Children's Home run by Aspris Children’s Services Limited in Hampshire

Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 1 SC449307 Registered provider: Priory Education Services Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to seven children. Currently, all the children living in the home are girls. A large private organisation owns the home and also provides education. The statement of purpose states that the home supports children who have complex needs which may include emotional and behavioural difficulties, epilepsy, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, oppositional defiant disorder, autism spectrum disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.

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Information about this children’s home

Ofsted registered the manager on 7 September 2019.

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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

Date of last inspection: 20 November 2018

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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: SC449307 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/11/2018 Full Outstanding 20/03/2018 Full Outstanding 07/02/2017 Interim Improved effectiveness 26/07/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 3

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outstanding

Children have made exceptional progress since coming to live in this home, considering their starting points. Typically, children move from specialist providers where they have had limited, if any, opportunities to interact with the local community or, sometimes, their peers. Before that, they may have presented significant safeguarding concerns. Children’s attendance at education in a school setting was in many cases very low.

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outstanding

Children’s progress has included obtaining a part-time job, joining in regular activities in the community, high school attendance records and an increasing ability to manage difficult emotions. This is testament to the relationships staff have patiently made with children who have often previously been wary of becoming close to adults.

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outstanding

The environment reflects the children’s personalities and preferences, in terms of decor and photographs of activities they have been involved in. Their suggestions for things that would improve their experience of living in the home have been acted on where possible, including a large inflatable pool for the garden and to have a takeaway meal once a month. Children count themselves as fortunate to live, or have lived, at the home. One said, ‘It is an amazing home and the staff do a brilliant job… and are the most caring.’

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outstanding

Staff arrange activities to be positive experiences that help the group to bond, to give a child a special memory or to assist children to use local facilities, such as providing gym memberships.

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outstanding

Meals are taken together and there is lots of conversation. Staff take opportunities to talk about issues as they arise, for example a discussion about safely crossing local roads. This helps children to be receptive to information and advice.

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outstanding

Some children have been concerned that when an incident occurs the staff on shift need to manage it, leaving others feeling on their own. Nevertheless, the home’s rotas show that sufficient staff are available to meet assessed needs and incident records demonstrate that these are managed well.

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outstanding

The manager and staff welcome children to the home thoughtfully, adjusting the process to go at the child’s pace. This follows effective impact risk assessments and preparation for the existing residents as well as the child moving in. Soon after arriving, children are able to make their rooms their own by choosing their own bedding, items of furniture and colour of walls. This helps children to settle quickly.

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outstanding

Staff focus on children increasing their independence skills. As they grow older, children may move to bedrooms with en suite facilities, taking responsibility for keeping them clean. One child said, ‘I think we are very lucky here. I love my room.’ Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 4 The team helps children to move on from the home even when this is unplanned. Staff have acted to ensure children’s well-being and continued to assist subsequent moves by, for example, helping with transport and meeting new carers. One professional said that, ‘They were a really big part of helping my young person to settle in her new placement.’

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outstanding

The manager is very concerned to do all she can to support children through any safeguarding issues and to ensure that they are protected from harm. She keeps children, professionals and families informed of progress and actions taken. The staff are clear about the actions they need to take if they have concerns, including how to escalate matters inside or outside the organisation if necessary.

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outstanding

Staff help children to keep themselves safe by giving them alternative strategies to manage negative emotions and to boost their sense of self-worth. As a result, episodes of harmful or risk-taking behaviour, including going missing, tend to decrease in frequency and severity over time. One child commented, ‘You can’t just stop [but] now I can say how I feel, and I haven’t harmed myself in ages.’

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outstanding

Staff take actions from children’s education, health and care plans, discuss them with children and set targets for children to attain. These have been extremely effective as agreed rewards motivate children to achieve them and success increases their confidence. Examples include children cooking their own meals from a personal budget and organising an activity.

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outstanding

The manager has effective tools for tracking children’s progress which ensure that targets are adapted if they are not being met or advance when they are. The tools demonstrate improvements in skills, social engagement and educational accomplishment over time. There is evidence that children maintain the skills they have learned after the target is no longer in use. This means that children build on their successes and see themselves as competent people. Although there are setbacks, children regain ground afterwards and continue to face future challenges well.

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outstanding

Key workers hold regular conversations and sessions with children on relevant topics, including goals, trying new foods, keeping safe and spending money. Children are able to raise concerns and know how to complain. The manager has promptly dealt with these to the child’s satisfaction.

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outstanding

Human resources staff follow safer recruitment procedures meticulously, with close attention given to obtaining full employment histories and appropriate references. Written risk assessments give clear accounts of how decisions have been made. The provider also checks that therapists are qualified and have the necessary clinical support to work with children. This means staff are only engaged once everything has been done to avoid unsuitable people joining the workforce. Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 5 Some children are able to stay with their families at weekends and holidays and staff work closely with parents to ensure continuity of care. Parents said that this was extremely helpful to them and their children, particularly as they feel able to seek advice even when their daughters are at home with them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager leads a team that is strongly committed to the girls living in the home. Their collective ambition is to enable children to overcome significant mental health issues, and the detrimental ways they have used to cope with them, to become rounded individuals and able to make their own way in the world. Their work means that these aims, encapsulated in the home’s statement of purpose, are extremely well met.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There are high standards of care in the home, including for the environment and for the staff who work in it. A pattern of weekly and monthly audits, including incidents, accidents, medication, policies and upcoming events, gives the manager a detailed understanding of the home’s strengths and weaknesses. However, the manager has not identified that a number of documents do not give the name of the author and a date they were written. Staff sign some records but it is not clear who by as they do not also add their names. This compromises accountability.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has dealt with complaints well, but in the most complex instance records were not clear about the nature of the concerns, the person making the complaint or who the author of the records was. In addition, the final letter informing the complainant of the outcome had not been placed on file. This hinders anyone who does not know the background circumstances from understanding how the investigation was conducted.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Reports provided by the independent person conducting Regulation 44 visits are effective tools to improve the quality of care. Different people undertake an environmental audit of the home, including people who do not work there, so as to get a wider scrutiny of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home has a similar pattern of staff turnover as others in the sector and workers who have responded to point in time surveys say that pay scales are something they would like to improve. Nevertheless, managers have avoided the use of agency or other workers unknown to the children by the use of overtime, regular bank workers or undertaking shifts themselves.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The staff team members feel well supported by managers and by each other. Good induction programmes, ongoing training and supervision mean that they are confident in dealing with the significant issues that children often present.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Children are able to contribute to their care planning, for example on child-friendly behaviour support plans, although staff do not necessarily transfer their ideas about what helps to the formal versions. Placement plans give limited information on how staff should meet children’s cultural needs. Known facts about their ethnic or religious background are not always included nor details of how links to the Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 6 communities from which they come from can be maintained. Similarly, plans do not address how children could develop positive values and attitudes towards their heritage and greater resilience to discrimination.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and staff have developed positive relationships with placing authorities and liaise well with social workers, the police, other professionals and parents. This ensures that appropriate information is shared to facilitate the highest level of all- round support for children. This approach stems from the manager, who uses her communication skills to effectively promote children’s welfare and to advocate on their behalf. One parent said the manager ‘is so on the ball and she helped me to contact the right people’. Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 7

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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 order to meet the quality and purpose of care standard the registered person is required to:

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background. (Regulation 6 (2)(b)(iv)) ‘Background’ includes a child’s gender, religion, ethnicity, culture, language, sexual identity, mental health, any disability, assessed needs and previous experiences. 31/03/2020

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Recommendations

 Staff should encourage children to share any concerns about their care or other matters as soon as they arise. Children must be able to take up issues or make a complaint with support and without any fear that this will result in any adverse consequences. Regulation 39 sets out the requirements on the registered person to have a complaints procedure. Children must be aware of this procedure and be reminded of it as necessary. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 23, paragraph 4.13) In particular, records should contain what the complaint was, the action taken and the outcome of investigations so that the process and how it led to the outcome is clear. The record should include whether the complainant was satisfied with the outcome or not.  Children should be encouraged by staff to see the home’s records as ‘living documents’ supporting them to view and contribute to the record in a way that

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Recommendations

reflects their voice on a regular basis. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 58, paragraph 11.19)  Case records must be kept up to date, signed, and dated by the author of each entry. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3) In particular, the name of the member of staff making the record should be clear. Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 8

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and young people, 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: SC449307 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Priory Education Services Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Fifth Floor, 80 Hammersmith Road, London W14 8UD

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Inspector

Chris Peel, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC449307 10 to 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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