Children's Home run by Highfield North East Limited in Redcar and Cleveland

Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 1 SC476512 Registered provider: Highfield (North East) 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

This home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to five children and young people who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. It is operated by a private company.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager is registered and has significant experience of working with children and young people.

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

21/06/2018 Full Good 19/06/2017 Full Good 13/02/2017 Interim Declined in effectiveness 05/09/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children and young people receive a warm and friendly welcome when they move into this home. They enjoy the opportunities on offer. Individual experiences are enhanced by the nurturing and caring staff who value and enable them to aspire. The positive bonds between the children and young people and staff underpin the children’s and young people’s progress. One young person said, ‘I love it here. I never want to leave. It’s mint!’ A social worker said about a child in placement, ‘The staff team speak fondly of and to her, and by so doing encourage the more positive aspects of her temperament and character. I feel that the staff team are indeed aspirational for her to succeed, from daily activities and life to longer-term goals, and that this positivity is warm and sincere.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff work closely with education providers to enable all children and young people to engage in educational activities that will help them to prosper. Most of the children and young people have regular educational attendance. They are progressing well and are on target to reach specific goals, while others are just starting to engage. Informal learning opportunities within the home enable the children and young people to learn and give back to the community, such as visiting the local animal sanctuary and raising money for charity.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Most of the children’s and young people’s physical and emotional health needs are understood and facilitated by the staff. Despite staff encouragement, not all children and young people engage in their health appointments. There is no clear understanding of all children’s and young people’s specific personal care needs, and key-work sessions do not consistently show that staff are encouraging one young person to fully engage in their health.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Consultation with children and young people is effective and enables them to talk about their care, activities and how the home is run. Children’s and young people’s rights and entitlements are acted on, as appropriate, which helps them to feel heard.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is in a rural setting that enables the children and young people to have access to chickens, goats and growing fruit and vegetables on the land, which promotes relaxation. The children’s and young people’s rooms are personalised to suit their preferences and tastes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children and young people benefit from a wide range of fun and exciting activities that keep them happily occupied during their spare time. They enjoy spending time with their friends and family, as well as the company of the staff, going on trips away and socialising together.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Good independence promotion is developing and supporting the older young people’s transition into adulthood. Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 4

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

Children and young people said they feel safe living at the home, giving full marks for their sense of safety. One young person said, ‘I feel safer here than anywhere else that I have been before.’ Children and young people identify the staff they can talk to. The children and young people are listened to and supported by staff whose nurture and good care enables them to understand the difference between safe and unsafe behaviours.

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

The care provided by the staff team ensures that children and young people are protected, as far as possible, from the risks associated with child sexual exploitation, criminal exploitation, county lines, social media and other forms of abuse. The registered manager has devised an internal child sexual exploitation risk assessment that provides additional monitoring. This is good practice. Most children’s and young people’s risks are identified and understood by the staff team which supports their vulnerabilities. However, some children’s and young people’s written risk assessments need strengthening to ensure a clear and accurate record. However, to date, this has not affected the children’s and young people’s safety and welfare.

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

Missing-from-home incidents have significantly reduced. The staff work effectively with the police and other agencies when children and young people have gone missing.

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

Overall, the management of children’s and young people’s complex behaviours are effective in promoting socially acceptable behaviours and helping them to self-regulate. The minimal use of physical intervention supports the staff members’ effective de- escalation skills and results in a relatively settled home.

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

The children and young people benefit from a consistent and experienced registered manager who is ambitious for them to succeed. The registered manager works with the experienced and loyal deputy manager and between them they provide stability and support to the staff team.

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

Despite the notable strengths of the management team, there is a weakness in the registered manager’s oversight of some care practices that require further improvement to be good. For example, the registered manager has not challenged the local authority by seeking clarity about a young person’s identity needs to fully implement the young person’s care plan. He had not identified and followed up the same young person’s personal healthcare needs or assured himself that key-work sessions have taken place with regard to this matter. The language used in some written risk assessments has not been thoroughly scrutinised to ensure that they are clear and appropriate.

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

Staff enjoy working at the home and feel supported by the management team. They benefit from regular supervision, but not all the supervision records make clear the Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 5 details of the discussion points about the children and young people. Team meetings and regular handovers keep the team up to date. However, a staff practice issue and an isolated professional conduct concern have not been addressed with sufficient urgency through training and supervision. This does not help staff to improve their professional practice and impress on them the importance of appropriate boundaries when caring for children and young people with complex needs. Furthermore, training specifically in relation to diversity issues and unconscious bias has not been considered as a means of raising the team’s awareness and enhancing care practices in the home.

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

A new regulation 44 visitor has improved the external monitoring mechanism that is helping the provider to improve service delivery. During internal monitoring, the registered manager has consulted with the children and young people, staff, family members and professionals, but he has not included the feedback into the regulation 45 review report. No action points are included in the document, which makes prioritisation of any management plans unclear.

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

The registered manager ensures that the home is pleasantly decorated and well maintained throughout. However, the practice of locking the kitchen door at night is restrictive and the registered manager has given an undertaking to cease this practice.

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

Not all significant incidents have been notified to Ofsted, which prevents Ofsted from monitoring and progressing lines of enquiry about the home’s safeguarding practices.

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

The registered manager has addressed most of the requirements and recommendations raised at the last inspection. More work is needed to further develop the impact risk assessments to ensure that the risks from existing children and young people are clearly recorded when new children or young people move into the home.

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

Professionals commented positively on the quality and care and communication by the home. Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 6

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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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff—

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Requirement

seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement

seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child’s needs;

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Requirement

if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority’s or a relevant person’s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child’s needs are met in accordance with the child’s relevant plans; and

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Requirement

seek to develop and maintain effective professional relationships with such persons, bodies or organisations as the registered person considers appropriate having regard to the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the children’s home is to provide care and accommodation. (Regulation 5 (a)(b)(c)(d)) In particular, obtain all relevant information about the child’s identity needs from the local authority to support their care plans and escalate as necessary if no response is received. 31/08/2019

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Requirement

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that— helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— use monitoring and review systems to make continuous 31/08/2019 Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 7 improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(h)) Specifically:  review all individual risk assessments to ensure that they are consistently accurate and clear  continue to develop the impact risk assessments to include the impact of the existing children on new admissions  review key-work sessions to ensure that they incorporate all the children’s individual needs  ensure that children have access to personal care resources  improve staff supervision records to ensure that they include

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Requirement

clear information about the children and young people  provide confirmation that the staff practice and conduct issues identified at the inspection have been satisfactorily addressed through supervision and relevant training  ensure that children can access all appropriate areas of the children’s home without the need to lock internal doors. The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff and any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children. (Regulation 45 (2)(c)(5)) 31/08/2019

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Requirement

The registered person must ensure that all employees— undertake appropriate continuing professional development. (Regulation 33 (4)(a)) In particular, provide all staff with training about identity awareness and unconscious bias. 31/08/2019

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Requirement

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if— there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40 (4)(e)) 31/08/2019

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 8 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: SC476512 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Highfield (North East) Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 37 Emerald Street, Saltburn-by-the Sea, Cleveland TS12 1EE

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Inspector

Jacqueline Malcolm, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC476512 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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