Children's Home run by Alicie Enterprises Limited in Ealing

Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 1 Registered provider: Alicie Enterprises Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This is a private children’s home registered to care for up to four children. The home’s statement of purpose states that the home provides care for girls with emotional and social difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager has been in post since the home’s registration in August 2019. The home had previously been registered on another site from December 2013 until its move and has had the same registered manager throughout. Due to COVID-19, at the request of the Secretary of State, we suspended all routine inspections of social care providers carried out under the social care common inspection framework (SCCIF) on 17 March 2020. We returned to routine SCCIF inspections on 12 April 2021.

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Information about this children’s home

We last visited this setting on 27 January 2021 to carry out a monitoring visit. The report is published on the Ofsted 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 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: 11 December 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 for children’s home: 2544885 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

11/12/2019 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There were three children living at the home at the time of this inspection.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children benefit from regular, individualised, creative and good-quality direct-work sessions. Staff regularly support children in learning useful life skills that help them to achieve their targets. However, full and accurate records of these sessions are not always kept. This does not evidence the good progress that children make.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff and managers have been instrumental in helping children through traumatic events. One child said, ‘I was really struggling this summer. I was in with the wrong crowd doing the wrong thing. Staff helped me find my way and I am on a way better track.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have continued to promote children’s health and well-being despite the many restrictions experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. This has included ensuring that children have access to specialist help and support. However, medication administration is not always accurately recorded, and medication audit processes are not yet effective in addressing these errors. This shortfall in recording potentially has an impact on the care provided to children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work hard to help children to achieve academic success and to overcome barriers that can have an impact on their learning. For example, staff advocated strongly for a child to be moved to another class and challenged the education provider to address concerns that had an impact on the child. This helped the child to feel supported.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work hard to enable children to stay in touch with people who are important to them, while still having the required safeguards in place. This positive support has been instrumental in children re-establishing important relationships and reducing the pull to inappropriate relationships.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The staff and managers continue to offer excellent staying close arrangements for children who have left the service. This has been particularly important during the COVID-19 pandemic for children who have left the care system. This support has helped children living on their own feel less isolated, and provided much needed support.

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

Staff focus their efforts on building positive and meaningful relationships with children. This child-centred care helps children to feel safe and know that people care about them. One parent said, ‘They are great, they are fantastic, they are always there for her. They keep me in the loop. They bend over backwards for her and the other girls.’ Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 4 Staff understand children’s individual needs, risks and vulnerabilities. Staff use this informed knowledge to help children to make safe decisions. Children’s episodes of going missing from home and risks of exploitation significantly reduce. Staff consistently follow missing-from-home procedures and individual safety plans. However, records of missing-from-home incidents do not always include information about all actions that staff take to keep children safe.

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

Staff manage children’s behaviour and physical intervention well. However, incidents of physical restraints and behaviour management are not always accurately recorded or sufficiently detailed and do not include records of staff learning following these incidents. This does not ensure that managers have sufficient oversight of children’s experiences and progress.

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

Staff demonstrate a good understanding of the home’s child protection and whistle- blowing policies. When allegations are raised against a staff member, these are managed well. Consequently, children and staff are protected.

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

Safer recruitment practice ensures that managers conduct comprehensive risk assessments in relation to staff suitability to work with children. This includes managers exploring gaps in employment history and the verification of references. However, staff recruitment records do not always demonstrate that staff are safe to work at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is managed by a long-standing, experienced and qualified registered manager, and a suitably skilled and diverse staff team. The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in some significant health issues for the manager and staff. Despite this, the manager demonstrated her commitment to the staff and children and remained in daily contact with the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders, managers and staff have worked hard during the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that the impact on children’s quality of care has been kept to a minimum. For example, the manager rearranged the staff rota when children tested positive for COVID-19. This helped children to have continuity of care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff say that they are very well supported and benefit from regular supervision, induction, team meetings and access to specialist training that meets the needs of the children living in the home. However, supervision records are not always sufficiently detailed or signed and dated. Furthermore, leaders and managers do not maintain comprehensive training records. This compromises the oversight of staff practice and development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The significant shortfalls in the recording systems at the home have not had an impact on the good quality of care provided to children. Leaders and managers have a good oversight of the strengths and weaknesses of the home. They have identified the shortfalls in recording systems and have now invested in an online recording Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 5 system which is due to go live imminently. This has been supplemented by intensive staff training to support staff to keep comprehensive records of children’s progress and experiences.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and the manager work well with partner agencies to ensure that all children’s needs are met. Leaders and managers accepted one child with global developmental delay. Although her needs were met by supplementing the home’s care with other external services, this was not in line with the home’s statement of purpose.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers have completed a location risk assessment which staff are able to describe in detail. However, staff knowledge and research into the local area and the associated strategies to manage the risk is not reflected in the risk assessment. Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 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 make arrangements for the handling, recording, safekeeping, safe administration and disposal of medicines received into the children’s home.

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Requirement Due date

In particular the registered person must ensure that—

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Requirement Due date

medicines kept in the home are stored in a secure place so as to prevent any child from having unsupervised access to them;

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Requirement Due date

medicine which is prescribed for a child is administered as prescribed to the child for whom it is prescribed and to no other child; and

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Requirement Due date

a record is kept of the administration of medicine to each child.

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Requirement Due date

Paragraph (2) does not apply to medicine which—

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Requirement Due date

is stored by the child for whom it is provided in such a way that other persons are prevented from using it; and

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Requirement Due date

may be safely self-administered by that child. (Regulation 23 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c) (3)(a)(b)) 13 January 2022

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement ("the statement of purpose") which covers the matters listed in schedule 1.

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Requirement Due date

keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it. (Regulation 16 (1) (3))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that the statement of purpose is reviewed and amended to ensure that it complies with the home’s conditions of registration. 13 January 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 7 The registered person must ensure that—

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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;

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Requirement Due date

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; 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)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(viii)(b)(i)(ii)(c)) 13 January 2022

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Requirement Due date

Schedule 4 sets out the other information that the registered person must keep in relation to a children’s home.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must— 13 January 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 8 maintain in the home the records in Schedule 4;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the records are kept up to date; and

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Requirement Due date

retain the records for at least 15 years from the date of the last entry. (Regulation 37 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that all records relating to children are an accurate and full record of their experiences and day-to-day lives.

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Requirement Due date

These include: full and detailed missing-from-home records; full and detailed behaviour management records; full and detailed key-work sessions/record of direct work.

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that a review of the appropriateness and suitability of the location and premises of the home is undertaken at least once a year. The review should include the identification of any risks and opportunities presented by the home’s location and strategies for managing these. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.1)  The registered person should ensure they have a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce-related requirements of regulation 16. The plan should detail the necessary management and staffing structure, the experience and qualifications of staff currently working within the staffing structure and any further training required for those staff to enable the delivery of the home’s statement of purpose. The plan should be updated to include any new training and qualifications completed by staff while working at the home and used to record

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Recommendations

the ongoing training and continuing professional development needs of staff, including the home’s manager. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)

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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 for children’s home: 2544885 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Alicie Enterprises Limited

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Inspector

Jayshree Pillay, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2544885 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 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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