Children's home run by Enhanceable in Kingston upon Thames

Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 1 SC490136 Registered provider: EnhanceAble Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

EnhanceAble is a registered charity and not-for-profit organisation. The home currently provides short breaks for nine children. In its statement of purpose, the provider states that care is intended for children who have learning disabilities, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties, sensory impairment and/or physical disabilities. The registered manager was registered by Ofsted in September 2018.

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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 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: 10 January 2019

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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: SC490136 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

10/01/2019 Full Good 12/10/2017 Full Outstanding 30/03/2017 Interim Sustained effectiveness 16/08/2016 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy their short breaks in this home. The smiles on their faces and the positive body language clearly say so. The home resounds with happy giggles and laughter.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have excellent communication skills and enable children to improve their own communication skills. Staff carefully listen to children and are highly attentive towards them. Staff respond with great skill to children’s behaviours, recognising when they need something or when they are becoming anxious.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The care is individually tailored to meet children’s needs and to promote their identity. Children have comprehensive and up-to-date care plans and they experience consistency, routine and stability.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The communication between the home and parents is excellent. Children benefit from the strong partnership between their families and staff. One parent talked about staff giving her helpful advice on how to support her daughter better at home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff also work in close partnership with other professionals. Specific health plans, such as epilepsy plans, ensure that children’s health needs are met, even when those needs are highly complex. A robust medication procedure helps to protect children’s health and welfare.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff make sure that children receive the nutrition that they need. Staff provide healthy food that children like, such as blueberries, apples and yogurts. Staff follow detailed feeding plans for children who need that level of support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff sensitively provide personal care to children and they encourage and enable children to become more independent. Children freely explore the home’s safe physical environment and play with various toys. The easy access to the playground with a sensory garden gives children extra opportunities to be active.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy a wide range of activities with staff. They love going for walks, swimming and bowling. They go to the cinema to see films of their choice and they visit local attractions.

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

Children are kept safe in the home. Staff’s vigilance and skills underpin the effective protection of children. Staffing is maintained at high levels at all times, as the children lack an awareness of danger.

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

Children are rarely involved in any incidents. When incidents do occur, they are managed well. There have been no incidents of children going missing from this home. Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 4 Risk management practices safeguard children effectively. Children have risk assessments and safety plans that consider a comprehensive range of risks. These include risks associated with social media, bullying, different types of exploitation, radicalisation and female genital mutilation.

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

Behaviour management practices in the home are effective in helping children to develop more constructive behaviours. Staff understand children’s behaviours as a form of communication. An example of the effectiveness of this approach is a child who used to display challenging behaviours every time he stayed at the home in 2018, but this behaviour had disappeared by the following year.

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

Staff use physical interventions appropriately and as a last resort to ensure the safety of everybody involved. However, the records of physical interventions do not show that there is always an appropriate management follow-up after an incident. This limits any potential learning from the incidents.

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

The procedure for recruiting staff is an area for improvement. Some staff files lack documentary evidence of qualifications and there is no explanation of a gap in employment on one staff file. The weaknesses in recruitment increase the risk to children of being looked after by staff who are not suitable for the role.

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good

Many aspects of leadership and management are strong. Parents and professionals external to the home talked highly about the quality of care that children receive. One parent said: ‘The attitude of the staff is that the child always comes first and they do everything in his (the child’s) interest and to support our family.’

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good

The registered manager ensures that short breaks are planned meticulously and managed well. The registered manager often works directly with children and provides excellent practice leadership to staff.

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good

However, the home is not always fully compliant with legislation and quality standards. Alongside one new recommendation, two requirements and two recommendations that were raised at the last inspection are repeated in this inspection report. The staff files remain incomplete. Managers have again not completed a six-monthly report on the quality of care and sent it to Ofsted, as required.

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good

New requirements have also been made in this inspection report. The new requirements relate to the gaps in the management oversight of the physical interventions, the frequency of the independent visits to the home, and staff appraisals.

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good

The home does not have a staff workforce plan. The team is relatively inexperienced in providing residential children’s care, although staff members have many Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 5 transferable skills and they enjoy working with the children. Staff are committed to learning and have access to a comprehensive training programme. They receive regular supervision that assists with their professional development.

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good

The building has been repainted and new flooring has been fitted. However, some furniture and fittings need repair. The maintenance arrangement is not working well, with reported delays in responding to the home’s requests.

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good

Uncertainty around the future of this home has had a negative impact on how the leaders and managers have discharged their responsibilities. The organisation has recently secured a new contract with the local authority for continuing to provide short breaks on its behalf, until the end of March 2021. The continued non- compliance with some regulations and quality standards has not had an observably negative impact on the children’s experiences and safety. Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 6

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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 registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person may only— employ an individual to work at the children’s home; or if an individual is employed by a person other than the registered person to work at the home in a position in which the individual may have regular contact with children, allow that individual to work at the home, if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3).

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Requirement Due date

full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (1)(2)(a)(b)(3)(a)(b)(c)(d)) 01/05/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year. (Regulation 33 (4)(c)) 01/05/2020

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Requirement Due date

within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so (“the authorised person”)—

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Requirement Due date

has spoken to the user about the measure; and

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Requirement Due date

has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; and

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Requirement Due date

within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. (Regulation 35 (3)(b)(i)(ii)(c)) 01/05/2020

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month. (Regulation 44 (1)) 01/05/2020 Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 7 The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children ("a quality of care review") at least once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating—

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Requirement Due date

the quality of care provided for children;

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Requirement Due date

the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children.

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a result of the quality of care review ("the quality of care review report").

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed; and

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Requirement Due date

make a copy of the quality of care review report available on request to a placing authority, if the placing authority is not the parent of a child accommodated in the home.

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Requirement Due date

The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (1)(2)(a)(b)(c)(3)(4)(a)(b)(5)) 01/05/2020

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Recommendations

 Those with a leadership and/or management role should be visible and accessible to staff and able to deliver their leadership and/or management responsibilities. Any registered manager employed in the home should have sufficient capacity to ensure that the Quality Standards are met for each child in the home. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.7) Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 8 Specifically, the registered person should ensure that there is a development plan for the home and the management capacity to deliver continued improvement of the service.  The registered person should have a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)  For children’s homes to be nurturing and supportive environments that meet the

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Recommendations

needs of their children, they will, in most cases, be homely, domestic environments. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)

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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: SC490136 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 13 Geneva Road, Kingston Upon Thames, Surrey, KT1 2TW

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Inspector

Seka Graovac, social care inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC490136 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 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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