Children's Home run by Meadows Care Limited in Rochdale

Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 1 SC390577 Registered provider: Meadows Care Limited 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 three children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. If required, children and young people can access the organisation’s school and therapy department. The manager has been registered with Ofsted since April 2017.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 10 to 11 December 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: 20 February 2019

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: sustained effectiveness

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/02/2019 Interim Sustained effectiveness 17/07/2018 Full Good 01/02/2018 Interim Improved effectiveness 23/05/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 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

ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction. (Regulation 33 (1)(a))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, ensure that the induction of new staff includes an opportunity for them to spend time in the home getting to know the children and the home’s routines before having direct responsibility for children’s care. This is especially important for those staff who join the team without any previous experience of working in a children’s home. 15/01/2020

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Recommendations

 Where the placing authority or another relevant person does not provide the input and services needed to meet a child’s needs during their time in the home or in preparation for leaving the home, the home must challenge them to meet the child’s needs. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 12, paragraph 2.8) Specifically, challenge the placing local authority when they fail to provide statutory information within reasonable timescales.  The registered person should ensure that staff can access appropriate facilities and resources to support their training needs. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.11) Specifically, ensure that all staff receive training in understanding and managing self-harming behaviour and training in an awareness of child criminal exploitation.  Staff should understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording.

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Recommendations

(‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4) Specifically, improve the quality of monthly outcome monitoring records by ensuring that they include specific targets that can be measured and evaluated. Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children living at this home make good progress overall. Staff know the children well and have positive relationships with them. Care plans consider differences such as age, gender and cultural heritage. Staff are adaptive in their approach when responding to each child’s unique and different needs. As a result, children are supported to overcome challenges and make good progress in many aspects of their lives. One child said, ‘I am now at college and my biggest achievement is travelling on the bus to college and other places.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Both children have developed a sense of belonging since living at this home. This is because staff show an interest in them and take every opportunity to make them feel cared for. Both children spoke positively about their care experiences and are clearly comfortable in the company of their staff team.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children have a strong voice and are encouraged to share their views and opinions. They are involved in decisions about the home and are given good support to contribute to their plans and relevant meetings.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children are supported well to attend school and college. Staff work closely with education colleagues to ensure that barriers to participation are minimised. This has been essential in maintaining mainstream school and college placements for both children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff enjoy spending time with the children and are attuned to their likes and dislikes. Children are encouraged to pursue individual hobbies and interests as part of a varied and rewarding recreational curriculum. A much-improved attitude towards free time means that children can spend time in the community with friends. This has helped children to develop socially, to take age-appropriate risks and to enjoy similar experiences to those of their peers.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Family contact is encouraged and supported by staff. Staff have forged working relationships with children’s families and other important people. This has contributed to improved relationships between the children and the key people in their lives. The effectiveness of this approach is evident in the current plans for a child to return to live with her ex-foster carer, after living at the home for three years.

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

Living at this home, and the continued support provided by staff, means that children are protected from unnecessary harm. Staff identify and understand each child’s behaviours, risks and vulnerabilities and are effective in the management of these. Every opportunity is taken to educate the children, who show an age-appropriate understanding of issues such as child sexual exploitation and e-safety. Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 5 Staff are trained in a range of subjects that are designed to enhance their abilities to keep children safe. These include basic safeguarding and training around child sexual exploitation, radicalisation and self-harm. However, two staff have not completed training in relation to self-harm despite this being an identified need of one child.

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

The manager has a good understanding of her safeguarding roles and responsibilities. She knows how to manage safeguarding concerns and allegations against staff. This is evident in the way that she has managed the three allegations that have been made since the last inspection. Her response included acting to assure the immediate safety of the child and staff and involving the right external agencies to support a thorough impartial investigation.

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

The manager understands the concept of contextual safeguarding and maintains a good awareness of community risks. Information gathered from the police, safeguarding professionals and provider forums is captured in the home’s location risk assessment. This information could be better used by the manager, for example child criminal exploitation is identified as a risk in the community. Despite this, and the fact that it is an issue nationally, staff have not received any training on this subject.

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

Staff work closely with the organisation’s therapist, who is highly influential in helping staff to develop and implement a trauma-informed approach to behaviour management. When faced with challenging behaviour, staff take a calm, reassuring approach while making good use of positive relationships and de-escalation techniques to avoid the need for physical restraint.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is run effectively by a suitably experienced and recently qualified manager. She has a good understanding of each child’s needs and is fully involved in the implementation of their care plans.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is proactive in her efforts to develop strong links with partner agencies. She works with these agencies to promote a cohesive approach to meeting each child’s individual needs. She is a strong advocate for the children in her care and will ensure that they benefit from the services and support they need to progress. She will challenge underperformance, but this can be inconsistent. For example, the personal education plan had not been attained for one child despite the review taking place in September 2019. While this is offset by the strong links with the education provider, it is an essential document to have to assist education planning.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Suitable action has been taken to address two of the three recommendations from the previous inspection. Individual crisis management plans now provide clear guidance for staff should the need for restraint occur when lone working. Risk management strategies relating to free time are much more proportionate to the child’s level of risk and no longer stifle social development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The system for monitoring children’s progress and outcomes requires further work. Key Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 6 workers continue to set monthly targets that are linked to each child’s care plan. There are some examples where these are specific and purposeful. Conversely, the inspector saw examples when targets were not specific enough to measure and therefore the analysis of progress was too vague to determine what future work is required.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has maintained a good focus on improving continuity of care. She has worked hard to effectively reduce the use of agency and bank staff. Mostly, children benefit from the consistent care from a small team of individuals. These staff demonstrate a strong commitment to the children and provide opportunities for them to achieve and progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff benefit from regular supervision and have their performance appraised annually. There is a good focus on professional development and staff are supported well to work towards their career goals, for example the manager is in the process of mentoring one of the team leaders who is wanting to run the home when the manager takes maternity leave next year.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The induction of new staff requires improvement. The manager recognises that it is good practice to provide staff with the opportunity to spend time in the home prior to having direct responsibility for children. This allows them the opportunity to spend time getting to know the children and their routines, while shadowing an experienced member of staff. Two new starters, neither of whom had any experience of working with children, have not been given this opportunity due to the need to cover gaps on the rota. While this was not detrimental to the care of the children, it does not provide the best start for new staff or consider the difficulty that these children have in making attachments.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has a good understanding of the home’s strengths and is committed to improving the experience and outcomes for the children living in the home. In this respect, they make good use of internal quality assurance monitoring, handovers, team meetings and reports from the independent visitor to promote a child-focused improvement agenda.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 7 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: SC390577 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Meadows Care Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Meadows Care Limited, Egerton House, Wardle Road, Rochdale, Lancashire OL12 9EN

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Inspector

Paul Scott: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC390577 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

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Inspector

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Inspector

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