Children's home run by Semi-independent House Limited

Inspection report children's home: 2510315 1 Registered provider: Semi-Independent House Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

p.1

Information about this children’s home

This privately owned home provides care for up to three children who have experienced neglect, abuse and have behavioural and social difficulties.

p.1

Information about this children’s home

The manager registered in September 2020.

p.1

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.

p.1

Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

p.1

good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

p.1

good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers good

p.1

good

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

p.1

good

Date of last inspection: 13 January 2020

p.1

good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

p.1

good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children's home: 2510315 2

p.1

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

13/01/2020 Full Good Inspection report children's home: 2510315 3

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There were three children living at the home at the time of the inspection. This is a settled home in which staff help children to enjoy predictable daily routines. The manager and staff know the children well and talk about them warmly.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are making good progress from their starting points. For one child, this includes a considerable reduction in offending behaviour. Professionals and family members are pleased with the care and guidance that staff are providing to their child.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children with their learning. Most children attend and engage well in education. One child has recently started a new college course. Staff are sensitive to the child’s anxieties about this new challenge and remain vigilant to any changes in his mood. One child is accessing tutoring provided at the home. Staff have engaged with education professionals to build on this child’s education plan and help identify the right education provision.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff follow plans that have been put in place for children to gain independence skills. Staff encourage children to take responsibility for household tasks to help them prepare for living independently. Children earn rewards for practising these skills.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure that children have access to the health services that they need. This includes support for children to stop smoking. One child has made positive progress with gaining weight. However, children are regularly declining meals and do not eat a balanced diet.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There is a strong focus on supporting children with their emotional well-being. As a result, children’s ability to manage their own emotions has improved. Children can identify a staff member with whom they can talk about their feelings and any worries. This helps children to feel safe and listened to.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff provide high levels of support to children to help them maintain relationships with their family. This includes supporting children to spend time with their family members at the home or out on an activity. Family members feel that staff keep them involved in the care of their child. One parent said that staff understand her needs as a parent. This, in turn, helps her to support her child.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The decoration and furnishings at the house look dated in some of the communal areas. There are some restrictive practices at the home. These include locking a door at night-time to restrict children’s access to the kitchen and setting bedroom door alarms. These measures have not been risk assessed as necessary or proportionate for each child. Inspection report children's home: 2510315 4

p.3

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

Staff provide children with a calm home environment. The children get along well together, although they do not routinely spend much time together.

p.4

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

Staff are successful at using de-escalation to avoid physical and verbal altercations. As a result, there have been no incidents of restraint at the home.

p.4

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

Staff use incentives, rewards and verbal praise to recognise when children do something well or when children have shown kindness and respect to each other and staff. However, staff are not consistent in their expectations of children’s behaviour. This includes a lack of consequences for children refusing to hand in mobile phones and smoking paraphernalia, and for the display of a poster on a child’s door that contains explicit language.

p.4

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

There have been some incidents of one child going missing from the home. Staff respond in line with the missing-from-care protocols to help find and return the child to the home as soon as possible. The manager and staff have identified and shared concerns about the child’s vulnerability to criminal exploitation with relevant professionals. This has ensured that a multi-agency response is in place to help reduce this risk.

p.4

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

Risk assessments for children are detailed and contain presenting risks. These are regularly reviewed and updated following any changes. The risk of children accessing the roof from their bedroom has been assessed but lacks consideration of all the measures available to reduce this risk.

p.4

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

Staff enable children to take age-appropriate risks. This includes gaining trust to have time out of the home without staff supervision. These plans are reviewed regularly with the child’s social worker.

p.4

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

Staff access safeguarding training. This helps them to identify concerns of exploitation, gang affiliation, radicalisation and online abuse.

p.4

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

Safeguarding concerns are shared appropriately with other professionals. This allows the most relevant professional to respond to any incidents.

p.4

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has provided consistency and stability at the home when unexpected incidents have occurred affecting the children and staff. The manager and senior management team have ensured that staff and children have access to bereavement services and can share their feelings about these events.

p.4

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is child centred and has a detailed knowledge of the children’s needs. He is a good advocate in progressing plans for children. For one child, this meant changing schools to enable him to build friendships with children who live locally. Inspection report children's home: 2510315 5 Staff feel well supported and valued by the manager. They enjoy working at the home. This helps to provide children with a positive atmosphere. The manager is aware of staff’s strengths and the areas in which they need support to develop. Staff are provided with a thorough induction. This helps them feel prepared for the role. However, not all staff have achieved a relevant level 3 diploma within two years of commencing a care role.

p.4

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has established good working relationships with professionals and family members, who are positive about the communication and working relationship with him. Children benefit from knowing that everyone is working together to meet their needs.

p.5

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has good overview of incidents involving children and often carries out debrief conversations with children after any incidents. However, the management oversight of the quality of the service needs improving. Managerial monitoring of the home has failed to identify some concerns, including fire safety hazards. Although these were promptly addressed during the inspection, the monitoring has not been effective in identifying and rectifying shortfalls quickly.

p.5

The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has met the previous requirements and recommendations, including a specific recommendation made to replace a carpet and personalise children’s rooms to improve the home environment. However, a recommendation has again been raised in relation to providing children with a homely environment, this time by maintaining a good standard of decoration and furnishings in the communal areas of the home. Inspection report children's home: 2510315 6

p.5

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.

p.6

Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

p.6

Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

p.6

Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

p.6

Requirement Due date

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

p.6

Requirement Due date

communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(a)(v)) 18 October 2021

p.6

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—

p.6

Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

p.6

Requirement Due date

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

p.6

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)) 18 October 2021

p.6

Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained— 1 March 2022 Inspection report children's home: 2510315 7 the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) (‘the Level 3 Diploma’); or

p.6

Requirement Due date

a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma.

p.7

Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1 April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home; or

p.7

Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1 April 2014, 1 April 2016. (Regulation 32 (4)(a)(b) (5)(a)(b))

p.7

Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children’s homes are nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of their children. In particular, ensure that maintenance issues are resolved quickly, and the decoration and furnishings are updated as needed. (‘Guide to children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The registered person should ensure that, just as in a family home, children can access all shared areas of their home unless there are specific reasons why this would not meet the children’s needs. Limits on privacy and access may only be put in place to safeguard each child. All decisions must be informed by rigorous assessment of that child’s individual needs, be properly recorded and kept under review. In particular, ensure that doors to communal areas are not locked at night and that alarms on children’s bedrooms are assessed as needed for each

p.7

Recommendations

individual child. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.10)  The registered person should ensure that staff have the relevant skills and knowledge to help children make positive choices in healthy eating and nutrition. (Guide to the children’s home regulation including the quality standards’, page 35 paragraph 7.18)  The registered person should ensure that risk assessments are clear and consistently provide staff with clarity on the arrangements in place to protect children and the steps that they must take daily to manage any assessed risks. In particular, the risk of children accessing the roof from their bedrooms should be regularly reviewed to clearly identify the measures needed to manage the risk. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.4) Inspection report children's home: 2510315 8

p.7

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’.

p.8

Children’s home details

Registered provider: Semi-Independent House Limited

p.8

Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 51 Ploverly, Peterborough PE4 6HZ

p.8

Inspectors

Paula Edwards, Social Care Inspector Jamie Cousins, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children's home: 2510315 9 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.

p.8

Inspectors

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.9

Inspectors

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.9

Inspectors

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.9