Children's home run by Homes 2 Inspire Limited

Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 1 Registered provider: Homes 2 Inspire 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 privately owned children’s home is operated by a large national provider. It is registered to care for up to three children aged between 10 and 17, who have complex needs and have experienced trauma and loss.

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Information about this children’s home

The home has been without a registered manager since 1 March 2019. A new manager has been appointed to the home. He took up post in July 2019. He holds a level 5 qualification in leadership and management. The new manager has applied to register with Ofsted.

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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

Date of last inspection: 7 December 2018

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: declined in effectiveness

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 2 The home was judged as ‘declined in effectiveness’ in December 2018. As a result, Ofsted served a notice of restriction of accommodation to prevent any new children from being admitted to the home.

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

At a monitoring visit in January 2019, further serious concerns were found in relation to the safeguarding of children, and a compliance notice was served. The notice of restriction of accommodation remained in place until 11 March 2019.

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

07/12/2018 Interim Declined in effectiveness 01/05/2018 Full Good 06/06/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 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 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; understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person; take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies; 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.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(i)(v)(vi)(vii)(d)) 08/09/2019

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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 have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(iii)) * 08/09/2019

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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 use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care 08/09/2019 Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 4 provided in the home.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that full and satisfactory information is available in relation to any individual employed to work in the children’s home in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2.

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Recommendations

 When establishing the home, the registered person must ensure that it is suitably located so that children are effectively safeguarded and can access services to meet needs identified in their relevant plans (see regulation 12 (2)(c)). Under regulation 46, the registered person should review the appropriateness and suitability of the location and premises of the home at least once a year. The review should include the identification of any risks and opportunities presented by the home’s location and strategies for managing these. Providers should refer to the non-statutory advice about the location assessment process: ‘Children’s homes regulation amendments 2014’: advice for children’s homes providers on new duties under regulations that came into effect in January and April 2014. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.1)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children’s overall experience and progress are compromised by widespread failures.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

On 7 December 2018, Ofsted carried out an interim inspection. The home was found to have declined in effectiveness. There were concerns that managers had failed to effectively consider the compatibility of children living in the home. There were weaknesses in leadership and management oversight of the service. Staff had failed to recognise and respond to potential safeguarding concerns and did not follow risk management plans. Monitoring and review systems had failed to identify and address the wide-ranging concerns, and this had a detrimental effect on the experiences and outcomes for children. Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 5 This inspection has found similar wide-ranging concerns and serious shortfalls. Staff do not have access to up-to-date statutory paperwork for children, and care plans do not capture key information about how staff must provide care for each child. This leads to inconsistencies in staff practice and increases the likelihood of

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not always implement the complaints procedure when children raise concerns. This leaves children’s concerns unresolved and means that children do not feel that their voice is heard.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Despite the significant shortfalls identified, children make some progress. One child has improved in their personal care, and in turn their self-esteem has improved. Staff have supported children to celebrate their culture and have helped them to strengthen their identity.

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

Managers and staff have failed to follow risk assessments, and staff lack the necessary skills to ensure that they can safeguard the children in their care. For example, staff must follow risk assessments if they suspect that a child is smoking illegal substances. However, when this has been a cause for concern, staff have failed to follow the assessment. This lack of action has put all children at risk of harm.

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

Staff have purchased tobacco for a child. Not only is this illegal but shows a total disregard for promoting a child’s health.

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

Managers fail to follow safe recruitment procedures . Staff recruitment files do not show that managers have ensured that a new staff member has provided a full employment history. Furthermore, managers do not routinely ensure that they gain verification of the reasons why a person has left their previous roles when working with children or vulnerable adults. This means that managers are not completing comprehensive pre-employment checks to ensure that only suitable staff work with children.

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

Managers and staff do not show that they understand their roles and responsibilities in safeguarding children in their care. For example, not all staff understand the role of the designated officer. Furthermore, during the inspection it was observed that a child could watch a horror movie that is deemed unsuitable for their age by the British board of film classification. Staff did not appear to understand why they should not allow the child to continue to watch a film that is deemed unsuitable.

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

There is a lack of concern for fire safety. For example, no action had been taken for a number of weeks to address a concern about a fire door. Although swift action was taken during the inspection to repair the fire door, this had gone unchallenged by management until the inspection. Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 6

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers have failed to demonstrate that they have effective oversight of what is happening in the home. Monitoring and review systems fail to identify and address the wide-ranging shortfalls that have been identified previously and during this inspection. As a result of significant failures found in the provision of care, Ofsted has issued three compliance notices.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff vacancies remain. This means that there is a lack of experienced staff to oversee the smooth and safe running of the home. Most of the staff currently working in the home do not have experience in working in residential childcare. Only three members of staff have a level 3 diploma in residential childcare, which means that there is not always a qualified worker on shift.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Despite a lack of staff and experienced care workers, managers decided to admit a third child. This was carried out without consideration of the compatibility of the other children already living in the home. For example, managers failed to assess how they would minimise the risks of drug misuse between children, or child sexual exploitation, despite these being identified as known risk factors. Consequently, safeguarding measures have not been put in place to ensure that everyone is safeguarded. These risks have been further compounded as staff have failed to implement existing risk assessments.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff rotas do not accurately reflect the members of staff working on any day. This leaves a risk of not knowing who has worked and whether there are sufficient numbers of staff to care for the children’s needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers have not ensured that the children’s guide contains information for children about how to access advocacy support. This compromises children’s rights.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers have failed to ensure that the home’s safe area risk assessment reflects current information known about the local area and the risk this can pose to children. A newly appointed manager has started to make improvements and recognises the significance of the shortfalls. He has started to take immediate action to bring about rapid improvement. Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 7

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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: 1255744 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Homes 2 Inspire Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Shaw Trust House, 19 Elmfield Road, Bromley, Kent BR1 1LT

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Inspector

Louise Battersby, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1255744 9 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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