Children's home run by The Partnership of Care Today in Stockport

Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 1 SC021683 Registered provider: The Partnership of Care Today Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This is a partnership-run children’s home providing care and accommodation for up to four children who may have emotional and/or behavioural difficulties and/or learning disabilities. The home is run by an experienced registered manager who has been employed at the home since March 2007.

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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 requires improvement to be good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be 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: 12 September 2018

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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: SC021683 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/09/2018 Interim Sustained effectiveness 30/04/2018 Full Good 17/10/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 07/06/2017 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 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 education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

support each child’s learning and development, including helping the child to develop independent study skills and, where appropriate, helping the child to complete independent study;

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Requirement Due date

understand the barriers to learning that each child may face and take appropriate action to help the child to overcome any such barriers;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand the importance and value of education, learning, training and employment;

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Requirement Due date

promote opportunities for each child to learn informally;

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Requirement Due date

maintain regular contact with each child’s education and training provider, including engaging with the provider and the placing authority to support the child’s education and training and to maximise the child’s achievement;

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Requirement Due date

raise any need for further assessment or specialist provision in relation to a child with the child’s education or training provider and the child’s placing authority;

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Requirement Due date

help a child who is excluded from school, or who is of compulsory school age but not attending school, to access 29/05/2020 Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 4 educational and training support throughout the period of exclusion or non-attendance and to return to school as soon as possible;

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Requirement Due date

help each child who is above compulsory school age to participate in further education, training or employment and to prepare for future care, education or employment;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to attend education or training in accordance with the expectations in the child’s relevant plans; and

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Requirement Due date

that each child has access to appropriate equipment, facilities and resources to support the child’s learning. (Regulation 8 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(viii)(ix)(x) and (b)) The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop socially aware behaviour;

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Requirement Due date

encourage each child to take responsibility for the child’s behaviour, in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone;

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Requirement Due date

communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand, in a way that is appropriate according to the child’s age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be 29/05/2020 Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 5 supportive or harmful; and

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(viii)(ix)(x)(xi)(xii) and (xiii)) The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child; and use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b)(2)(a)(b)(c)(e)(h)) 29/05/2020

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Recommendations

 Ensure that case records, specifically of key-work sessions are maintained, kept up to date and recorded in a way that is helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3)

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The overall experience of young people in this home is good. Young people say that they are happy with the quality of care they receive and that they enjoy living in the home. Two young people were resident at the time of the inspection and a third young person was on home leave. Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 6 The structure of the home is two large Victorian houses joined together to form one big home. One side of the building provides care and accommodation for young people requiring semi-independent living, from the age of 16 to 18 years. The other side of the building is a children’s home. Generally, the home requires some modernisation and would benefit from a refurbishment to ensure that it maintains a homely environment and has enough communal areas. The staff office and manager’s office are situated at the top of the building. This can make it difficult for managers to be accessible to staff

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

and young people or for managers to be in tune with the day-to-day activities within the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The strengths of the home are to support young people to transition to live independently or return home to family. One young person has successfully moved to live in his own flat and has a full-time job. Another young person has moved back to live in his family home. Staff continue to support young people when they leave the home post- 18 years of age. They have worked with families to ensure that a successful transition takes place and on occasion have helped to furnish and/or decorate the new living environment.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Young people have access to primary care health services and are registered with the local services. Local drug agencies provide support for those young people who require some support due to their substance misuse. For one young person, substance misuse has reduced.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Although young people have access to education at the point of referral, young people would benefit from more detailed plans from the placing authority regarding their education plans. This would ensure that young people have a clear plan and are in education without delay. This is important for those young people who have been out of education for some time and require bespoke education plans. Some young people are not in full-time education and would benefit from structured activities to ensure that they benefit from a range of learning opportunities and do not get bored. A young person said, ‘I like it here. Sometimes it is boring as I don’t have much to do.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One young person spoke to the inspector about his experience of living in the home, ‘It is fair, and I like living here. There’s a good compromise between staff and they let you do stuff.’

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improvement to be good

Young people are helped and protected by a staff team that is committed to keeping young people safe. All young people have risk assessments and staff have a good understanding of any risks. This ensures that all young people are kept safe. Young people do not sign risk assessments and consequently young people may lack some understanding of the concerns regarding their risk-taking behaviours. Missing from care procedures are suitably followed for those young people who are missing from care. Staff work alongside the police and social workers to ensure the safe return of young people. Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 7 Young people have key-work sessions with staff and some of these sessions are not always recorded. The sessions lack content and are often completed in response to an incident rather than structured sessions. Consequently, young people may not fully learn to understand their behaviours or learn skills to change behaviours without the

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improvement to be good

opportunity to reflect and think about their actions.

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improvement to be good

All young people have impact assessments prior to coming to the home. A significant and important piece of information was missed on one young person’s file. This may have had significant safeguarding concerns for this young person and other young people in the home. Management oversight may have prevented this from occurring. No serious safeguarding incidents occurred due to this error.

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improvement to be good

Young people are helped and supported to have successful transitions to independence. Staff support young people with key life skills such as cooking, shopping, budgeting and employment and training opportunities. Young people successfully move through the transition process to help them lead more independent lives. Staff will continue to support the young person for a period and recognise that for some young people this can be a lonely time.

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improvement to be good

Staff help young people to repair fractious family relationships and support young people to have positive contact with their friends and family members.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The registered manager is a committed and nurturing manager. He speaks of the young people with genuine love and care. The registered manager has been in post for several years. The registered manager understands the needs of young people and will go above and beyond to support young people. He is supported by a deputy manager who has also been in her role for many years.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Some staff have been in post for several years. This demonstrates a committed workforce whose members enjoy coming to work and want to help young people. The registered manager reported that sometimes staff are reluctant to take on additional tasks and acknowledged there have been some shortfalls in staff and management oversight in ensuring that files are kept up to date. The inspector felt that there was clearly lots of good-quality work being done in the home, but this was hard to evidence due to lack of recording. A requirement has been made to address this matter to ensure that the manager addresses his role and responsibilities and promotes active teamwork.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Staff have regular training opportunities to ensure that they are kept up to date with new knowledge and learning to inform their practice. Staff also have access to regular supervision. The quality of supervision could be improved as supervision sessions are not reflective and evidence showed that supervision recordings were repetitive. Reflective supervision would allow staff to think in depth about their practice and how they can look to improve this.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Internal and external monitoring tools help the registered manager to evaluate the Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 8 strengths and weaknesses of his home. An independent visitor provides scrutiny and evaluation of the home and sets any required recommendations. The registered manager is expected to respond in a timely manner to ensure that improvements to the home are completed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

There are good working relationships with professionals. All professionals that were consulted as part of the inspection spoke highly of the home and staff team. A social worker said, ‘I can’t ask for more support for [name]. They really supported [name] a lot. One good thing is that they have been able to support him in the best interest for him. They go out of their way.’

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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: SC021683 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Partnership of Care Today

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Lansdowne House, 85 Buxton Road, Stockport, Cheshire SK2 6LR

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Inspector

Kamal Bhamra: social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC021683 10 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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