Children's home run by Choices Home for Children Limited

Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 1 Registered provider: Choices Home For Children Limited

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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 provides care and accommodation for up to three young people aged between 11 and 17 years old who require a medium- to long-term placement. The home supports children and young people who are at risk of child sexual exploitation, and who have had emotional and behavioural difficulties and who have had multiple placement breakdowns in the past.

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Information about this children’s home

There is no registered manager in post. An acting manager was in post until October 2019 but was moved to another home. The deputy manager of the home was asked to step up to the position and is in the process of completing an application to Ofsted to be registered.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.

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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 26 September 2018

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

26/09/2018 Full Good 05/02/2018 Interim Sustained effectiveness 02/08/2017 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 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 order to meet the health and well-being standard the registered person must ensure that the health and well-being needs of children are met; children receive advice, services and support in relation to their health and well-being. (Regulation 10(1)(a)(b)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— mutual respect and trust; an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and 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 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 supportive or harmful. (Regulation 11(a)(b)(c)(2)(a)(vi)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

In order to meet the protection of children standard the registered person must ensure that staff assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child. In particular, missing- from-home incidents and take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; that the home’s day- to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12(2)(a)(i)(vi)(b)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard 23/04/2020 Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 4 The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that 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 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; ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child; understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home; 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)(e)(f)(h))

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children— receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home; and have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the home. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 14(1)(a)(b)(2)(a)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it; and notify HMCI of any revision and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days. (Regulation 16(3)(a)(b)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

After consultation with the fire and rescue authority, the registered person must take adequate precautions against the risk of fire, including the provision of suitable fire equipment in the children’s home; ensure, by means of fire drills and practices at suitable intervals, that persons working at the home and, so far as reasonably practicable, children are aware of the procedure to be followed in case of fire. (Regulation 25(1)(a)(d)) 23/04/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if— 23/04/2020 Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 5 a child is involved in or subject to, or is suspected of being involved in or subject to, sexual exploitation; an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child which the registered person considers to be serious; there is an allegation of abuse against the home or a person working there; a child protection enquiry involving a child — is instigated; or concludes (in which case, the notification must include the outcome of the child protection enquiry); or there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40(4)(a– d)(i)(ii)(e))

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Requirement Due date

The independent person must provide a copy of the independent person’s report to HMCI. (Regulation 44(7)(a)) 23/04/2020

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Recommendations

 The registered person should develop and implement an internal quality assurance monitoring and reviewing system to ensure that practice is consistently good and ensure the continuous improvement of practice (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24), in particular the quality assurance of practice.  Children’s homes staff should encourage children to take a proactive role in looking after their day-to-day health and well-being. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 34, paragraph 7.10) In particular, the policies and procedures regarding young people smoking tobacco must be adhered to.  The use of external agency staff can be a positive choice to complement the skills and experiences of the permanent workforce. The use of agency staff should be carefully monitored and reviewed to ensure children receive continuity of care. (‘Guide to the

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Recommendations

children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.16)  The registered person is responsible for ensuring that each child’s day to day health and well-being needs are met. Children’s internal care plans should clearly reflect their needs, to enable staff to support children’s physical, mental and emotional health, in line with the approach set out in the home’s Statement of Purpose. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 33, paragraph 7.3)  The registered person must ensure that the behaviour management strategy is understood and applied at all times by staff, and must be kept under review and revised where appropriate. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.34) Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 6  Ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record keeping and

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Recommendations

understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. 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) Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 7

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The care and experiences of children are poor. The last four months have been a turbulent time for the home, with significant changes to its senior management and staff team. Since the start of November 2019, 18 staff have cared for the children, along with an additional eight agency workers. This does not promote continuity or stability for the children and has resulted in an unsettled and unsafe environment for the children living in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Senior managers have shown poor judgement in admitting new children to the home during this unsettled period and this has resulted in further poor experiences for the children. This includes one placing authority removing a child due to concerns relating to poor safeguarding and poor quality of care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Despite staff providing children with regular key-working sessions, staff do not show any professional curiosity about children’s experiences, welfare or safety. Nor do they provide sufficiently effective support to ensure that children make progress. Children are not provided with opportunities to explore issues such as going missing from the home, sexual health, healthy relationships, self-harm and how to keep themselves safe. For example, when children have shared views, wishes and feelings that raise concerns about their welfare, staff have failed to take appropriate action. Consequently, staff do not provide children with opportunities to understand the impact of their past experiences on their current behaviour. This failure leaves children highly vulnerable and their welfare not protected.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The premises are homely and welcoming, but some aspects of practice have compromised the health and safety of children and staff. For example, a smoke detector had not been fitted following a fire inspection 20 days previously, and the fridge contained a substantial amount of out-of-date food. The bath panel in the bathroom was not in a good state of repair.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Although staff promote children’s health by ensuring that they are registered with relevant health professionals when they are admitted to the home, staff do not always have the full information about the children that they are looking after. There was limited evidence to demonstrate the action taken by the manager to obtain all information about children from the placing authority. For example, there was no care plan, risk assessment, behaviour management or health plan for a child who was recently admitted. This meant that staff lacked the necessary information to inform their work about how to care for the child and keep them safe. Staff do not proactively support smoking cessation.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Some children make positive progress. They are supported to attend school and there is effective communication to support learning. However, staff do not always have sufficient capacity to support children when they are in crisis in the school environment and on one occasion this led to teaching staff calling the police to support them to manage a Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 8 child’s behaviour. This led to further distress for the child, which may have been avoidable if staff had been available.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff promote contact between children and their families in line with their care plans. This ensures that children can maintain relationships with people in their lives who are important to them.

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

Staff do not manage relationships between children in the home effectively in order to prevent or minimise the risk of children harming each other. This has had an impact on the welfare and safety of children living at the home. On occasions, staff have failed to seek medical attention following incidents between children where injuries have been sustained, even when concerns about those injuries have been raised by the child’s school.

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

Incidents of physical intervention are not being recorded in line with the regulations. Therefore, there is no record of when a hold is used to restrain a child, the type of hold, its length and any injury to the child as a result. Nor is there a record of the debrief of staff or the child recorded. This fails to promote the safety of children by ensuring that there is effective monitoring of physical intervention and any patterns or themes that are occurring as a result.

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

Individual risk assessments for children at risk of self-harm or sexually harmful behaviour lack sufficient detail about the specific actions that staff should take to reduce these risks. Because of the lack of clear guidance for staff to follow, children do not receive a consistent approach from staff in trying to reduce this risk and keep children safe.

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

Staff do not follow risk management strategies that are agreed by children’s social workers to keep them safe. This includes safeguards to minimise the risk of child sexual exploitation and self-harm. As a direct result of this, children have been harmed. Managers and staff do not understand the importance of maintaining careful, objective and clear records. Not all incidents where children are at potential risk of harm are recognised as significant and recorded.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

There is a total lack of professional knowledge on the part of the senior managers and staff within the organisation. Poor and inconsistent practice has compromised the safety and welfare of children in the company’s care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home has been without a registered manager since October 2019, when the manager in post was moved to another home within the company. The deputy manager was asked to act as interim manager and states that they are in the process of completing their application to Ofsted. They have a level 3 diploma in residential childcare. Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 9 The home has been without a responsible individual since October 2019 and a new appointment was made only very recently. Since this inspection, the newly appointed responsible individual has withdrawn from their role. The lack of senior management oversight of the home has contributed to the significant deterioration of standards and care. In addition, given that the deputy is very new to the position of manager, they have not received sufficient mentorship and support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Despite staff having been provided with a significant amount of training, there are still gaps in some staff’s knowledge. For example, the statement of purpose for the home states that it cares for children who are at risk of child sexual exploitation, yet staff have only received a one-day training session in understanding how to support children who are at risk of sexual exploitation, one of the main functions of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The home’s statement of purpose has not been submitted to Ofsted since January 2019, and in this period, there have been significant changes in the staffing and the managerial oversight of the home. In addition, the document does not provide detail of how to contact Ofsted should people wish to complain.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Although Regulation 44 visits have taken place, the reports have not been forwarded to HMCI as required by regulation. The organisation has not used the recommendations to secure improvement in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff receive monthly supervision in line with the home’s policy. Although staff report this to be positive, this process is not being used as an opportunity for management to feed back on staff practice and improve the quality of care at the home.

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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: 1252125 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Choices Home For Children Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 31 Wellington Road, Nantwich, Cheshire CW5 7ED

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Inspector

Elaine Clare, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: 1252125 11 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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