Children's home run by Keys Care Limited in Belfast

Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 1 SC063883 Registered provider: Keys Childcare 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

A private company operates this children’s home. It provides care and accommodation for up to three children or young people who experience emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The home specialises in providing therapeutic residential care to children and young people of either gender who exhibit challenging behaviour. The manager has been registered with Ofsted since December 2018.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 13 to 14 February 2019

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

26/07/2017 Full Outstanding 19/12/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness 26/07/2016 Full Good 30/03/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 3

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Recommendations

 The registered person should seek to establish a diverse staff team with a range of interests, skills and experiences. They should lead staff to share those interests, skills and experiences with children to enrich the children’s lives. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 52, paragraph 10.6) In particular, ensure that the skills of the staff are further enhanced. The staff must complete all the specialist training to meet the needs of the young people in their care.  The registered person is responsible for ensuring that each child’s day-to-day health and well-being needs are met. Staff should work to make the children’s home an environment that supports children’s physical, mental and emotional health, in line with the approach set out in the home’s Statement of Purpose. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page

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Recommendations

33, paragraph 7.3) In particular, ensure that staff obtain an overview of children’s and young people’s adolescent mental health service appointments. This is to determine what support, if any, is required by the young person subsequent to the visit.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The highly individualised care and support for each child and young person is continuous which ensures that they make excellent and sustained progress. The children and young people are now more emotionally settled, and they have made substantial progress in education. The children and young people are significantly safer, with high-risk behaviour substantially diminishing and their health has improved from their starting points. For those young people who have left the home, their success continues, benefiting from the self-confidence that has been nurtured and the independence skills they have developed which enable them to flourish and care for themselves. The careful and constant review of each child’s and young person’s care and progress makes certain that identified goals for progression are achieved and sustained. A social worker said: ‘I am tremendously impressed. The progress that [Name of young person]

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

has made is excellent. She is settled, attending education and has increased her positive behaviour. [Name of young person] needs emotional warmth and she gets this.’ The children and young people listen and act on the advice and guidance given by the staff. The children and young people embrace the support provided by the staff team and this helps children and young people to thrive. A young person said: ‘This is the best Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 4 care home I have lived in. I’ve lived in a few. The staff care about us and they make sure I see my family. This means a lot to me.’ The children and young people make excellent progress. They learn from the staff how to better regulate their emotions. This is due to having very strong and trusting relationships with the staff. The children and young people routinely take part in the weekly key-work sessions and attend emotional and mental health appointments. The

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

provider ensures that there is readily available access to advice and guidance from an internal therapeutic team. The team assists the staff to further support the children’s and young people’s health needs. However, staff do not always receive feedback on the sessions taking place between the child or young person and the mental health professional. This could impact on the staff not being aware of how the child or young person may be feeling. The children and young people express their views and preferences with great confidence. They know how to make a complaint if they need to. This reflects the positive approach of the staff to actively seek out the children’s and young people’s views and opinions. The children and young people give frequent feedback to the staff about their daily lives, relating to menu choices, activities, house rules and boundaries, and on such matters as family contact. The frequency and consistency of the staff’s

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

perseverance to obtain their views ensures that the children and young people feel listened to and that they have a voice in running the home. Because of the excellent quality of care provided by the staff team, the children and young people enjoy very strong relationships with their families. The home is resourced so that staff support supervised contact when required. This has had a significant and positive effect on the children and young people. They enjoy frequent contact with family members. This support for contact provides the children and young people with a strong sense of belonging and identity. They keep in touch with those who are very important to them. The children and young people develop good independence skills dependent on their age. They have learned and undertaken household chores that include cleaning their own bedrooms. This gives them increased skills and abilities to be able to care for

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

themselves which enhances their independence and improves the quality of their lives. Excellent planning and support is given to those young people leaving the home. The staff have aspirations for the children and young people and, as a result, have strongly advocated for them. This has made certain that, when the children and young people leave the home, they have suitable accommodation to move into, which is also well furnished. The staff have continued to support the young people after leaving the home with visits and telephone contact to ensure that these children’s and young people’s outcomes remain good. The home is clean, furnished and decorated to a very good standard. Parts of the home have been refurbished and personalised. The lounge and hallway have been decorated and benefit from new furnishings and carpets. This provides a homely environment for the children and young people to enjoy, thrive and live in.

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

Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 5 Effective missing from home procedures and protocols are followed. There is a well- coordinated response by the staff. The staff have an excellent understanding of the risk posed to children and young people if they go missing from the home. That staff use their exceptionally good relationships with young people to learn and understand what makes them want to leave the home. As a result, the number of missing from home incidents and the risk of harm, including child sexual exploitation, have substantially reduced. The effectiveness of this work with young people is excellent. There has been one missing from care incident in the last three months demonstrating a sustained improvement. The staff have developed flexible and resourceful ways to safeguard the children and young people. For example, when a young person refused to return from a visit to their family, the staff set up daily visiting and telephone contact to maintain a dialogue with

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

the young person. This innovative way of managing the situation made sure that the young person remained safe. The missing from care protocols set out the detailed arrangements for staying in touch with the children and young people when they go out in the community. Although the children and young people do not always want this, they abide with these rules. This is due to the strength of the relationships that exist between them and the staff. The response to safeguarding concerns is excellent. Child protection procedures are instantly instigated and followed by the manager and the staff to safeguard children and young people. The staff know the risks and vulnerabilities of the children and young people exceedingly well. These are reflected in comprehensive risk assessments that are reviewed and updated frequently. The detailed care strategies used by the staff drastically reduce the number of incidents of self-harm and the risks around child sexual

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

exploitation. The children and young people respond extremely well to the safe, nurturing and secure environment that they live in. The young people become significantly safer.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since December 2018. She has the relevant experience to care for young people. She is currently undertaking the level 5 qualification in leadership and management. The manager leads by example and conveys her high ambition for the young people in her care to the staff team. This ethos disseminates to all, and forms part of the home’s aims and objectives. Additionally, the manager gives great importance to making sure that the staff team strongly advocates for the children and young people in all instances. The children and young people benefit immensely from the clear vision that the manager demonstrates to give them the best chance to succeed. The manager ensures that children and young people receive individualised, tailored care. The staff actively respond to each child’s and young person’s differences. This is achieved because the staff are experienced, dedicated, stable, and well-trained. The staff work cohesively

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

together to meet the needs of the children and young people. However, not all staff have undertaken all the specialist training areas. Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 6 The staff are provided with regular good-quality supervision. They state that they receive very good support from the manager and work very well together as a team. The use of reflective practice is excellent. This empowers staff to learn from experience during supervision and the regularly held team meetings. This equips the staff extremely well to meet the needs of children and young people. It guarantees continued improvement in the quality of care and the very good outcomes for children. The children and young people respond well to the frequent consultation about the care that they receive. They read and comment on the records made about their care. In addition, the children and young people give their views at the weekly residents’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

meetings, during direct-work sessions and at their statutory reviews. Professionals consistently report that there is excellent partnership working, with frequent communication to best support and care for the children and young people. The manager is fully aware of the home’s strengths and weaknesses. She is instrumental in assisting the staff to implement a strengths-based approach and therapeutic work with the children and young people. This further supports the children’s and young people’s progress. Comprehensive and detailed monitoring systems exist internally and externally. The delivery of appropriately focused audits and effective supervision of contributes to the robust management oversight. Decisive and effective action is taken to remedy any shortfalls identified and build on the already excellent practice. This ensures that the quality of care provided to the children and young people remains high.

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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: SC063883 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Keys Childcare Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: C/o Pinsett Mason Llp, The Soloist Building, 1 Lanyon Place, Belfast, Northern Ireland BT1 3LP

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Inspector

Debbie Foster: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC063883 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 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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