Children's Home run by Lakeside @ Our Place Limited in Worcestershire

Inspection report children’s home: 2553111 1 Registered provider: Lakeside @ Our Place Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

A private company operates this children’s home. It is registered to provide care for 10 children who have learning disabilities, including autism spectrum conditions, and associated challenging behaviours. Children may stay after they reach 18 years old. The registered person operates a small registered school in a separate building in the grounds. A new manager started in post on 1 March 2021. He is currently progressing through the application process to become registered with Ofsted. Due to COVID-19 (coronavirus), at the request of the Secretary of State, we suspended all routine inspections of social care providers on 17 March 2020.

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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 good

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good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: not applicable Inspection report children’s home: 2553111 2

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have created a nurturing environment where the needs of each child are individually identified and sensitively met.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Managers and staff gather detailed information about children before they move into the home. This includes talking to the children, their families and any relevant professionals. In addition, staff visit and spend time with children before they move in. They also support children to have a visit to the home. The staff team skilfully plans and prepares for children’s arrivals and ensures that children feel welcomed. As a result, children quickly settle and begin to make good progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff successfully support the children to achieve a range of targets and objectives that have a positive impact on their progress towards adulthood. For example, a nationally recognised accredited award has been introduced to support children in learning independence skills. As a result, children have learned new skills to prepare them for adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are effective communicators and promote positive participation and engagement. They use communications tools that are specific to each child. This includes visual aids, signing and verbal prompts that support each child to successfully progress through the day. This support has helped children to learn new communication skills and alternative ways to manage their emotions. This has contributed to children being able to participate in new activities and to make friends.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff complete topical key worker sessions with children. However, these sessions are not always planned around the individual needs and understanding of children. The benefit and meaningfulness of these sessions for children are difficult to measure.

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

The senior management team has clear arrangements in place to ensure that the safety of the children is prioritised. For example, there are internal safeguarding meetings. These enable managers to identify patterns and trends of accidents and incidents. This helps the manager to address the root causes, monitor staff responses to improve practice and undertake reviews of safeguarding incidents to consider lessons learned. This reflective practice ensures improved safety for children and staff.

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

Staff have positive relationships with the children. This enables them to balance risks with supporting the children to safely experience new situations and activities. If a child is struggling to appropriately express an emotion or manage a Inspection report children’s home: 2553111 3 situation, staff offer increased help. Staff explore children’s worries or difficulties and introduce fresh solutions and coping strategies. As a result, children do not go missing, and the frequency and duration of incidents and physical interventions reduce over time.

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

Staff have excellent insight into the complexities of the children’s communication, emotional and behavioural needs. Behaviour management strategies contain good detail. Staff promote the children’s strengths and consistently reinforce positive qualities and behaviours. Staff are patient and measured in their approach. Each child’s individual anxieties, communication needs and behavioural challenges are fully understood and uniquely managed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers use a range of systems to assure quality and monitor the home. This ensures that they continue to learn about and develop the service, which improves support to staff and outcomes for children. For example, a new social space has been introduced with a pool table and television. This has been a big success with the children. Building work is currently underway for a sensory room and a quiet space that will look out onto a lake. In addition, there are plans to improve the home’s grounds with garden pods that children will be able to spend time in.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are knowledgeable. Managers support staff to reflect on their professional practice through handovers, supervisions, team meetings and training. This ensures that staff have the skills to provide a secure, safe environment with clear boundaries from which the children can grow as individuals. This helps to promote their well-being.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers and staff have gone above and beyond during the COVID-19 pandemic. They have worked hard as teams, over extended periods of time, to support children to shield and self-isolate. They have cared for those children who have become ill. As a result, children have recovered well, and other children have remained in good health.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Most parents and professionals say that there is positive partnership work with managers and staff. However, this feedback was not consistent. Some felt that contact was not consistent, and information was not effectively shared. This does not promote the best interests of children because it does not support them to maintain important relationships or ensure that there are consistent approaches across organisations. Inspection report children’s home: 2553111 4

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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 meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff –

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Requirement Due date

seek to develop and maintain effective professional relationships with such persons, bodies or organisations as the registered person considers appropriate having regards to the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the children’s home is to provide care and accommodation (Regulation 5 (d))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to ensuring that there is agreed, clear and recorded communication with parents and schools. 31 July 2021

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Recommendations

 The home should work in partnership with relevant people, such as speech and language therapists, to ensure that each child is provided with support, appropriate to their age and understanding, to communicate their views, wishes and feelings and participate as fully as possible in all aspects of their care planning and daily care. This may include the use of and support to use communication aids, equipment and/or any necessary language support. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.6)

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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: 2553111 5

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Lakeside @ Our Place Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Lakeside, Bransford, Worcester, Worcestershire WR6 5JE

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Inspector

Dawn Bennett, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children’s home: 2553111 6 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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