Children's Home run by Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited in Hampshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 1 SC412476 Registered provider: Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is owned and run by a private organisation. The home provides care and accommodation for up to four children who have emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The home has been without a registered manager since June 2018.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 25 to 26 February 2019

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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: 16 January 2018

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

16/01/2018 Full Outstanding 13/02/2017 Full Good 21/09/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 12/01/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 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 care planning standard is that children– receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home. (Regulation 14(1)(a))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to ensuring that all aspects of children’s care are planned and programmed into each day, particularly when that child is not in education. 02/04/2019

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Recommendations

 Where children placed in a home are not participating in education because they have been excluded or are not on a school roll for some other reason, the registered person and staff must work closely with the placing authority so that the child is supported and enabled to resume full-time education as soon as possible. In the interim, the child should be supported to sustain or regain their confidence in education and be engaged in suitable structured activities. If no education place is identified by the placing authority, the registered person must challenge them to meet the child’s needs under regulation 5 (engaging with the wider system to ensure children’s needs are met). (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 28, paragraph 5.15) In particular, ensure that children who are not participating in education are engaged in alternative suitably structured activities.

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Recommendations

 Staff need the knowledge and skills to recognise and be alert for any signs that might indicate a child is in any way at risk of harm. The registered person should ensure that skills in safeguarding are gained, refreshed and recorded in the home’s workforce plan. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 43, paragraph 9.12) In particular, ensure that staff are confident and competent in dealing with safety issues to do with social media and the internet.  Records of restraint must be kept and should enable the registered person and staff to review the use of control, discipline and restraint to identify effective practice and respond promptly where any issues or trends of concern emerge. The review should provide the opportunity for amending practice to ensure it Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 4 meets the needs of each child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations

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Recommendations

including the quality standards’, page 49, paragraph 9.59) In particular, ensure that records of restraint clearly identify both the child involved and the staff member/s.  The registered person must have systems in place so that all staff, including the manager, receive supervision of their practice from an appropriately qualified and experienced professional, which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the children assigned to their care. Professionally qualified staff employed by the home, e.g. teachers or social workers, should be provided with relevant professional or clinical supervision by an appropriately qualified and experienced professional. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.2) In particular, ensure that new and inexperienced staff receive supervision in line with the home’s policy.  The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home

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Recommendations

and make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including under regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24) In particular, ensure that medication administration and recording are regularly observed and monitored. Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 5

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have good knowledge and understanding about the young people in this home and apply individualised strategies to caring for them. These strategies are successful to varying degrees, in that some young people are making excellent progress in all areas whereas, for others, progress in certain key areas, such as school attendance, has declined.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All young people have developed strong and trusting relationships with at least some staff members. They have learned useful life strategies for getting along with each other and are able to demonstrate tolerance and acceptance of different approaches to life experiences. These new skills have enabled them to form friendships outside the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Recently, explicit morning and evening routines have been introduced for some young people, and these have been extremely effective. A young person described her bedtime routine as ‘lovely’. It has certainly had a positive impact on her sleeping patterns and level of daytime functioning. For example, her school attendance record is now very good. Other young people do not have a similar amount of structure to their day and, as they are attending education only very irregularly, this results in too much aimless time.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Some young people have clearly made great progress in understanding their basic health and hygiene needs, and this has improved their overall well-being. Other young people’s well-being is partly reliant on medication, and this is not appropriately structured into their day, resulting in an unhelpful and irregular pattern of consumption. However, staff have worked hard at forging relationships with appropriate health professionals, and these generally result in effective plans for young people.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All young people’s views are listened to and carefully considered. For example, the decoration of both the home and young people’s rooms strongly reflect young people’s preferences. Young people are clearly confident to express their views and trust staff to represent them fairly and, although it has been offered, they feel that they do not need their own advocate.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are routinely involved in supporting young people’s contact with family members and usually have good working relationships with them. This helps to maintain family bonds.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff build on young people’s independence skills effectively. They involve them in clothes washing, food preparation and cleaning in an everyday fashion that helps to embed these skills as part of normal life. Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 6

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

Young people are well protected from harm in this home. Levels of self-harm are lower than they were when the young people were admitted to the home, and young people now promptly tell staff of any incident or risk of an incident. This means that young people are gradually becoming safer.

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

Risk assessments are generally thorough and regularly updated, and clearly detail the main risks. On occasion, those risk assessments that relate to internet and social media lack sufficient strategies to minimise risk effectively.

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

Young people have not gone missing from this home overnight but, on a small number of occasions, have been missing for several hours in the daytime. Each young person has an individualised missing-from-home plan, and staff follow this carefully. There are early signs of a reduction in the frequency of ‘missing’ episodes, and young people do now stay in touch with staff. This means that risks to young people from going missing are gradually being minimised.

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

Staff understand young people well and have developed individualised and effective ways of defusing conflict and restoring harmony to the home. For example, some but not all young people respond well to the incentive scheme for good behaviour, while others prefer explanation and discussion. Conflict is now rare in the home, and there is usually a relaxed and positive atmosphere.

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

Restraint of young people is very sparingly used, and only when absolutely necessary and appropriate. The recording of such episodes lacks clarity and detail, and this does not support effective monitoring of such incidents.

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

Staff and managers are knowledgeable about the safeguarding resources open to them. Where appropriate, they will contact the local authority designated officer and sensitively and sensibly conduct room searches when it seems necessary to do so.

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

Young people benefit from living in a safe and well-kept physical environment, and they are further kept safe by clear and protective recruitment practice.

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

This home re-opened in September 2018 following some major changes to its staff group, management and conditions of registration. Unfortunately, the manager did not complete the process to become the registered manager and was succeeded by a temporary manager, and now a further interim manager. This has meant that the predominately inexperienced staff group and the young people have experienced insufficient consistency and stability of purpose and practice. Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 7 However, the current interim manager has introduced essential structure and processes and strengthened the voice of young people in the home. As a social worker said: ‘Originally there was no paperwork in place, no organisation, feedback or challenge. It’s so different now routines are in place: regular school, feedback, regular 121s and some challenge.’ Staff also feel much more supported and guided, particularly as they are

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

now all having regular supervision sessions, which was not previously the case.

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

During this short but very difficult time for the home, the independent visitor was clear in her reports that the quality of care that young people were receiving had significant shortfalls. The regional manager quickly responded to this by stopping further admissions to the home and bringing in the current interim manager from within the organisation. These strategies have been effective in improving the quality of care for young people.

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

However, this home has been without a registered manager since re-opening in September 2018. This is being urgently addressed in that the interim manager is in the process of putting in an application to be registered, and there also is a preferred candidate for this post on a permanent basis. In addition, there is a sound management handover plan involving a period of joint working.

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

The interim manager has displayed strong abilities to promote improvement, and she has also initiated useful monitoring systems. She has revised the Statement of Purpose effectively and ensures that notifications are made correctly. Complaints are dealt with well.

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

Staff benefit from a regular team meeting time that offers further opportunities for team building and consolidating skills and knowledge. Training opportunities are appropriate and of good quality. There are some well-advanced plans to further support practice with professional therapeutic input, and this could be invaluable in supporting the development of staff skills. Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 8

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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 difference 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: SC412476 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Maybrook House, 2nd floor, Queensway, Halesowen, Worcestershire B63 4AH

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Michelle Callard

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Inspector

Bridget Goddard, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC412476 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 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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