Children's Home run by Hillcrest Children’s Services Ltd in West Berkshire

Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 1 Registered provider: Hillcrest Children’s Services 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 home is run by a privately owned organisation with many homes around the country. The home provides assessment and treatment for children who present challenging behaviour due to their early traumatic life experiences. It is set in a rural village location. All the children currently attend the organisation’s school, located five miles away.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted on 26 July 2018.

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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 outstanding

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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: 12 November 2018

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/11/2018 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 2

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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 order to meet the quality and purpose of care standard the registered person is required to:

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff 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 (2)(b)(ix))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that any decision to temporarily limit a child’s access to any area of the home is informed by a rigorous assessment of that individual child’s needs, is properly recorded and is kept under regular review. 31/10/2019

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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))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that sessions, including those of the manager, are adequately recorded and that these records are made available in a timely way. 30/11/2019

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Recommendations

 The importance of understanding who we are and where we come from is recognised in good social work practice, for example through undertaking life story work or other direct work. Staff in children’s homes should play a full role in work of this kind. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.14) Specifically, this work should be informed by the plan the registered person draws up for how individual children will be cared for.  Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are safeguarding concerns for a child, their placement plan, agreed between the home and their placing authority, must include details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risks on a day-to-day basis (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 3

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Recommendations

including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5) In particular, assessments should include guidance to staff on the circumstances in which risks may be heightened and should include a realistic evaluation of the severity of any occurrence.  All managers working in a children’s home must have the qualification in regulation 28(2) within the relevant timescales listed in regulation 28(3). All staff in a care role, including external agency or bank staff, must have the qualification in regulation 32(4) within the relevant timescale listed in regulation 32(5). The registered person may extend the time period if the member of staff hasn’t worked in the role for a prolonged period, such as sick leave or maternity leave, or if it is not reasonable to expect the member of staff to complete in this timescale due to the nature of the hours they work. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.12)

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Recommendations

In particular, the registered person must ensure that agency and bank staff enrol on an appropriate course to enable them to complete the required qualification within the relevant timescale.  The registered person should make best use of information from internal monitoring to ensure continuous improvement. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24) This is in particular regard to evaluating the use of measures of control for appropriateness, effectiveness and ensuring that children’s views of the measure itself are sought as well as their reflections on their behaviour.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff give children individualised support that is sensitive to their particular needs and takes account of how children best respond to help and encouragement. They get to know children quickly and, as a result, children make progress from the start of their placements. If a particular approach is not having the desired effect, the team will look at why that might be and change tactics as appropriate. Consistency across the staff teams has helped children to expect reliable responses from staff and so react appropriately.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The headteacher said, ‘There is not one young person who has not made good progress,’ and a parent said, ‘There has been greater progress than I thought there would be back when my child first came.’ Examples include being more settled at times of tension, increasing confidence, making friends and managing in the classroom.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff use current affairs, drawn from a weekly children’s newspaper, a culture calendar and the experiences and backgrounds of both children and staff to address issues of religion, identity and diversity. This has helped children to be proud of their heritage and Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 4 to express an affinity with people who have different beliefs to themselves. However, internal placement plans do not state how staff will address individual children’s cultural needs in sufficient detail.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff keep a ‘you said – we did’ log that shows how they have responded to children’s requests and suggestions. Almost all of these requests and suggestions have been actioned. Children therefore understand that their voice is important in decisions made about their home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Each child has an activity that they participate in in the wider community. Staff encourage children’s attendance at clubs and other regular pursuits so that children benefit from a wide social experience and grow in confidence as a result of their experience.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

In particular circumstances, to avoid repeated damage to property, staff have regularly locked the door of a lounge, without it being the subject of a risk assessment or formal review. A team discussion, prompted by the inspector’s observation, led to the consideration of alternative strategies but neither managers nor staff had recognised the institutional nature of the practice beforehand.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff respond calmly and clearly to children’s challenging behaviour. Staff model a communicative approach which is empathetic and supportive. Consequences are increasingly designed to help children repair relationships. A recently introduced ‘making it right’ book contains examples of how each child and staff member likes to see that someone wants to make amends. It is a very helpful means for everyone to give practical expression to the home’s restorative approach.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

A professional described that the work staff had done with a child is ‘amazing – to the point where we can think about her living with a family’. Potential carers said that the staff were ‘very helpful people whatever time of day. They are flexible about times for pick up and always very welcoming’. This help includes the support and advice given by the therapy team as well as the residential team.

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

Children feel safe due to the actions and approach used by staff. The way staff interact with children exudes care and concern for them as individuals. The staff are remarkably adept at exploring and responding to the issues that lie behind children’s behaviour, so that children feel understood and accepted.

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

Work to enhance visual communication for and with children has been exemplary. Staff have produced cards with illustrations of emotions that children can use to express feelings when it is too difficult for them to put their feelings into words. This has reduced the impulse to show frustration through behaviours. Social stories have successfully enabled children to prepare for an event that they are apprehensive about, such as a health appointment.

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

Excellent key-work sessions, which often use resources such as worksheets, are underpinned by a plan for each child. The topics are particularly well planned, relevant Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 5 and meaningful to the child. They contribute significantly to how children attain an age- appropriate understanding of issues to become safer and to make progress.

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

The manager and staff have recently simplified targets for children, which give them small, achievable steps to aim for. Staff record and log these each day. The team promotes positive behaviour through rewards and sticker charts, key-work sessions and points books. Children engage well with these and join in daily community meetings to discuss their progress. One child suggested that it was not reasonable to include events that had happened in school, as teachers deal them with there. In response, points books now only cover behaviour and targets at home, which has increased children’s sense of adults being fair and of being able to influence their care.

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

Staff articulate a thorough grounding in safeguarding procedures, including who to go to outside the organisation if they have concerns. The designated officer of the local authority has visited the home to speak to staff about her role and is complimentary about how the manager works with her. It is clear that the manager and staff respond to any incidents in a way that ensures that the protection of children is central to their practice, while remaining proportionate to the level of concern.

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

A flowchart on safeguarding and complaints contains very useful explanations of when to apply different procedures and clear process for doing so. Staff have explained how to make a complaint in a ‘team talk’ session (house meeting) and children are regularly reminded of what to do if they are unhappy with how they are treated.

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

The manager has responded promptly to recommendations made by fire contractors and the fire and rescue service and therefore has safeguarded children and staff effectively. Safer recruitment procedures are in place and records demonstrate that managers follow these to avoid employing unsuitable people.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has a strong safeguarding ethos and promotes children’s welfare and development within the home. This is illustrated by supervision sessions that are child focused and look to improve practice. Staff spoken with, including the manager, feel well supported in their roles. However, records of supervision provided to the manager are limited in content and frequently delayed in being made available.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is aware of the home’s strengths and weaknesses and is addressing the latter effectively. She has, for example, been working to improve the clarity and usefulness of her staff’s recording. Physical intervention records are lucid, and the team learn lessons from incidents, devising methods to avoid circumstances in which they may reoccur. As a result, children’s behaviour improves and numbers of physical interventions reduce over time.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Consequence records have improved but they do not consistently describe behaviour precisely and ensure that comments are in the appropriate sections. Key workers address issues that underlie the behaviours that lead to consequences effectively. Management monitoring identifies when risk assessments and behaviour support plans Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 6 need updating and this is followed through by staff. However, managers do not routinely ask children their views about the measure of control and so miss an opportunity to ensure that children understand the reasons for these measures or can raise concerns.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The provider has implemented a programme of training to develop how staff assess how children are affected by risks. This is designed to ensure that staff are aware of the circumstances in which risks may be heightened and the particular strategies they can employ to assist individual children. Written assessments revised following the training demonstrate that authors have understood the process of completing effective assessments and present this so that colleagues can use them to inform their practice. Nevertheless, staff sometimes confuse the evaluation of the severity of risk with the likelihood of it occurring, leading to a lower overall assessment and, potentially, to a diminished appreciation of the dangers.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has a good grasp of the training needs of her permanent staff and ensures that they are keeping up with mandatory training courses. However, not all bank staff information is available to her and, consequently, she is not able to monitor their training. The manager requested access to the specific workers’ training records during the inspection. The manager had not considered the requirement for bank and agency staff to have completed the statutorily required training. No staff have yet exceeded the timescales laid down in regulations, but the consequences are that some may not be compliant when they reach these.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and staff have a positive rapport with parents, carers and other professionals. They have forged particularly strong relationships with the provider’s school and therapy team that have led to effective collaborative work. One father commented, ‘The level of care all adults provide is second to none – it meets all my expectations and beyond… We have found the place that will be able to help my child.’

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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: 2483715 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Hillcrest Children’s Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Turnpike Gate House, Alcester Heath, Alcester, Warwickshire B49 5JG

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Inspector

Chris Peel, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 2483715 8 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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