Children's Home run by Adecyn Children’s Homes Limited in Birmingham

Inspection report children's home: SC423617 1 SC423617 Registered provider: Adecyn Children’s Homes 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

The home provides care and accommodation for up to three young people who may have social and/or emotional difficulties. The home is operated by a private company.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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requires improvement to be good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children's home: SC423617 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/10/2018 Interim Declined in effectiveness 09/04/2018 Full Good 02/01/2018 Interim Sustained effectiveness 13/06/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report children's home: SC423617 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 positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

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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

that staff understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children;

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Requirement Due date

are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children to do the same;

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Requirement Due date

de-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children;

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Requirement Due date

understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable; and

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(ix)(x)(xi)(xii)(xiii)) 20/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes 20/07/2019 Inspection report children's home: SC423617 4 it seeks to achieve for children;

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Requirement Due date

use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

protect and promote each child’s welfare;

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Requirement Due date

treat each child with dignity and respect;

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Requirement Due date

provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement or to live independently as an adult;

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Requirement Due date

make decisions about the day-to-day arrangements for each child, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans, which give the child an appropriate degree of freedom and choice. (Regulation 6 (1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(ix))

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at 20/07/2019 Inspection report children's home: SC423617 5 risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other;

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Requirement Due date

understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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Requirement Due date

take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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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

that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(d)) 20/07/2019

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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

are kept up to date. (Regulation 36 (1)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered manager must ensure that internal placement plans are up to date and reflect young people’s progress. 20/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— 20/07/2019 Inspection report children's home: SC423617 6 lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child;

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Requirement Due date

understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home;

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(h))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement (‘the statement of purpose’) which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1.

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Requirement Due date

keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it; and

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Requirement Due date

notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision.

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Requirement Due date

Subject to paragraph (6), the registered person must ensure that the home is at all times conducted in a manner which is consistent with its statement of purpose. (Regulation 16 (1)(3)(a)(b)(5)) 20/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that each employee—

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees— 20/07/2019 Inspection report children's home: SC423617 7 undertake appropriate continuing professional development;

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience; and

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Requirement Due date

have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year. (Regulation 33 (1)(a)(4)(a)(b)(c))

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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 each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

understand the barriers to learning that each child may face and take appropriate action to help the child to overcome any such barriers. (Regulation 8 (1)(2)(a)(i)(iii)) 20/07/2019

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Recommendations

 Children should be encouraged by staff to see the home’s records as ‘living documents’ supporting them to view and contribute to the record in a way that reflects their voice on a regular basis. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 58, paragraph 11.19)  For children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of their children, they will, in most cases, be homely, domestic environments; however, homes should seek as far as possible to maintain a domestic rather than ‘institutional’ impression. (‘Guide to the children’s home’s regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9) Inspection report children's home: SC423617 8

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improvement to be good

Since the interim inspection in October 2018, the registered manager has left, and a new manager is now in post. The new manager has a level 5 qualification in leadership and management and intends to apply to be the home’s next registered manager. This was a planned move and the new manager has had a period of induction into the home.

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improvement to be good

Staff do not always ensure that children live in a nurturing and homely environment. Damage to the home is not always promptly repaired and some children have not had essential items in their bedrooms, such as a window blind or curtains. This means that children do not always have their privacy respected. Some areas of the home have an institutional feel. For example, there is an alarm box prominently placed on the wall in the living room.

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improvement to be good

Children are helped to develop their independence by doing chores in the home as part of their regular routines. However, staff have not helped one child to remove his dirty laundry from his bedroom or supported him with his personal hygiene. Staff are not yet doing enough to help children to develop essential self-care skills that in turn strengthen children’s self-esteem.

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improvement to be good

Internal care plans are not kept up to date, and do not always reflect children’s progress. This means that staff do not always have the information they need to help children to develop and achieve to their full potential.

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improvement to be good

Children regularly attend school. However, staff have not taken and collected one child from school on time on several occasions. Staff at the school report that this has affected his ability to learn and has made the child upset because he feels different from his peers.

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improvement to be good

Children form positive relationships with staff. Staff talk to young people and do activities with them, such as going on bike rides. Staff help children to express their views and explore their behaviours by having regular planned meetings and day-to-day discussions. Staff use these meetings to promote equality and diversity. Staff support children to contribute to decisions about their day-to-day care. These opportunities help to enable children to express their views and preferences and to contribute to decisions about their lives. However, staff do not always encourage children to comment on their records. This creates a missed opportunity to explore children’s views even further.

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improvement to be good

Staff actively support children to maintain links with people who are important to them.

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

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improvement to be good

Ofsted judged that this home had declined in effectiveness at the interim inspection in October 2018. The inspection took place following a serious safeguarding incident when staff practice had put children at risk due to a lack of supervision. The current inspection again found that staff do not always follow procedures to keep children safe or work effectively as a team. This has led to another serious safeguarding incident that resulted in a child leaving the home in an unplanned way.

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improvement to be good

Staff sometimes do not recognise a child’s needs and how to safeguard children in their care. This failure has had a negative impact on the children involved.

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improvement to be good

When children are admitted to the home, their behaviour is not always fully assessed, and behaviour management plans are not always up-dated. This leaves staff sometimes unsure of the triggers that cause children’s behaviour to escalate. This has, on occasion, resulted in children putting themselves in danger. Even when risks are known and recorded, staff do not always follow good advice. For example, during the inspection staff did not follow information recorded in a child’s risk assessment and instead allowed a child to play next to a busy main road.

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improvement to be good

Children have free time to spend with friends. This is carefully assessed and monitored, and children do not currently go missing from the home. Staff give children clear boundaries and guidance on using the internet and they keep children safe from the dangers of online abuse.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff are not adequately trained to meet the complex needs of the children who live in the home. For example, not all staff have attended training that would enable them to understand how to respond to children who have an attachment disorder. This means that managers cannot be assured that staff can accurately identify or respond to particular behaviours that are likely to occur.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Some staff have not received training in child sexual exploitation as outlined in the home’s statement of purpose. Some members of staff have not received training in first aid or in fire safety. This means that not all staff are competent to deal with emergency situations or recognise the signs and risks of child sexual exploitation.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home has had a high turnover of staff in recent months. Managers try to use regular additional staff, but this still means that children do not always benefit from consistent care. Staff are not receiving the support and guidance that they need to help children. For example, staff do not always receive regular supervision. Managers have not used monitoring systems to ensure that these processes take place.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Following a recent serious safeguarding incident, areas for improvement have not been addressed with individual staff members or with the staff team. This shows a weakness in managerial oversight of staff practice. Inspection report children's home: SC423617 10 Children feel able to talk with a member of staff when they need to. Despite this, children do not always feel safe. For example, one child told a member of staff at his school that he has experienced being bullied and that not enough action has been taken by the staff. Records of incidents do not show that staff always recognise verbal bullying and the damage this can have on children. This unkind behaviour is not being swiftly managed by the staff to try to help the children to feel more safe and secure.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers have not ensured that the regulator has an up-to-date version of the home’s statement of purpose. This means that the regulator does not have accurate information about staffing levels or the qualifications of staff working in the home.

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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: SC423617 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Adecyn Children’s Homes Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 13a Pitsford Street, Birmingham B18 6LJ

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Inspector

Karen Gillingwater, social care inspector Inspection report children's home: SC423617 12 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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