Children's home run by Pathfinders (childcare) Limited in Rochdale

Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 1 SC046621 Registered provider: Pathfinders (childcare) 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 two children and young people who have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties. The manager has been registered with Ofsted since 1 February 2011 and holds a relevant qualification.

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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 good

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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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

Date of last inspection: 18 January 2019

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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: SC046621 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

18/01/2019 Full Outstanding 21/12/2017 Full Outstanding 15/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 11/10/2016 Full Outstanding Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 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—

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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, challenge the child’s placing authority when it fails to meet its statutory obligation to start the pathway planning process within legislative timescales. 04/03/2020

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Recommendations

 The children’s guide should help children to understand how to contact the Office of the Children’s Commissioner. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 24, paragraph 4.22) Specifically, update the guide to include the contact details for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.  The registered person should ensure that staff can access appropriate 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 are trained in working with children with autism.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The experience of living at this home has a significant and positive impact on children’s lives. This is because the manager and staff provide a high standard of nurturing parent- like support that has brought about stability and positive change. This is a view shared by both children and professionals. A social worker said, ‘I am very happy with how staff Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 4 care for [name]. [Name] can be tricky, but they understand her and deal with her well. They give her all the support she needs to feel secure and cared for. She likes living there and likes the staff, who provide her with reassurance.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children develop strong and meaningful attachments with staff, who are committed to ensuring that they each receive the best care possible. Children spoke with warmth about the manager and staff, who they say provide them with unconditional care. One child said, ‘This is a great place to live. Staff stick with you no matter what. When I push them away, and I do this a lot, they are always there and don’t give up. It is obvious that they care, and this is the best children’s home that I have lived in.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children confirm that their views are routinely sought and acted on. There are ample opportunities for one-to-one discussions, key-worker sessions and children’s meetings. These forums enable children to influence how they are cared for, to make decisions about the running of the home and to influence change. Children gave a few examples of things that have changed, the best being the introduction of pets. Both children were keen to show the inspector their pets, which include a hamster, a vampire crab and shrimps.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff enjoy spending time with the children and provide lots of opportunities for them to pursue their interests, enjoy life and have fun. Staff capture these memories in colourful and child-friendly memory books that provide a pictorial record of the child’s experiences and progress, as an important reminder of their positive care journey when they leave. It was lovely to hear one child talk with enthusiasm about his holiday to Tenerife, entering Morris dancing competitions and raising money for charity. Equally as nice was hearing the other child talk with pride about her role on the children’s care council and as a young inspector for her placing authority.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Care planning and care practice are highly individualised. The manager and staff have a comprehensive understanding of each child’s needs and provide them with a bespoke package of support. They work closely with partner agencies to ensure that children receive the services and support they require to make progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The manager is a strong advocate for the children and will generally challenge partner agencies when their contribution to care planning is anything less than satisfactory. However, the failure by the placing authority to commence the pathway planning process for one child has not been challenged. The impact of not having this formal plan is to some extent offset by the manager’s focus on driving forward children’s plans.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children are supported well to engage in education. Staff work closely with education professionals and promote a collaborative approach to helping children overcome barriers to participation and to fulfil their potential. Although not without challenges, both children are making progress in terms of attendance and progress, relative to their individual needs and past learning experiences.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff recognise the complexities of the relationships that exist between the children and their families. They work hard to help the children to understand, manage and improve Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 5 these relationships and to maintain positive and safe contact with important people. A social worker said, ‘Staff have been brilliant in helping [name] in so many ways, including keeping in touch with key people. The service offered by the staff is excellent and has supported so many improvements for [name].’

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

Observations throughout the inspection indicate that children feel a strong sense of belonging. Children told the inspector that they feel safe and cared for and that they can talk to staff if they are worried or concerned.

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

Staff thoroughly plan how they can keep the children safe. They work in partnership with each child to develop age-appropriate strategies of support that help them to safely manage behaviours such as self-harm. A good balance is achieved between keeping the child safe and their right to take risks.

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

The manager and staff are trained in safeguarding and demonstrate a good understanding of their roles and responsibilities in keeping children safe. Effective links have been established with a range of safeguarding agencies. These links have been effectively used to provide proportionate and professionally informed responses to behaviours such as going missing from home and substance misuse.

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

Staff are positive role models for children, who are respectful of staff. Children benefit from a structured environment, with clear boundaries and planned daily routines. They are helped to take responsibility for their behaviour and conduct, to respect others and to be sensitive to each other’s feelings. If there are tensions, staff swiftly defuse them, facilitating dialogue between the children. This way, children learn to negotiate and compromise. A social worker said, ‘The children living at the home are very different and staff are really good at managing this difficult dynamic.’

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

The home provides a family-style and nurturing environment, which is personalised to children’s individual tastes. A range of health and safety procedures, risk assessments and checks are in place to ensure that children live in a safe and well-maintained environment.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The home is run effectively by a qualified and experienced manager. The inspection took place at a time of significant change as the home transfers from one organisation to another. This change will ultimately result in the manager ceasing to manage this home and focusing on another home for which she is registered. Succession planning has begun in this respect, with the manager mentoring and developing a trainee manager to take over this home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager is dedicated and emotionally invested in the children in her care. She has successfully created an environment that nurtures, values and supports individual young Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 6 people to secure and sustain positive outcomes. She has high expectations of her staff team, whose members are equally committed to improving children’s lives.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff talk with enthusiasm about the work they do and attribute much of this to the ethos and culture of the home. Some staff spoke about this being more than a job. There are numerous examples when staff have given up their own time to support children, such as attending meetings, awards ceremonies and birthday celebrations as well as supporting family contact and special activities. This level of commitment and staff going above and beyond the call of duty is recognised by social workers as a real strength of the home. One social worker said, ‘This is an excellent service. Staff are caring, considerate and patient with [name] and go above and beyond to meet his needs.’ Another social worker said, ‘The manager and staff are brilliant. If I had a children’s home I would employ them all.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff confirm that they feel supported by the manager, who is always available to them. They receive regular formal supervision, which they say is beneficial in improving their knowledge, skills and approach to caring for these children. Staff knowledge is further enhanced through a range of purposeful and needs relevant training opportunities. For example, having researched theraplay, the manager delivered this to her staff team, whose members have integrated this into practice for one child. A number of staff have not been trained in working with children with autism despite this being a diagnosis of one child living at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager maintains good oversight of staff practice, care planning and children’s progress. She implements a range of effective quality assurance processes that are used to promote an improvement agenda. When shortfalls are identified, expedient action is taken to make the necessary improvements. This includes addressing the requirement and recommendations from the previous inspection, all of which have been suitably addressed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The children’s guide needs updating. It does not currently include the contact details for the Office of the Children’s Commissioner.

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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 Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 7 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: SC046621 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Pathfinders (childcare) Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Middle Red Lumb Farm, Red Lumb, Rochdale OL12 7TX

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Elizabeth Cooper

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Inspector

Paul Scott: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC046621 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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