Children's Home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Birmingham

Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 1 SC396463 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare 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

The home is privately owned and provides care for up to two children who have social and emotional difficulties. The manager has the level 5 diploma in leadership and management.

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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 December 2018

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/12/2018 Full Good 07/08/2017 Full Good 27/02/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 11/05/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 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

This regulation applies to a child who is looked after by a local authority. The registered person must co-operate with the child’s placing authority in agreeing and signing the child’s placement plan. (Regulation 17 (1)(2)) 08/03/20

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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)) 08/03/20

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have positive relationships with staff and can talk to them about their wishes and feelings. Children are offered a range of opportunities by staff to express their views and be involved in day-to day-decisions about their lives. For example, children attend meetings, have regular key-work sessions and complete feedback forms. Staff act on what children say and so children feel valued and listened to.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive effectively planned care. Staff work hard to understand children’s starting points and work with children at their own pace to help them to make progress. Children who were at crisis point when they moved in have settled into good routines and are making some good progress. The staff’s approach to providing individualised care promotes positive outcomes for children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure that children attend routine health appointments. One child who recently moved into the home had several outstanding health appointments. Staff worked hard with this child and, by offering incentives and developing trust, within a relatively short time this child attended all his appointments. In addition, the registered manager and Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 4 staff ensure that children are offered specialist support when needed. For example, the registered manager advocated on behalf of one child for his needs to be re-assessed. As a result of good care, children’s physical health and therapeutic needs are understood and met.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children participate in a range of social activities and staff work hard to understand and encourage children to develop interests, hobbies and lead healthy lifestyles. This enables children to experience a range of activities, have fun and increase their confidence.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have access to appropriate educational opportunities. For children attending school, staff work closely with teachers to ensure that the children have the appropriate support. For children who are not yet in school, they work with a tutor while suitable education provision is sought. Children’s case files do not contain updated educational plans. This means that information contained in children’s case files is not always reflective of their current needs and support plans.

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

Staff manage children’s challenging behaviours well. There have only been two incidents requiring physical intervention to manage children’s behaviours and keep them safe, since the last inspection. There is good management oversight of these incidents and children and staff have follow-up sessions to explore their views and feelings about what happened. This ensures that staff and children are offered opportunities to learn from such incidents and that these incidents are handled fairly and proportionately.

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

Staff understand and address the risks that relate to children harming themselves. As a result, children’s self-harming incidents have significantly reduced. Staff work with children to help them to understand potential triggers and to explore alternative ways of dealing with their feelings.

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

When children go missing from the home, staff follow the protocols in place. They try to maintain contact with children, locate them and inform relevant authorities promptly. The registered manager and staff work closely with relevant agencies, such as the police and social workers, to understand why children go missing from the home and offer a well- coordinated response to reduce missing-from-home incidents. This helps to keep children safe.

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

The registered manager and staff understand their role and responsibilities in relation to protecting children. They promptly refer safeguarding concerns to relevant authorities, and children are offered support and guidance. This protects children and promotes their welfare.

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

The registered manager ensures that new staff are subject to thorough recruitment checks. This helps to ensure that staff working in the home are suitable to provide care for children. Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 5

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has a good understanding of the strengths and needs of the service. He continues to have high expectations of staff and children. Staff work passionately to provide children with consistently good-quality care, which helps children to make progress in different aspects of their development

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff receive regular reflective supervision. As a result, staff have opportunities to talk about their practice and work on their professional development. Staff feel valued and supported.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Most of the staff working in the home are qualified to level 3 and have worked in the home for several years. This offers children stability and consistency. The staff team is very experienced and knowledgeable. Staff keep on top of their learning to ensure that they are aware of current issues, and this includes training in areas such as radicalisation, county lines and adverse childhood experiences. This enables staff to have the skills and knowledge to respond to children’s needs and behaviours appropriately.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager works closely with the local police and other organisations. This good partnership working enables the registered manager to keep up to date with potential risks in the local area and to work with staff to address any issues.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There are some shortfalls in the manager’s monitoring and reviewing of information in children’s case files. For example, for one child, the meeting minutes following his child care review are not on file. In addition, his placement plan has not been signed by the placing authority and the provider. This shortfall in record keeping has not had an impact on the child’s care to date, but it has the potential to cause delay and confusion over care arrangements and plans if unaddressed.

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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: SC396463 6

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Metropolitan House, 3 Darkes Road, Potters Bar EN6 1AG

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Inspector

Shazana Jamal, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC396463 7 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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