Children's Home run by Time-Out Children’s Homes Limited in Rochdale

Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 1 Registered provider: Time-Out Children’s Homes Ltd

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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 one of several children’s homes operated by a private company. The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to two children who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

If required, children and young people can access the organisation’s school and therapy department.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since July 2019.

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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 Good

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Good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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Good

Date of last inspection: 6 November 2018

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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: 1244881 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

06/11/2018 Full Good 04/07/2017 Full Outstanding 28/03/2017 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 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—

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Requirement Due date

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. (Regulation 5 (c))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, ensure that the placing authority completes a pathway plan for any ‘eligible’ child, and that a copy of that plan is provided to the home within three months of the child’s 16th birthday. 11/09/2019

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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—

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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

Specifically, ensure that when it has been assessed as not being suitable to physically restrain a child, the relevant records provide specific guidance advising what action staff should take if the threshold for physical restraint is met. 11/09/2019 Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 4

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Recommendations

 Staff should be familiar with the home’s policies on record keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4).

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Recommendations

Specifically, staff should better coordinate records to ensure that each child’s risks, and what action staff are to take in the management of these risks, are recorded within each of the documents that are designed to capture this information.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children benefit from the care and support of a manager and staff team who clearly prioritise children’s needs. Care planning and care practice are highly individualised and are focused on maximising each child’s opportunities for success. This is verified by the children as well as some of the professionals who are involved in the child’s care. One child said, ‘it is ace here and I am doing really well,’ while the other said, ‘It is a good place to live. Staff have really helped me, and I am in a better place than I was a year ago.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children regard this as their home and have developed a sense of stability and permanence. Staff show a genuine interest in the children. They routinely engage the children in meaningful discussions and activities that enable them to influence the day- to-day running of the home, but, more pertinently, the decisions about their care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported well to attend school. Staff work closely with education professionals and ensure that each child receives the individual support they require. This has been particularly helpful for one child, who had missed a significant amount of education prior to coming to this home. Since enrolling in school, her attendance has improved significantly. She has recently sat five GCSEs and is enrolled to start college in September 2019. The child’s social worker said, ‘The journey in terms of education is immense. [Name’s] success is because of her feeling supported and stable.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff make sure that children are encouraged and supported to be healthy through good diet and exercise and access to routine health services. They work closely with specialist health professionals, including the diabetes nurse, who provides good-quality training, guidance and support for staff. Each child has access to a therapist, who is influential in helping staff to understand and respond to the child’s unique and complex emotional needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Both children were keen to tell the inspector about all the fun and exciting activities that they have taken part in. These include pursuing individual hobbies and interests, and Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 5 raising money for charity and holidays abroad. Children’s experiences are well documented with memory books, and these serve as a positive reminder of their time at the home when they leave.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are encouraged to involve themselves in daily tasks that include cooking, shopping and keeping the house tidy. For children who are closer to leaving the home, staff use an individual independence pathway plan as a framework for promoting life- skills learning and independence. This does to some extent offset the fact that the home did not have a copy of the placing authority pathway plan, despite this being overdue for one child. There is evidence that the manager has requested this document but has not challenged the placing authority when it has not been provided. A copy of the completed pathway plan needs assessment was acquired during the inspection.

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

Observations during the inspection showed that children have positive and trusting relationships with staff. Children said that they feel safe and that they can confide in staff, who are supportive and caring.

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

Children benefit from one-to-one staffing, which means that staff are available to provide them with individual supervision and support. A combination of planned and ad- hoc conversations and direct work is used effectively to educate and empower children to understand risk. This is helping children to make positive choices and to take increasing responsibility for their own safety.

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

Staff demonstrate a good understanding of each child’s behaviours, risks and vulnerabilities. These are highlighted in risk assessment plans that are understood and implemented by staff. However, changes to how this information is captured have resulted in some of these documents being incomplete. For example, self-harm relating to food is highlighted as a risk in one document, but the guidance for what staff should do in response to this behaviour is captured in a different one.

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

The manager and staff act as positive role models for the children in their care. They have high expectations and incidents of negative and challenging behaviour are infrequent. This is because the children are respectful of each other and of the manager and staff, who set parent-like boundaries. When children do make the wrong choices, they are quick to recognise this and make every effort to put things right.

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

Staff take a very caring and patient approach when helping children to manage their feelings, frustrations and emotions. They make good use of positive relationships and de-escalation techniques to avoid the need for physical restraint. On the one occasion that this was necessary, it was done in a caring and supportive manner.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The management arrangements have changed since the last inspection, with the long- Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 6 standing manager leaving the home in April 2019. The current manager is suitably experienced and is registered for a second home within the organisation, at which she worked prior to taking on the role of manager. She achieves a good balance between time spent in each home, which ensures that she is visible and is maintaining good management oversight.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is enthusiastic and highly motivated to improve the lives of the children in her care. She is supported well by a small team of staff who can work in either home if required. This team has changed significantly over the last few months as a result of the manager’s promotion, staff leaving and new staff starting. These changes have impacted on the children who had strong bonds with some of the staff who have moved on. The manager recognises the importance of continuity and has worked hard to stabilise this relatively new team. She also recognises the need to increase the number of positive male role models because only one of the team of nine staff is male.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has high expectations of her team members. She takes time to carefully induct new staff and provides ongoing, quality supervision for all staff. She regularly reviews each staff member’s performance, setting targets and goals that promote professional development. This, combined with good training opportunities, highlights the aspirations of both the manager and the organisation to have a competent and effective workforce.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Although in post for a short time, the manager has a good understanding of the home’s strengths. She makes good use of a range of internal and external quality assurance processes to ensure that all aspects of service delivery and children’s progress are monitored, evaluated and evidenced.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and staff maintain strong and effective links with partner agencies. Professionals confirm that the manager is proactive in her efforts to ensure that they are kept fully informed and involved in care planning. They are highly complimentary about the quality of information that is shared and how the voice of the child is an integral part of the care planning process. An independent reviewing officer wrote, ‘The home works well with other agencies. I know through reviews there is preparation and time given to preparing [name] for her reviews, and her wishes and feelings are always represented.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Two requirements were made at the last inspection. Regulation 44 monitoring has been strengthened because the independent visitor is now regularly incorporating the views of professionals in this process.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Children’s health needs are now being assessed in the context of physical restraint. For one child, this has resulted in a no restraint policy. This is clearly highlighted in the relevant records. However, it is not made clear what staff should do if the threshold for physical restraint is met. This has the potential to place both the child and staff at risk.

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 7 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: 1244881 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Time-Out Children’s Homes Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unit 2, Ripponden Mill, Mill Fold, Ripponden Sowerby Bridge, West Yorkshire HX6 4DH

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Dominic Macauley

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Inspector(s)

Paul Scott, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1244881 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

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Inspector(s)

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