Children's home run by Lioncare Ltd Operating as The Lioncare Group

Inspection report children's home: 2483691 1 Registered provider: Lioncare Ltd Operating as The Lioncare Group Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The children’s home is privately owned. It is registered to provide care and accommodation for up to six children who may have social, emotional and mental health difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager post has been vacant since 1 January 2021.

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Information about this children’s home

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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Information about this children’s home

A monitoring visit was carried out on 19 February 2021, following an increase in notifications received from Ofsted, which resulted in no enforcement action. The report is published on our website.

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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 requires improvement to be 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

Date of last inspection: 18 February 2020

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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: 2483691 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

18/02/2020 Full Good 19/12/2018 Full Good

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are cared for by a committed staff team. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the team has worked effectively together to provide children with a consistent experience of good care. Children are supported well by staff who develop positive relationships with each child. This helps children to feel able to seek out support from staff when they need it.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are attuned to children’s individual needs and respond empathically to them. Individual plans for children provide staff with clear guidance as to how to support each child effectively. Staff respond positively and in a supportive way to children. This helps children feel that the staff know and understand them. This has helped children to talk more to staff about difficult feelings rather than expressing their feelings through negative behaviours.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported well to attend school. However, during the inspection, plans were not clear for children who were learning at home, due to their individual needs, rather than at school. The role of the staff team in supporting children to engage in their individual learning is not specified. This reduces the likelihood that children will achieve their maximum potential.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children well to engage in therapy provided outside of the home. This is particularly important, as it helps children who previously struggled to engage in the therapeutic support provided. Children are helped to maintain positive relationships with family members. During the pandemic, staff supported children to travel to maintain face-to-face contact with their families.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Consultation with children is meaningful and child centred. Children’s views have a direct impact on the improvement and maintenance within the home. This includes the plans to redecorate and refurbish parts of the home. Children have chosen the colour scheme and impressively have painted the walls with support from staff. Children have plans for completing this in the upcoming school holidays. The home has a calm atmosphere. Inspection report children's home: 2483691 3

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improvement to be good

Overall, staff have a good understanding of the identified risks and the individual known vulnerabilities for each child. When staff recently used physical intervention to respond appropriately to a child’s presenting risks, there was a delay in seeking the child’s views of their experience of this. The management oversight of this record was outside of the required time frame. This resulted in a delay in implementing strategies to reduce the likelihood of a similar incident reoccurring.

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improvement to be good

The risk management plans for individual children are not consistently updated to reflect all incidents, including missing-from-home episodes. This results in staff not always having up-to-date guidance on emerging risks. In one example, staff did not fully implement the agreed safety plans when a child was exhibiting self-harming behaviours. This was addressed by the manager and effective strategies were put in place.

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improvement to be good

The provider does not always notify Ofsted as required when serious incidents occur or when allegations are made against staff. In practice, staff do manage these concerns appropriately and work effectively with the relevant child protection agencies to ensure that children are not at risk of harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has high expectations with regard to the quality of care provided to children. There have been changes recently to the management team within the home. The manager has applied to become the registered manager. There is a new deputy manager in post, and a senior carer has been recently promoted into the role from within the staff team. The new management team is working well together and has extensive combined knowledge and experience of caring for children. This is an improvement, as previously there were a high number of agency staff being used to meet the needs of children during the pandemic.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager promptly and appropriately challenges the staff team when he identifies practice issues. This has included a robust response to medication errors which have not been subsequently repeated. He demonstrates a child-centred approach to managing the home, with clear expectations provided to staff. The manager communicates a strong culture of accountability within the team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The new management team meets regularly to ensure effective monitoring of the home and to ensure that everyone is aware of their individual roles and responsibilities. The manager models good behaviour, and this has had a positive impact on the culture of the home in terms of all members of the team being accountable for their practice and keeping a sharp focus on the needs of children. Inspection report children's home: 2483691 4 Management information is not always recorded efficiently, and this undermines the manager’s ability to demonstrate good oversight and monitoring of some aspects of the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff report feeling supported by the manager and the senior leadership team. They have been provided with all relevant training to enable them to appropriately meet the needs of the children they care for. However, staff have not received supervision on a regular basis in recent months, and the quality of the supervision sessions that do take place is variable. This reduces the opportunity for staff to have a protected space in which to share their experiences of their work and to learn and develop.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager promotes an inclusive culture and positively promotes equality and diversity. This helps all children to feel safe, valued, and enables them to explore their developing sense of identity.

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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 education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

understand the barriers to learning that each child may face and take appropriate action to help the child to overcome any such barriers. (Regulation 8 (1) (2)(a)(i)(iii)) 30 June 2021

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that staff— 30 June 2021 Inspection report children's home: 2483691 5 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. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i))

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Requirement Due date

The leadership and management standard is that the registered person enables, inspires and leads a culture in relation to the children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(h)) 30 June 2021

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

undertake appropriate continuing professional development;

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure staff are provided with regular supervision and that the supervision sessions are appropriately recorded. 30 June 2021

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Requirement Due date

within 24 hours of the use of a measure of control, discipline or restraint in relation to a child in the home, a record is made which includes—

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Requirement Due date

details of the child’s behaviour leading to the use of the measure;

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Requirement Due date

the date, time and location of the use of the measure;

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Requirement Due date

a description of the measure and its duration;

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Requirement Due date

details of any methods used or steps taken to avoid the need to use the measure; 30 June 2021 Inspection report children's home: 2483691 6 the name of the person who used the measure ("the user"), and of any other person present when the measure was used;

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Requirement Due date

the effectiveness and any consequences of the use of the measure; and

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Requirement Due date

a description of any injury to the child or any other person, and any medical treatment administered, as a result of the measure;

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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;

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Requirement Due date

has signed the record to confirm it is accurate. (Regulation 35 (3)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(viii)(b)(i))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

there is an allegation of abuse against the home or a person working there;

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Requirement Due date

there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40(4)(c)(e)) 30 June 2021

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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: 2483691 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Lioncare Ltd Operating as The Lioncare Group

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 58a Livingstone Road, Hove, Sussex BN3 3WL

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Inspector

Maria Lonergan, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children's home: 2483691 8 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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