Children's home run by Pathways Care Group Limited in Runnymede

Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 1 SC461846 Registered provider: Pathways Care Group Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is run by a private organisation. The home’s overall aim is to provide individualised and child-centred care. The registered manager has been in post since 30 November 2016.

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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: 6 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: SC461846 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

06/11/2017 Full Good 08/12/2016 Full Good 23/05/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 15/01/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children make excellent progress. Children who have a history of behavioural difficulties have formed strong and resilient relationships with the staff and one another. Children call this home their home. A child said, ‘I love it here.’ Another child said, ‘I feel so supported that I have made big changes to my life.’ Relationships observed during the inspection showed affection and love between the children and the staff. One child calls the manager ‘mum’, which demonstrates the strength of feeling and attachment that the child has to the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children benefit from a child-centred caring ethos. The staff are well equipped to meet the children’s needs. The manager and the staff consistently focus on the emotions behind the children’s behaviours and not on the specific behaviours themselves. Excellent care and support plans are extremely well thought through. Historic events and poignant dates in children’s lives are considered and inform practice. Consequently, staff are sensitive to children’s needs and are able to predict and defuse responses.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The manager and staff team provide a very high standard of individualised care. Children benefit from a high level of support that contributes to immense change and improvement in their lives. Children who previously self-harmed have significantly reduced these behaviours. Children who were at high risk of exploitation have become safer, and children’s aggressive behaviour has decreased. A social worker for one of the children said, ‘The staff team is incredible, amazing and absolutely brilliant.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children are confident that their opinions and views are listened to and are important to the staff. The children understand how they can influence the home and their care. All of the children have confidence in speaking in front of their peers and staff at the regular in-house meetings, which has resulted in the children influencing their free time, hobbies and activities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The children thrive because staff help them to see their families. Staff understand family dynamics and build relationships with families. Consequently, children develop relationships that will sustain them into adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff understand the importance of helping children to access interests and activities to further their self-esteem and self-worth. Children grow in confidence because they are encouraged to take part in fun activities that they are interested in. The children make and build friendships at the home and in the community. Children have visited a theme park and stayed at a hotel, and a child has enjoyed a caravanning trip to Great Yarmouth. The girls have their hair and make-up done, and children enjoy activities such as playing darts and Quasar. These experiences help children to feel valued and to develop new skills.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s education needs form an important part of their care. The staff support the children’s attainment in education through the maintenance of excellent routines, Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 4 provision of extra educational activities and participation in multi-agency meetings, resulting in some children achieving 100% attendance. Some children who did not engage in any form of education now attend mainstream school or college on a full-time basis. A highly creative approach by the staff has led to a child who was a persistent school refuser becoming more engaged through electronic aids and a virtual reality ‘robot’. For some children, progress is slow. However, in the context of their previous experiences and high risk-taking behaviours, this progress is significant and likely to have a lasting impact on their life chances.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children develop their independence skills. They are given tasks and responsibilities around the home that provide them with useful skills, such as keeping their bedrooms tidy, helping with shopping and developing skills in the kitchen. These skills help children to become more independent and to enjoy a sense of responsibility. As the children progress, they participate in a programme that is designed to monitor and develop the skills that they will need as young adults. Self-confidence and self-esteem improve as children move towards living a more independent lifestyle. One child is now able to live independently due to the skills that she has learned.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The staff understand the importance of creating a warm and nurturing environment for children and enabling children to influence and shape their home. Children’s bedrooms are individually decorated to their tastes and small pets live at the home. The manager’s dog walks freely around the home taking cuddles and strokes from all of the children. This truly is a home from home.

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

The children talked about their safety with confidence and understanding. They learn how to understand risks and how their behaviour can increase or reduce risks. All of the children spoke about their safety and said that staff keep them safe. A child said, ‘I don’t know how but staff just make me feel safe.’ A professional said, ‘They [the staff] work with the most challenging children. They are relentless in their efforts to ensure the safety of all of the children.’

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

The safety of children is strongly promoted at this home. Staff have an excellent understanding of safeguarding practice. They are fully aware of their responsibility to protect the children from abuse and they confidently described reporting procedures. The staff are fully aware of the roles of external agencies and understand the organisation’s whistle-blowing policy. This knowledge helps to ensure that any safeguarding concerns are reported and dealt with efficiently and effectively.

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

The staff understand the children’s vulnerabilities and consider specific individual risks. Formal risk assessment procedures are exceptionally well managed. The strategies used by the staff keep children safe. Regular reviews of risk assessment and strategies ensure that risk management remains current and proactive. Consequently, the children develop and grow in a safe environment.

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

Individual pre-placement assessments, placement plans, behaviour plans and risk Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 5 assessments are of outstanding quality. Documentation gives a clear and vivid description of the work undertaken towards meeting health, behavioural and care needs. Any potential risks are swiftly identified. Plans are updated immediately when a change is noted.

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

Behaviour and care management plans are effective. Physical intervention is only used as a last resort to safeguard the children and the staff. Staff work in partnership to enforce boundaries fairly and consistently. The staff are skilled in de-escalating challenging behaviours. Effective sanctioning, when appropriate, enables the children to make amends and to reflect on their behaviour, helping them to become more emotionally resilient. All of the professionals and staff spoken to have no safeguarding concerns. This is due to the collaborative working practices of all concerned.

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

When children go missing, staff go above and beyond to find them and to return them home safely. A social worker spoke of the significant reduction in incidents of a child going missing. The social worker noted that this is because of the outstanding practice of the manager and her team. Extra staff are on shift in case a child goes missing, enabling staff to find children and to return them home safely. Staff look for children who are missing as if they were their own.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager is child-centred and gives the needs of the children the highest priority. She has excellent relationships with all of the children. She spends time with them individually and as part of a group on a daily basis. Equally, the deputy manager has played a large part in creating a loving and nurturing environment, not only for the children and their pets but also for the staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

A culture of continuous improvement is engrained in the manager’s leadership style. The manager is dedicated to developing excellent practice further. She has set out aims for the home that identify areas for change and how these are to be achieved using research and theory-based practice. Restorative justice techniques are being implemented into practice so that staff and children work together to make a positive change to behaviour. Attachment theory is utilised through pre-placement assessments that inform and underpin practice. These assessments have been an area of significant improvement since the last full inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

There is an upbeat yet relaxed atmosphere at this home. The children’s meetings create an environment in which children talk about their experiences, express their views and discuss the day-to-day running of the home. Regular key-working sessions capture children’s wishes and feelings. Children give regular feedback to the registered manager about all aspects of their care during regular consultations. The registered manager acts on this feedback and uses it to drive improvement.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Supervision meetings for staff are held more frequently than the organisation’s policy dictates to enable the staff to review and to develop their childcare practice further. Staff spoken with during this inspection reported high levels of satisfaction in their roles. They Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 6 said that they value supervision and find this to be a very supportive forum that covers practice, confidentiality and personal life/work balances.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Partnership working is strong. The manager and staff embrace a multi-agency approach to children’s care. Professionals in social care and enforcement agencies who were spoken to during the inspection all reported that the manager and staff provide regular information and that staff are extremely good at advocating on behalf of children to ensure that they get the best possible all-round support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Meaningful quality assurance is conducted through monthly visits by the external visitor, along with oversight from the manager. When shortfalls in service provision are identified, prompt action is taken to address them and to make improvements. Recent improvements include a reduction in risk-taking incidents and incidents of high-risk children going missing.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has met to good effect the three requirements and two recommendations raised at the last inspection.

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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: SC461846 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Pathways Care Group Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Minton Place, Victoria Street, Windsor, Berkshire SL4 1EG

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Inspector

Cathy Russell: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC461846 8 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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