Children's home run by The Ryes College Limited

Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 1 Registered provider: The Ryes College Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This privately run home provides care for up to four children with emotional and social difficulties and learning disabilities.

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Information about this children’s home

There is a Department for Education-registered school on the same site. The inspector only inspected the social care provision.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in September 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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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

Not previously inspected Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child has lived at the home since it registered, moving there in November 2021. The child has started to build positive relationships with staff and to make progress in different areas.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Managers planned carefully in advance of the child moving to the home. They gained significant information from the child’s social worker. The manager considered this information and whether staff would be able to meet the child’s needs. The child was involved in the plans and the manager and staff from the on- site school met with the child virtually to introduce both the home and school. Good planning helped the child’s move to the home to be a positive experience for them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have helped the child to make excellent progress in their education. Before moving to the home, the child had not been attending regular education for some time. Initially, the child was anxious about attending education, but staff worked with the school to ease the child’s anxieties. The child has since had excellent attendance. When some challenges have arisen at school, staff have worked effectively with the child and school staff to help overcome these. The social worker said that excellent communication between staff and the school has helped enable this progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have helped the child to build and maintain relationships that are important to them. Since moving to the home, the child has chosen to see more of their family members. Staff have worked with the child’s social worker and family to put appropriate plans in place. It is hoped that the child will be able to return to live with family in the longer term. Good support for such relationships means that this plan is more likely to be successful.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The child’s placement plan provides a good level of detail on how most of the child’s needs are being met. However, it has very limited information in relation to how their needs, resulting from their ethnic and cultural background, are being met. Some limited conversations have taken place in relation to this with the child, but there is a lack of clear planning and support in this area.

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improvement to be good

Risks for the child have not always been appropriately identified or managed. The child has unrestricted access to a mobile phone and the internet. While this has been discussed and agreed with the child’s social worker, their risk assessment contains no clear plan about how they are kept safe online. Little work has been undertaken with the child about e-safety. Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 4 Staff manage behavioural incidents well. They use the relationships that they have built with the child to help and reassure them at times of distress. There has only been one incident which necessitated the use of physical intervention. This was appropriately managed, and a good-quality debrief was undertaken with staff. However, actions identified in the debrief were not included in the child’s risk assessment. A lack of detail about how all risks are managed means that staff are no provided with the necessary strategies to reduce these risks.

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improvement to be good

There has been one incident of the child being reported as missing from the home. Staff were unaware for a significant period that the child had left the home. When the child was located, staff returned them safely to the home. However, updates sent to the child’s social worker, and to Ofsted, failed to provide clear information about the gap between the child leaving the home and staff becoming aware. A lack of information in this respect meant that it was not possible for external professionals to be clear about the risks related to the incident. The manager has identified learning from this incident and staff understand the measures in place to reduce the likelihood of further incidents. However, these measures are not identified in the child’s risk assessment.

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improvement to be good

Regular fire checks take place. However, the manager has failed to review and complete the actions identified in the fire risk assessment. The manager took steps to address this during the inspection, but some actions were not completed within given timescales.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is suitably experienced and is working towards a relevant level 5 diploma. Managers have high aspirations for children and are open to external scrutiny in order to help develop the service. Managers are aware of some of the shortfalls identified in this inspection and are taking action to address them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers have a good understanding of the progress that the child has made since being at the home. Regular planning meetings involving staff, managers and education professionals help to identify areas in which the child needs further help and what actions are needed to support this.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers have built good relationships with external professions. The child’s social worker said that managers and staff are proactive in communicating with them and seek creative ways of caring for the child.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

When areas of development in staff practice have been identified, the manager has addressed these appropriately with staff. Actions have been put in place to learn from incidents. This helps to ensure that strategies to help the child are developed based on what they respond well to.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Good-quality supervision has taken place for most staff, and staff are well trained in areas relevant to children’s needs. However, for some staff, supervision has not taken place regularly. The staff team is new, and a lack of regular supervision means Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 5 that staff are not all being provided with the levels of support needed to help them settle into their roles and properly consider how they are meeting the child’s needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The quality of records is variable. The record of when the child was reported missing did not provide a clear description of all actions taken by staff. Some sanction records are not clear about the rationale for sanctions. While staff and the manager were able to explain this, records do not provide clarity on whether all sanctions have been appropriate. Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 5 (b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that accurate information is provided to all relevant professionals in relation to safeguarding concerns. 7 March 2022

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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 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)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that risk assessments reflect all known risks for children, include strategies to reduce these risks, and are updated promptly to include learning from any incidents. 7 March 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. (Regulation 14 (1)(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that plans give due consideration to needs relating to children’s ethnicity and cultural background. 7 March 2022

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Requirement Due date

If the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 (1) applies to the home— 7 March 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 7 the registered person must ensure that the requirements of that Order and any regulations made under it, except for article 23 (duties of employees), are complied with in respect of the home. (Regulation 25 (2)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that any actions from the home’s fire risk assessment are completed within given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 7 March 2022

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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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 for children’s home: 2651665 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Ryes College Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 3 Skyview Business Centre, 9 Church Field Road, Sudbury CO10 2YA

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Inspector

Joe Cox, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2651665 9 regulates and inspects 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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