Children's home run by Esland North Limited

Inspection report children's home: 2570055 1 Registered provider: Esland North Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is operated by a private organisation and provides care for up to three children who experience emotional and behavioural difficulties and have complex needs. The home may provide support to a young person who has a baby.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager voluntarily cancelled his registration in April 2021. An interim manager is in post while a new manager’s appointment is confirmed.

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Information about this children’s home

Due to COVID-19 (coronavirus), at the request of the Secretary of State, Ofsted suspended all routine inspections of social care providers on 17 March 2020.

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Information about this children’s home

This home was registered in August 2020. This is the home’s first inspection since registration.

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: not applicable Inspection report children's home: 2570055 2

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

This home was registered in August 2020. Since registration, three children have come to live at the home. This includes a child who has had a baby in the time she has lived at the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children told inspectors that they like living with each other and that the plans for their care take account of their views. For example, one child shared that care was taken to understand his views about living with another child’s baby, prior to the baby being born. Involvement in decorating their bedrooms and a games room has helped children to feel comfortable living in the home and to benefit from living in an environment that is welcoming, well maintained and reflects their preferences.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are sensitive to children’s health needs and work in partnership with other professionals to ensure that young people have the support that they need to maintain good health. For example, wraparound support from staff, school staff and the child and adolescent mental health service is supporting a child to understand how to reduce anxiety. Staff worked well with health professionals to help one child to prepare for the birth of her baby. When concerns have arisen regarding the baby’s health, staff have supported the child to seek appropriate medical advice and attention.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff encourage children to make progress with their learning. Prior to maternity leave, one child studied parenting. There are plans in place for her to attend college following her maternity leave. One child’s learning style has meant that his curriculum has been adapted to suit his needs. Tailored support has helped the child to achieve qualifications in English, mathematics and information technology.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff spend time with children and encourage them to develop hobbies and interests. For example, one child has been involved in creating artwork for the home. Walks with staff, table tennis and darts have helped to keep another child occupied. Staff have encouraged bonding between mother and baby through play. The support of staff has been particularly important during the pandemic, given the limited access to community activities and services.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Care and nurture from staff has supported one child to build a positive attachment with her baby. However, the inexperience of managers in care planning for a mother and baby resulted in a lack of clarity about the placing authority’s expectations of staff in supporting the child and her baby. This meant that there was an initial delay in the child receiving the focused support from staff necessary to help her make maximum progress in developing her parenting skills.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Wherever possible, staff support children to maintain contact with people who are important to them. This helps children to maintain connections with family and friends. Inspection report children's home: 2570055 3

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

Children have confidence that staff will keep them safe. Risk assessments are comprehensive and identify triggers for unsafe behaviour and the strategies that staff can use to reduce the likelihood of harm to children and young people. Risk assessments for the baby provide staff and the mother with essential information to support safe care. Advice and guidance from staff about potential risks has helped to ensure that the child has essential information to support her baby’s safety. Consequently, the baby has been kept safe in her mother’s care.

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

Children benefit from consistent boundaries and expectations that focus on encouraging socially acceptable behaviour. A child-centred approach, combined with the use of rewards and sanctions, helps children to feel secure and to behave positively. This means that children do not go missing from the home and there has been no need for staff to restrain any child to keep them safe. Managers review behaviour management records and take action when they do not feel a response from staff is appropriate. Consequently, reflective practice informs safeguarding work.

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

Staff have managed safeguarding incidents well. One concern about staff practice was appropriately referred to the designated officer. Following an internal investigation, managers completed work with staff in relation to professional boundaries. This shows a proactive response, to ensure staff understand professional expectations.

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

Managers do not always use their professional curiosity to ensure that recruitment practice is safe. For one employee, managers have not followed up the reasons why the person had left previous employment with vulnerable adults or children. In addition, managers have not ensured that there is documentary evidence of the employee’s relevant qualification on record. Shortfalls in safe recruitment practice could mean that children and young people are exposed to unsuitable adults.

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good

The registered manager left the post in April 2021. The responsible individual made immediate arrangements for an interim manager to take up the post while the appointment of a permanent manager is confirmed.

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good

A small core group of staff has continued to work at the home since registration. This has given young people some stability and consistency. However, there has been considerable change in the staff team, with seven staff leaving the home and six new staff joining. When staff have left, children have not always been helped to understand the reasons for this and given the opportunity to say goodbye.

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good

One child’s social worker told the inspector that she believed the change in management arrangements, in particular, had affected her child. General instability Inspection report children's home: 2570055 4 in the staff team, coupled with unplanned endings to relationships with staff, means that children have not been supported as well as they could in understanding how to develop, maintain and bring positive closure to relationships.

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good

Staff speak positively about their work and the children. However, staff do not receive supervision at the frequency set out in organisational policy. A lack of regular supervision means that staff are not provided with enough opportunity to review and develop their practice.

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good

The manager has ensured that there is a workforce development plan, and work with the organisation’s training team has commenced to support team building. Staff who are new to the home receive an induction prior to starting work with children. However, not all staff have completed essential training to equip them with knowledge necessary for their role. For example, some staff have not had the opportunity for their awareness to be raised in key areas such as the ‘Prevent’ duty, child criminal exploitation and online safety.

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good

Work to improve the quality of internal care plans for children means that these plans are now very child focused and provide children with information about their care which is easy to understand. However, other records lack attention to detail. For example, despite a child recently being diagnosed with hay fever, this has not been consistently updated in their records. Shortfalls in record-keeping could lead to confusion in the delivery of care to children.

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good

Managers have updated the statement of purpose to show changes to the ethos of the home. However, they have not ensured that the document is compliant with regulation in other areas. For example, the document lacks information about how children’s linguistic needs will be met and about how the home’s safeguarding policies can be accessed. This means that full information about the service is not available to key stakeholders.

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good

Managers have completed two reviews of the quality of care since registration. However, reports lack focused analysis of the detail of children’s care and its impact on their progression. This may limit the review’s usefulness as a tool to support continuous development of the home.

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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 Inspection report children's home: 2570055 5 ‘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 positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

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—

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Requirement Due date

that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(b)) 30 July 2021

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children—

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Requirement Due date

receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)) 30 July 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; and

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(a)(b)) 30 July 2021

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Recommendations

 The registered provider should ensure that the statement of purpose is up to date and accurate. The provider is required to develop and keep under review the statement of purpose (regulation 16 and schedule 1). This should be child focused, indicating how the home provides individualised care to meet the quality standards for the children in their care. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 14, paragraph 3.5)  The registered provider should ensure that they maintain good employment practice. They must ensure that recruitment safeguards children and minimises Inspection report children's home: 2570055 6 potential risks to them. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.1)  The registered provider should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective

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Recommendations

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)  The registered provider should ensure that a quality of care review is completed. This review should enable the registered person to identify areas of strength and possible weakness in the home’s care, which will be captured in the written report. The report should clearly identify any actions required for the next six months of delivery within the home and how those actions will be addressed. The whole review process and the resulting report should be used as a tool for continuous improvement in the home. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations

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Recommendations

including the quality standards’, page 65, paragraph 15.4)

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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: 2570055 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Esland North Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Esland Ltd, Suites 1 & 5 Riverside Business Centre, Foundry Lane, Milford, Belper, Derbyshire DE56 0RN

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Elisabeth Brownlees

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Inspectors

Alison Cooper, Social Care Inspector Natasha Skinner, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children's home: 2570055 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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