Children's home run by The Serendipity Centre Limited in Eastleigh

Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 1 SC463558 Registered provider: The Serendipity Centre 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 is registered to provide care for up to six children. It is privately owned by an organisation that has two other homes and a school. Its statement of purpose states that it specialises in caring for girls who have experienced significant trauma resulting in emotional, behavioural and/or social difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The home has not had a registered manager since June 2018.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded and the care and experiences of children and young people are poor and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: Requires improvement to be good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: A compliance notice was issued under regulation 21 following the full inspection in October 2018. This notice was deemed met following a monitoring visit in February 2019. Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/10/2018 Full Requires improvement to be good 19/06/2018 Full Inadequate 16/05/2017 Full Good 31/10/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff— seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 5 (a))

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Requirement Due date

This is with specific reference to sharing full and accurate information with children’s placing authorities. 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who— understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children; 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 ensure that staff— protect and promote each child’s welfare. (Regulation 6 (2)(b)(ii))

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Requirement Due date

This is with particular reference to ensuring that effective strategies are used to support children who self-harm. 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The children’s views, wishes and feelings standard is that children receive care from staff who— develop positive relationships with them; engage with them; and take their views, wishes and feelings into account in relation to matters affecting the children’s care and welfare and their lives.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff— regularly consult children, and seek their feedback, about the quality of the home’s care. (Regulation 7 (2)(a)(iv)) 27/07/2019 Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 4 The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— mutual respect and trust; an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and 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 that staff— meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans; de-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children; have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them. (Regulation 11 (2)(a)(i)(xi)(xiii))

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Requirement Due date

This is with particular reference to responding to children’s behavioural needs, managing conflict and responding to indications of bullying. 27/07/2019

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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— 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; have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm; manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other; take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and 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 (2)(a)(i)(iii)(iv)(vi)(d)) 27/07/2019

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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— helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to— 27/07/2019 Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 5 ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child; use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(c)(e)(h))

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Requirement Due date

This is with specific reference to assessing the likely impact of new admissions to the home, ensuring that staff have the skills and knowledge to meet the needs of the children, providing consistent management of the home and learning from serious incidents.

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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.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 14 (2)(a)) 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that— any limitation placed on a child’s privacy or access to any area of the home’s premises— allows children as much freedom as is possible when balanced against the need to protect them and keep them safe. (Regulation 21 (c)(iv))

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Requirement Due date

This is with specific reference to locking external doors as a safeguarding measure without full consultation with senior officers in all relevant placing authorities and routinely locking doors to communal areas of the home at bedtime. 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

A person may only manage a children’s home if— having regard to the size of the home, its statement of purpose, and the number and needs (including any needs arising from any disability) of the children— the person has the appropriate experience, qualification and skills to manage the home effectively and lead the care of children. (Regulation 28 (1)(b)(i))

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Requirement Due date

This is with specific reference to ensuring that any member of 27/07/2019 Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 6 staff who has day-to-day responsibility for managing the home is competent to do so.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. (Regulation 32 (1)) 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees— receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

Case records must be kept— securely in the children’s home during the period when the child to whom the case records relate is accommodated there. (Regulation 36 (2)(c))

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Requirement Due date

This is with specific reference to ensuring that staff cannot receive children’s sensitive, confidential information on their personal mobile telephones. 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month.

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Requirement Due date

The independent person must provide a copy of the independent person’s report to— HMCI. (Regulation 44 (1)(7)(a)) 27/07/2019

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (‘a quality of care review’) at least once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must— supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed. (Regulation 45 (1)(4)(a)) 27/07/2019 Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 7

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Since the last full inspection in October 2018, there has been a high turnover of managers and staff. This has compromised the potential for children to build trusting and secure relationships with the staff. The children spoken to during this inspection gave varying accounts of the quality of the relationships they have with staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The children do not feel that they are being consulted or listened to regarding the quality of care they are receiving. One child has been left feeling that staff are not concerned for her well-being. This is partly a result of staff failing to effectively explain the approach taken to children who self-harm. Children said that staff do not always respond to their concerns. For example, one child feels that staff have not taken her concerns about offensive language being used in the home, seriously.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The children have not been given sufficient information about the use of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in communal areas of the home. For example, they do not know who has access to the CCTV footage. This has caused some anxiety for one child. A senior manager acknowledged that this issue has not been given consideration.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

All the children have their education provision through the organisation’s school. Some children have not engaged positively. Two of the children currently at the home are on significantly reduced timetables as part of a reintegration programme. One child told the inspectors that she feels uncomfortable doing her school work in a local public library with a tutor, and that this is preventing her from engaging in the sessions. However, one child has made steady progress, including achieving the completion of her work experience programme.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

At the time of this inspection, the external doors to the home were being kept locked throughout the day and night, as a temporary measure, to prevent one child from going missing. It is also standard practice to lock the lounge, kitchen and computer room in the evening, when children are due to go to bed. Leaders and managers were not able to provide a detailed account of how this measure is keeping children safe. One child told the inspectors that if the children wish to have a conversation after a certain time in the evening, they sit on the stairs or landing outside their bedrooms.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The staff plan for the way in which a child will be welcomed to the home, particularly in terms of the practical arrangements. There is less emphasis on how the other children will be supported during this time of transition. One child said that she had not been informed of the date when a new admission would be moving to the home and became anxious when she learned that the new child had already arrived. Staff have not always been able to fully identify and prevent subtle bullying when new children move in. This has had a destabilising impact on children already living in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The staff identify activities for the children to engage in, but often they cannot motivate Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 8 the children to try something new. The staff also seek to engage children in key-work sessions to support them with any concerns or difficulties they might be experiencing. The records of these sessions are not indicative of skilled workers consistently engaging children successfully.

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

Safeguarding and child protection practice at the home is weak. Leaders and managers do not inspire a culture of professional curiosity, and consequently staff fail to recognise the signs that a child could be at risk of significant harm. This is compounded by ineffectual risk management processes. For example, a risk assessment relating to self- harming behaviours was not updated when significant new information became available. As a result, no new strategies were introduced to mitigate the potential for a child to come to harm.

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

Staff do not consistently follow the strategies that have been introduced to keep children safe. For example, the agreed levels of staff supervision have not been provided. This failure has recently led to a situation in which the children were able to physically harm one another, despite staff being aware of the growing tension among the group.

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

Many staff do not have the knowledge and skills required to keep vulnerable children safe. This is partly attributable to a lack of training specific to the needs of the children living at the home. The staff spoken to during this inspection were not able to consistently demonstrate a good understanding of risks associated with children accessing the internet, the duty to protect children from extremist views or how to support children with mental health difficulties and self-harming behaviours.

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

The ineffective support for children who self-harm has had negative consequences. This has included a child being able to obtain medication on which to overdose and hiding sharp implements in her bedroom.

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

Effective action has not always been taken to address challenging and unsafe behaviour in the home. On one occasion, the manager on duty left the home during a serious incident. The staff in the home took no action to prevent children from entering a staff office where they had access to confidential information, money and car keys. On another occasion, staff resorted to locking a child in the kitchen as they were unable to contain the level of aggression and damage to property. This left the child at significant risk of physical harm.

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

The home is not maintained to a sufficiently high standard. Blood was observed on the walls of a bedroom a child had vacated days earlier. Graffiti relating to self-harm was found in a bedroom and in communal areas of the home, meaning that all the children were exposed, to varying degrees, to the troubled thoughts of one child. In places, the standard of cleanliness was very poor. There is a disregard for the emotional and physical health and safety of the children. Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 9 There are shortfalls in the staff recruitment process. Leaders and managers are not able to demonstrate that the potential for new staff to react negatively to children’s troubled behaviour is explored during the interview process. There has also been a failure to consult relevant professionals when the suitability of an applicant is unclear. The recruitment process does not fully address the potential for unsafe adults to become

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Management arrangements have been inconsistent since the home was inspected in October 2018. There have been three managers during this period. None of these has registered with Ofsted. At the time of this inspection, the current manager was on sick leave, partly due to work pressures. During March and April 2019, the home was managed by the current deputy manager. Senior managers did not ensure that the deputy manager had sufficient experience, knowledge and skills to competently take on this level of responsibility.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The director of care has had operational oversight of the organisation’s three homes in recent months. This has been a challenge, and no significant progress has been made in raising the standard of care being provided at this home. Poor assessment and decision- making resulted in the senior leadership team admitting one child whose needs could not be met and one child who was not compatible with those already living in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Systems for monitoring the quality of care being provided are weak and ineffectual. For example, a management investigation into how a child obtained over-the-counter medication while being supervised by two members of staff was never completed. Consequently, leaders and managers have not established whether the staff were negligent. Leaders and managers do not ensure that there is learning from mistakes. Despite the negative consequences that have arisen from children being left unsupervised, staff have not accepted that staffing ratios have been set to avoid children coming to harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

An independent person’s report has not been submitted to Ofsted since March 2019, and the last quality of care review submitted to Ofsted was for the period May – October 2018.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers do not ensure that staff receive the level of training and support that would enable them to meet the complex needs of children. The failure to provide training specifically related to caring for children who self-harm has left a child feeling vulnerable. It has resulted in a situation in which, potentially, staff may not take effective action in an emergency. Not all staff have received supervision with the regularity needed to ensure their professional development. Not all staff providing supervision are competent to do so, partly because they have received no training in this area of practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Poor communication with placing authorities has hindered good partnership working. Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 10 Leaders and managers have failed to provide placing authorities with detailed information regarding the extent to which external doors and windows are locked or the locking of internal doors when children should be going to bed. As a result, leaders and managers have not obtained informed consent from senior officers in the children’s placing authorities to keep doors locked. Written information pertaining to safeguarding matters, provided to local authority social workers, does not always contain an appropriate level of detail. A social worker who was contacted during this inspection had not been provided with information regarding injuries to a child, or ways in which staff had failed to prevent a conflictual situation occurring in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The safety and well-being of children are not prioritised by leaders and managers. They have failed to identify all potential risks. The staff can access their work email accounts on their personal mobile phones. Some emails received on these accounts contain confidential information. There is no policy or guidelines for staff to follow regarding this practice, and there are no security measures in place to restrict access to the email accounts. Leaders and managers have failed to assess the potential for children’s confidential information to be compromised and how this could place them at risk of harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The failings identified at this inspection are widespread and serious. The safety and well- being of children in this home are at risk.

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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: SC463558 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Serendipity Centre Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 1st Floor, Goodlands House, St. Lukes Close, Hedge End, Southampton SO30 2US

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Inspectors

Stephen Collett, social care inspector Suzy Lemmy, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC463558 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: http://www.gov.uk/ofsted

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