Children's Home run by Connect Care Solutions Limited in Lancashire

Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 1 Registered provider: Connect Care Solutions Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home provides care for one child. The provider specialises in caring for children who may have social, emotional and mental health needs.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since January 2021.

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Information about this children’s home

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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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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requires improvement to be good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

Not previously inspected Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 3

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improvement to be good

Children have detailed plans that highlight their needs and how the adults who care for the children will meet those needs. The plans, however, do not contain any specific or measurable goals that the children are working towards. This has resulted in specific pieces of work not being completed, which has affected certain areas of progress. The plans are not underpinned by significant multi-agency plans to inform the children’s care. The absence of such plans has an impact on the children’s care being individualised.

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improvement to be good

The adults who care for children have a very good understanding of children’s emotional health needs, and how to support them through difficult times in their lives. There are good links with external agencies to ensure that children receive support for their emotional health needs. This has resulted in a significant amount of progress for one child, who said, ‘They are with me on the ups and the downs. They listen to me and I have never had this before.’

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improvement to be good

One child has made good progress with her education. The adults who care for the child have enabled her to overcome barriers with education. This has resulted in the child’s self-esteem improving and academic achievements being gained.

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improvement to be good

One child is being supported to develop life skills and is making progress with specific skills. However, there is no framework underpinning this work. The lack of framework and evaluation has resulted in a lack of focus for the child and the adults supporting her. The child, therefore, may progress with a plan of semi-independent living without being fully equipped.

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improvement to be good

There has been good work with the children relating to sexual health. Children receive health advice and support when they require it. When there is a health risk present, and the adults caring for the child feel that the advice is not meeting the child’s needs, there is a lack of challenge to ensure that the child’s health needs are met. This has resulted in a health need being unmet with the potential that this could escalate into a risk.

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improvement to be good

Children are supported with issues that are affecting them. However, the adults caring for children have missed opportunities to complete preventative work to prevent risks from escalating. This results in children not having specific knowledge to keep themselves safe and, on one occasion, the adults caring for the child have not followed child protection procedures. These shortfalls have resulted in risks escalating in a child’s life without a multi-agency response to safeguarding. Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 4 Children rarely go missing from their home. However, on the few occasions when they have gone missing, the response from the adults caring for the children has been robust. The adults caring for the children relentlessly search for children to try and get them home safely. They utilise the support of other agencies to help locate children. These efforts have gathered valuable intelligence about complex

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improvement to be good

safeguarding issues to inform safeguarding plans.

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improvement to be good

When there are known high risks in a child’s life, there has not been a proactive multi-agency response to manage and reduce the identified risks. Management have not challenged this poor practice. The adults caring for the child have followed child protection procedures when a complex safeguarding issue has arisen. However, the lack of multi-agency planning has had a negative impact on the child’s life.

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improvement to be good

The adults caring for children safeguard them well when specific risks arise from children struggling with their emotional health. The adults are aware of detailed strategies that help children to emotionally regulate, and they implement these strategies when children need this support. This practice has had a significant impact on children’s lives and it has enabled them to develop positive coping strategies to reduce risk.

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improvement to be good

The adults caring for children are aware of all the risks in the children’s lives and how to respond to these risks. However, children’s safety plans do not always contain direction to the adults about how they should respond. Although this has not had a direct impact on children’s safety, it has the potential to create inconsistent responses to safeguarding issues.

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good

The managers are reflective about how to improve practice for children, and they provide direction to the adults caring for children to continuously improve outcomes. However, the managers have not followed child protection procedures relating to one specific safeguarding issue, which has stemmed from an absence of evaluation of an incident of concern.

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good

The adults who care for children feel well supported. They receive regular supervisions and come together during team meetings to provide consistency for children. This enables children to have a uniformed approach from the adults caring for them and provides them with security and stability.

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good

Children at times have received poor support from other agencies through delays, poor multi-agency planning and a lack of partnership working through information sharing. The managers have not challenged this practice; in turn, children have not received a positive outcome. The absence of challenge leaves children without a champion to ensure that they are receiving the best possible care from all services.

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good

The managers have ensured that children feel part of a family and this has a positive impact on children’s lives. One child said, ‘I like that I have an extended Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 5 family that will be there for me forever.’ The adults caring for children nurture them; however, children’s records contain language that is institutional and, at times, judgemental. This practice could result in children’s self-esteem being negatively affected due to what is recorded about them. It also makes their records inaccessible and creates barriers for children to engage in their plans.

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good

The assessment process before a child moves into the home is not robust. It does not evaluate if the team has the skill base to meet the child’s needs, and it does not evaluate if the home’s location will have a negative impact on the child’s life. The manager has identified some specific training that is required to meet one child’s needs; however, it has not been completed yet. This shortfall has resulted in one child’s life being disrupted and the team not having the full skillset to meet children’s individual needs. Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 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, the 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 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

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;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare; and

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies; and

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Requirement Due date

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(vi)(vii)(b))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to the team having a good knowledge base about complex safeguarding issues and how to respond to these specific risks with the help of specialist services. As well as a multi-agency proactive response to reduce risk.

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Requirement Due date

This also relates to the team safeguarding children from relationships that may be a risk, as well as helping children to understand unhealthy relationships to safeguard themselves. 31 January 2022 Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 7 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

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home;

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Requirement Due date

demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on—

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Requirement Due date

feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and

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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)(c)(f)(h)(g)(ii)(h))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to the team receiving training to meet the children’s needs.

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Requirement Due date

It also relates to the manager challenging poor practice from other agencies and utilising escalation procedures to ensure that children receive a positive outcome. 31 January 2022

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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.

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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 children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended 31 January 2022 Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 8 that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose. (Regulation 14 (1)(a) (2)(a))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to children having specific and measurable goals to inform their plan.

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Requirement Due date

It also relates to children’s progress linked to developing life skills being tracked and underpinned by a framework of assessment.

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Requirement Due date

It also relates to improvements being made to the assessment process for a child who moves into the home.

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Recommendations

 The registered provider should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, 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 14.5)

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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: 2606135 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Connect Care Solutions Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Connect Care Solutions, 17 Victoria Road East, Thornton-Cleveleys FY5 5HT

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Inspector

Carly Quinn, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: 2606135 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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