Children's home run by Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited in Birmingham

Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 1 SC389183 Registered provider: Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is privately owned by a national organisation. It provides care and accommodation for up to three children who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since November 2018.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers good

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

11/03/2019 Full Outstanding 31/08/2017 Full Outstanding 22/03/2017 Full Outstanding 01/09/2016 Interim Improved effectiveness Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 3

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Recommendations

 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 including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5) In particular, at least one fire drill should be carried out in the night-time.  The registered person should ensure that staff can access appropriate facilities and resources to support their training needs, and should understand the key role they play in the training and development of staff in the home. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.11)  Staff should be familiar with the home’s policies on record keeping and

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Recommendations

understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non-stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4) Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff know the children well, and children have formed strong relationships with staff, built on trust and respect. Children have experienced many positive experiences, including going abroad on holiday. Where these holidays have happened, the children have been tasked with creating the itinerary and managing the budget. This helped children to broaden their experiences of the world around them and develop their independence skills. There is a consistent team of staff who share a strong ethos and commitment to their responsibilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s wishes and feelings are acted upon. An example is one of the children clearly having their views taken into consideration in their pathway plan. Children have also had input into how the new kitchen will look, and they are excited about this work being completed.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children are well supported to develop their independence through independent skills training and effective key-work sessions. Key work focuses on the things that matter the most in the children’s lives. One of the children is currently in the process of applying to join the army. Key-work and independence training is focused on assisting them to be ready for this next step.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s health needs are understood, and areas of need are identified. Specialists are involved when appropriate, and any concerns are followed up. The home benefits from access to a psychologist, who works with both children and staff to help to inform care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

When a placement has had to end, the child’s welfare has been at the centre of any decisions made.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff are creative in how they support children to share sensitive information. They recognise that face-to-face conversations can sometimes be difficult and so they use other strategies to work around this. There are examples where this has helped children to inform staff of significant concerns or worries, which has led to the appropriate support being accessed.

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

The home has highly effective links with the local authority, and any concerns are shared in an appropriate and timely way. Staff are aware of their responsibilities to report concerns and know how they can do this. Effective links with the police, and the sharing of intelligence, have led to specific locations that are deemed as risky being monitored and made safer. This benefits not only the children at the home but also the wider community. Staff ‘go above and beyond’ regarding the detail of information that they record and share with other agencies. Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 5 Physical intervention is used only in extreme circumstances. All staff have received training in the home’s preferred behaviour management package. This ensures that staff are able to safely intervene physically, if required. Staff are skilled in behaviour management and de-escalation, and this has minimised the need to physically intervene.

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

Risk management plans are strong, and staff always follow the correct protocols when incidents occur. ‘Missing’ episodes are responded to appropriately. Independent return interviews are offered. However, staff do not always sign risk assessments to show that they have understood them.

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

Recruitment procedures are strong, and all the required information is in place. This ensures that only safe adults are deemed appropriate to work in the home.

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

The physical environment is safe and well maintained. Appropriate action is taken quickly when maintenance issues are identified.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers are extremely passionate about the service that they offer. They can talk at length about the lives of the children in placement. This has resulted in a consistently child-centred approach to how the home operates. Decisions are made with the best interests of the child as their focus.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff report being well supported in their roles. Supervision is frequent and in line with what is detailed in the home’s statement of purpose. The content of supervision is good, and reactive supervisions are used to address specific incidents, when required.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff have received training in the areas of child sexual exploitation, self-harm, radicalisation and behaviour management. However, they have not received further training specifically around children going missing from care. This is a current concern in the home and is an opportunity missed to strengthen the staff team’s knowledge in this area.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

A night-time fire drill has not been conducted. This is important, to test that the plans in place work in practice in night-time conditions. This has not been identified by leaders and managers.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There has been a strong response to most of the recommendations from the previous inspection. The home is having the kitchen area refurbished to create a homelier and more functional kitchen and dining area. The children have had input into how the kitchen will look. However, some records are still not written in a child-friendly way. For example, an incident report referred throughout to a child as ‘the service user’. This is not a child-friendly way to write a record that may be viewed by the child at a later date. Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 6

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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 difference 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: SC389183 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Keys Group Progressive Care & Education Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Maybrook House, 2nd floor, Queensway, Halesowen, Worcestershire B63 4AH

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Michelle Callard

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Inspector

Daniel Healy, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC389183 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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