Children's Home run by Roundhouse Care in Staffordshire

Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 1 SC478852 Registered provider: Roundhouse Care 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 operated by a private provider and is registered to provide care and accommodation for three young people who have social and/or emotional difficulties and learning disabilities.

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Information about this children’s home

Inspection dates: 11 to 12 December 2019

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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 failures that mean children and young people are not protected.

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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 28 January 2019

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

28/01/2019 Full Outstanding 01/02/2018 Full Outstanding 20/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 10/11/2016 Full Outstanding Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 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. 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; help each child to understand how to keep safe; manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other; that the home‟s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iv)(b)) * 17/01/2020

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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. 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 provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(h)) 17/01/2020

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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; In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that arrangements are in place to— manage and review the placement of each child in the home; and that the child’s placing authority is contacted, and a review of that child’s relevant plans is requested, if— the registered person considers that the child is at risk of harm or has concerns that the care provided for the child is inadequate to meet the child’s needs. (Regulation 14 17/01/2020 Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 4 (1)(a)(2)(b)(ii)(e)(i)) The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety. The requirements are that— the individual has the appropriate experience, qualification and skills for the work that the individual is to perform;

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Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained— the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) (“the Level 3 Diploma”); The relevant date is— in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home. (Regulation 32 (1)(3)(b)(4)(a)(5)(a)) 28/02/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy which— sets out the procedure to be followed in the event of an allegation of abuse or neglect. The procedure to be followed in the event of an allegation of abuse or neglect must, in particular— provide for records to be kept of an allegation of abuse or neglect, and the action taken in response. (Regulation 34 (1)(b)(2)(d)) 17/01/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (“case records”) for each child which — include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child; are kept up to date. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b)) In particular, that all relevant local authority plans are kept in children‟s files. 17/01/2020

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Requirement Due date

Schedule 4 sets out the other information that the registered person must keep in relation to a children’s home. The registered person must— maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4. (Regulation 37 (1)(2)(a)) In particular, ensure that fire drill records are accurate. 17/01/2020

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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. In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating— the quality of care provided for children; the feedback and opinions of children about the children‟s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and 28/02/2020 Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 5 any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children. The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c)(5))

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Recent incidents have significantly affected children‟s progress. Children report not feeling safe in the home. For example, the staff‟s work with children around maintaining their own personal space and complying with boundaries has had limited effect. As a result, staff have had little impact in managing children‟s behaviour and children are unsafe.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff have not ensured that they have up-to-date information and plans from placing authorities. As a result, staff in the home do not have clear guidance to address children‟s past experiences. Without guiding documents, staff do not help children with identified areas of concern.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Despite the difficulties in the home currently, staff work hard to provide positive experiences for children. For example, staff have supported children in the home to gain part-time jobs and attend a range of activities. These activities support children to build their self-esteem and be with friends.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Some children make progress in their education. They attend school regularly and achieve well in school tests. Staff supported one child with their transition between schools with a clear child-centred plan. This included visits to the new school, support to get there safely on their own and frequent calls to school staff. As a result, children value their education and are making progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Despite recent incidents in the home, parents are positive about staff‟s care of their children. Staff support children to see important people in their lives. For one child, this support has meant that they have progressed to seeing their family without staff supervision. As a result, children have safer relationships with their families.

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

Risk assessments for children in the home are not comprehensive, detailed or clear. They do not always include known information about potential risks that children present to others or identify children’s own vulnerabilities. For example, past and current concerns about sexualised behaviour for children are not clearly identified as a risk to other Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 6 children. Because of this, staff do not have clear guidance on how to keep children safe.

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

When strategies are identified to help to reduce the risk of harm to children, staff are inconsistent in implementing these plans and fail to be sufficiently aware of early triggers of potential risk. As a result, on one occasion, staff did not supervise two children in accordance with their risk assessments. One child has alleged that during this time, they experienced a serious sexual assault by the other child. This remains the subject of a police investigation.

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

Managers do not have a coherent approach to addressing the factors that increase the likelihood of children placing themselves in situations in which they are at risk of harm. Staff‟s direct work with children to address specific behaviour is reactionary rather than proactive and planned. A lack of management oversight means that managers do not evaluate and understand the effectiveness of interventions. This means that children‟s progress and risk are not understood, and children remain unsafe.

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

Staff do not identify risk in escalating behaviour. Staff have not coherently considered early life experiences for children and included this in their approach to behaviour management. Staff have not used key information to inform and develop their practice. This has left children vulnerable to harm.

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

Staff address risks of fire in the home using a system of regular checks. However, not all children are regularly involved in fire drills at the home and records are inaccurate. This means that staff cannot be sure which children have practised fire evacuations. This places children at risk of harm.

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

Staff use relationships and clear strategies to help children to ask for help non-verbally in relation to going missing from care. Staff follow clear strategies in this area for children when this is a concern. Because of this child-centred approach, children who are at risk of going missing from care have not done so for over a year. Children sustaining this positive behaviour for this length of time is considerable progress for them from their starting point.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers do not keep coherent safeguarding records with a clear narrative or have clear oversight of serious incidents. Managers do not review them objectively or consider patterns or trends. This means that managers do not consider the wider impact of incidents on all children in the home. As a result, staff do not adjust their practice to address children‟s current risks and needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Monitoring systems are not effective. Managers have not kept objective oversight of the child group or linked escalating behaviours. As such, managers have not reviewed placements in terms of the impact children have on each other, whether staff can safely meet individual needs in the context of the child group, or if placements should continue. As a result, managers have failed to keep children safe.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers‟ oversight of training has not ensured that staff meet their required Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 7 qualification and training timescales. Consequently, staff are not appropriately qualified and trained to meet children‟s needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers do not capture children‟s voices and the views of parents, professionals and staff in regular quality of care reviews. This limits the development of the home. However, the registered manager has positively recognised this and has a system in place to address it.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

In contrast to the quality of care review, managers seek to include the views of children day to day. Managers have many resources to help staff to support children to give their views. The children benefit from staff, who try hard to listen to them.

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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: SC478852 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Roundhouse Care Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Ventura House, Ventura Park Road, Tamworth, Staffordshire B78 3HL

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Inspector

Karol Keenan, social care inspector Inspection report children‟s home: SC478852 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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