at keeping children safe and protecting them from potential sources of harm. Staff show that they understand the unique risk for each child and are effective at developing approaches to reduce these. However, children’s individual behaviour support plans and risk assessments do not identify all the current behaviours which staff must manage. Information is not up to date and is inconsistently monitored.

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

Close staff supervision ensures that children do not go missing. In the unlikely event that children go missing, staff are very familiar with the relevant procedures they need to follow.

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

All parents had confidence that their children are safe at the home. A parent said: ‘I have every confidence and am relaxed in the knowledge that my son is safe.’ Staff training is of a good standard, including safeguarding and medication training. This is further enhanced with training on the roles and responsibilities for children who are looked after. All children have individual evacuation plans, with regular fire drills ensuring that staff understand what to do in the event of an emergency.

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

Staff make sure that the home is a safe environment, with all necessary risk assessments undertaken. Each child has an individual fire escape plan. This minimises children’s anxiety during fire drills.

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

The registered manager has appropriate experience and leadership attributes to manage this home. She has completed her level 5 diploma in management. She is passionate about her work and has high aspirations for the children. This passion and drive results in positive improvements and outcomes for all of the children.

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

The manager has effective monitoring systems in place that provide her with a good overview of the day-to-day running of the home. However, monitoring of the children’s progress is less rigorous. Targets are not always linked to progression to extend the children’s life skills. This ineffective approach to care planning risks drift in the development of new skills that extend children’s learning.

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

The registered manager has yet to develop and maintain effective professional relationships with agencies to ensure that children have access to the services required to meet each individual child’s needs, such as access to education. Positive relationships Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 7 have been formed with the children’s families, all of whom receive regular updates regarding their child’s progress.

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

Although children receive a good quality of care, there are shortfalls with some documentation. These shortfalls highlight a weakness in the management of the home. Leaders and managers need to improve the workforce development plan, record-keeping and their quality assurance systems. More importantly, children’s records are unclear on what legal basis each young person is looked after by the local authority.

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

Supervision is regular and supportive. The manager commented, ‘I learn from supervising the staff. They respond well to an open meeting, where they can speak their minds. Together, we find ways to support each other and how we can best support the children.’ Staff members commented that they felt supported and appreciated by the manager.

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

The home is appropriately staffed and resourced to meet its statement of purpose. Staff come from a variety of backgrounds and can meet the needs of children who have diverse and complex needs.

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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 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: 1257101 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Drive Care Homes Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 18 Hatherley Road, Sidcup, Kent DA14 4BG

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Inspector

Juanita Mayers, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1257101 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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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