Children's home run by The Qalb Short Break Services Ltd in Tower Hamlets

SC420303 Registered provider: The Qalb Short Break Services 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

A limited company owns and manages this service. The local authority funds the service for the exclusive use of families and children living in this inner-city borough. The home provides short breaks for up to five children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities. It specialises in providing a service to children who are diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder.

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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: 12 December 2018

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/12/2018 Full Outstanding 30/11/2017 Full Outstanding 13/02/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 11/08/2016 Full Outstanding

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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 protection of children standard The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that the effectiveness of the home’s child protection policies is monitored regularly. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(e)) In particular, closed-circuit television (CCTV) monitoring screens should only be accessible to those staff who need to see the images at the time. 03/06/2020

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(d)) This relates specifically to protecting the privacy of children’s rooms, which are overlooked by neighbouring buildings, and ensuring that electrical plug sockets are covered. 03/06/2020

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Recommendations

 Staff should be familiar with the home’s policies on record keeping and 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)

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Recommendations

These relate to the recording of incidents to include specific staff involved and specific behaviour management techniques used to manage behaviour.

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Inspection judgements

Children make excellent progress. This is significant given their starting points. Children are supported to learn vital living skills in a short period of time, for example how to shower, change into clean clothing and tell an adult when their clothing is wet or dry.

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Inspection judgements

Staff regularly review the targets set for children with the child’s parents. This ensures that children are supported to do more things for themselves.

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Inspection judgements

Children have fun. Staff plan for and offer a range of creative activities for children with autism spectrum disorder. Staff act on children’s wishes to ensure that they are grouped together with their peers during their stay. This enables children to build friendships. One parent said, ‘At home, I am sometimes focused on routines all the time. My child has fun and does fun activities when he is on break (at the home).’

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Inspection judgements

The home has a culture that ensures that children make excellent progress. Staff have appropriately high expectations for children. One parent said, ‘I can see a lot of difference in my child since he started staying at the home. He is happy there; he can tell me what he wants for breakfast now, which makes me very happy.’

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Inspection judgements

Children benefit from excellent levels of support in managing their health. Staff use research effectively to understand rare medical conditions and improve the health of children. Where children are non-verbal the results of this research also has the consequence of improving their behaviour and comfort levels.

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Inspection judgements

Staff invest in the betterment of the wider community. They make time to help parents, for example by helping parents to fill in application forms and liaising on their behalf with the local authority. The home was nominated for, and won, the Community Champions award for 2019.

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

Leaders, managers and staff work hard to ensure that children are safe. Risk assessments consider the individual needs of children, with safety plans highlighting the actions that staff must take to reduce any risk of harm.

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

Risk and behaviour management plans are comprehensive, well written and frequently reviewed. They include the views of the parents on how they would like their children’s behaviour to be managed.

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

Staff make great efforts in ensuring that children’s wishes, and feelings are heard and acted upon. Children can express their views easily using innovative and individualised communication mechanisms, such as the use of pictorial style feedback questionnaires. This has a significant influence on shaping the service.

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

Staff demonstrated a very good understanding of how to safeguard children. They receive effective training on how to safeguard children, particularly those with autism spectrum disorder and additional needs.

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

One-to-one staffing levels ensure that children receive individual staff attention. Staff are on hand to promote children’s positive behaviour and intervene appropriately to avoid any escalation of challenging behaviours. Staff use praise to reinforce positive behaviour. For example, one staff member was seen to say, ‘Good boy, well done,’ to a request for the child not to put their feet on the furniture.

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

Staff are highly effective in managing incidents where children display challenging behaviour. These incidents are managed very well using distraction and de- escalation techniques. Staff were observed to effectively de-escalate and settle children very quickly. However, the recording of these incidents does not always include details of the specific staff involved or the techniques used in managing the child’s behaviour.

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

Staff recruitment processes are good. Staff complete induction programmes that prepare them well for work within this home. Staff have a supervised period of shadowing before undertaking key-work duties. This allows staff the time to get to know children, understand some of their communication methods and emotional and behavioural triggers, and how best to keep them safe.

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

The home environment is clean and tidy. However, the use of forward-facing closed- circuit television (CCTV) monitors means that visitors who drop children off can view the CCTV images of children in communal areas. In addition, windows in the upper part of the building do not currently protect the children from being seen from neighbouring buildings. Electrical plug sockets also need safety covers.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager is experienced and qualified and has been in post since the opening of the home. She has maintained a stable and highly skilled work force, including long-standing permanent and sessional staff. This has meant that staffing has been consistent, and morale is high. This has fostered better relationship- building with children and staff’s understanding of children’s needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers and staff are passionate about the well-being and development of the children that they care for. They place the well-being of the children at the centre of their practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Children’s learning needs are extremely well supported. Key workers routinely visit young people’s schools as part of the centre’s admissions process, and periodically thereafter, to share and obtain information that ensures that home and school care practices are effective and consistent.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers have created an exemplary ethos and culture of learning and continuous improvement. This is particularly evident where managers promote the use of research to understand and respond better to children’s needs. Staff are encouraged to understand children’s behaviours, diagnosis and patterns and can demonstrate effectively their practical use of research in improving children’s outcomes.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers and staff have developed excellent relationships with other professionals. Managers are proactive when there is a change within the professional network and look to build relationships and establish good communication. This ensures that there is continuity to the services that children receive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager displays an in-depth understanding of the strengths and plans for improvement of the service. She tailors the services provided to children to ensure that they receive the best possible care.

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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’.

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Qalb Short Break Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 35 Beaufort Court, Admirals Way, South Quay Waterside, London E14 9XL

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Inspectors

Jayshree Pillay, social care inspector Sandra Jacobs-Wall, social care inspector 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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