Children's home run by Fullwood Care Limited

Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 1 SC066916 Registered provider:

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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 is a privately owned children’s home. It provides care and accommodation for up to four children and young people who may have emotional and/or social difficulties. The registered manager has been registered since March 2011.

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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: 18 December 2017

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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: SC066916 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

18/12/2017 Full Outstanding 24/01/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 12/07/2016 Full Good 18/02/2016 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 3

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Recommendations

 Staff should keep detailed records of their direct work with children. The information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child and contribute to understanding the child’s experiences and needs. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4 & 14.5) Each record should show clearly the outcome that the work is trying to achieve; how it fits in with the child’s plan; the child’s views, wishes and feelings; an evaluation of the effectiveness of the work; and set out what needs to happen next to support the child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Young people have extremely positive experiences living in this nurturing and supportive family home. Usually, young people live here for a long time. They have safe, healthy and constructive relationships with the staff. These secure attachments have brought much-needed stability to the young people’s lives. Young people benefit from an exceptional standard of care that meets their individual needs and improves their lives. With staff’s help and guidance, young people with troubled backgrounds are making sustained progress. At times, young people struggle and make mistakes. However, their achievements from when they first moved into the home are remarkable considering the complexity of their needs and previous experiences. Young people have returned to full-time education and are engaging incredibly well. This means that they are developing their skills and achieving qualifications. They have improved diets, physical health and emotional well-being. Young people are more

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

confident, are managing their feelings extremely well, and are getting on better with their families. They ask for help from staff and health professionals and are starting to talk about their worries and previous experiences. They are also enjoying new experiences. These add to the quality of their lives and include going on holiday, quad biking and going to the theatre. Young people are developing practical life skills such as cooking, shopping, managing money and using public transport independently. Young people’s care and support are carefully planned. Young people are actively involved in choosing to live at the home. They always visit the home so that they can make an informed choice about whether or not to move in. The manager only agrees to provide a home for a young person when she knows that staff can respond successfully to the young person’s needs. This includes careful consideration of the young person’s compatibility with the other young people living

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 4 there. The manager and staff are quick to identify when young people are struggling and they take the necessary action to improve things. The manager and staff reflect critically about how they can better help the young person and what needs to change. This includes listening to the young person’s wishes and feelings. The manager uses highly productive working relationships with social workers, education and health professionals to make sure that young people have the right plan and that they are getting the support that best meets their needs. For example, staff have worked extremely successfully with a college to tackle the barriers to a young person’s learning and prevent him from being excluded. The manager has also challenged social workers when the arrangements for seeing their families were not working for a young person.

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

The manager and staff’s knowledge and professional practice provide vulnerable young people with a reliable and supportive home where they feel safe and emotionally secure. Young people know that staff are on their side and that they always act in the best interests of young people in their care. Over time, young people have become considerably safer from the risks of going missing, self-harm, criminal exploitation, harassment and harmful relationships. Staff recognise any signs that indicate that a young person may be at risk of harm. They always follow the safeguarding procedures and take effective action to involve the local authority and police when they have concerns about young people’s safety, such as when a young person had been persistently missing from home. The manager and staff work effectively with the safeguarding agencies to understand the problem and protect the young person. Staff are exceptionally skilled at engaging with young people who have complex and

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

challenging needs. Staff’s ability to build warm, genuine and trusting relationships with young people is making an enormous difference to young people’s lives. A social worker said: ‘The staff are very good at working with my young person. He has really taken to them. In the past, he has been intolerant to adults and people in authority. He has a lot of respect for the staff because they respect him and know how to treat young men like him.’ Staff help young people to be aware of risks, recognise healthy relationships and manage their own safety, including when using technology and social media. Staff are influential in helping young people to make positive choices and encourage them to work with a range of professionals to prevent criminalisation. Staff’s expertise and a researched-informed way of working helps them to understand how young people’s experience of abuse, neglect and trauma may affect their daily lives,

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

behaviour and relationships. Staff work positively and confidently with young people and find the best way possible to support young people when they are upset and to help Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 5 them manage their feelings and behaviour. Staff have helped a young person struggling to manage his frustration and anger to start to talk about the problem and ask for help from counselling services. For another young person, staff understand the reasons for him taking part in the dangerous activity of riding scrambler motorbikes without a helmet. They are working with the community safety officer to reduce the risk of harm. Staff are providing the young person with safer alternative activities, such as quad biking, which give him the same excitement and prestige. Staff help young people to understand how to build friendships with other young people. They make sure that young people understand and recognise what makes healthy and

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

nurturing relationships. Staff help young people to understand other people’s wishes and feelings. They learn skills to sort out disagreements. For example, staff used role play to help a young person to learn how to deal with a problem with another student at college. The young person then managed the situation extremely well, by walking away from the confrontation and getting help from an adult.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager provides inspirational and highly effective leadership. She leads a well- established, passionate, skilled and coherent staff team. Together, they have created an exceptionally positive and aspirational culture. The manager and staff make sure that young people live in an incredibly safe, warm, settled and fun family home that meets their needs and enables them to reach their full potential. The manager has created the right environment for staff to provide young people with an excellent standard of care and consistency. The staffing arrangements ensure that young people are always supported by people that they know well. As a result, young people have every opportunity to develop safe and healthy attachments with staff. The staff are tenacious, resilient and do not give up trying to make a positive difference to young people’s lives. The manager provides each member of staff with excellent support, guidance and

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

encouragement. Staff have regular opportunities through practice-related supervision and team meetings to reflect on young people’s progress, their own performance, and to share and develop their skills and knowledge. Staff use team meetings exceptionally well to come up with new ideas, develop consistent strategies to help young people manage difficult behaviour, and use their learning to improve the effectiveness of how they support young people. The manager has an extremely detailed and well-informed understanding of the strengths of the home. She knows the young people well and ensures that staff have the expertise to help and improve young people’s lives. The manager accurately measures the effectiveness of the home’s impact and uses this information well to improve the quality of care for young people. The manager has identified that staff do not consistently update all of the records in relation to direct work that is completed with young people. The manager had

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

recognised that this is a missed opportunity to better understand young people’s needs, Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 6 to find out what works, and what needs to happen next.

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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: SC066916 7

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Inspector

Nick Veysey, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC066916 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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