Children's Home run by G B A Care Limited in Calderdale

Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 1 SC462593 Registered provider: GBA Care Ltd Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

A private company runs the home. The home is registered to provide care for up to four single-gender children or young people who may have social, emotional and/or behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager is suitably qualified and registered with Ofsted in October 2016.

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

26/04/2021 Full Good 17/07/2019 Full Outstanding 10/04/2018 Full Good 09/05/2017 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children living at the home are all well cared for and are making progress. Staff know the children well and children experience positive relationships with them. Children enjoy spending time with their carers, which creates a vibrant atmosphere in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff and children make efforts to welcome all new residents into the home. The manager is thorough with planning transitions and involves the children already living in the home. Staff make efforts to make connections with children before they move in. Staff achieve this through using facetime, phone calls and meeting children in person, even when this is a considerable distance away. This demonstrates the commitment of the manager and staff to make every effort to ensure that children have the best possible start to life in their new home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff offer a wide variety of activities for the children. Staff ensure that they plan activities that are based on children’s individual interests. Staff make efforts to ensure activities are meaningful and use these opportunities to develop children’s skills and relationships. One social worker said, ‘[The child] has really good child and adult interaction time through activities, which he has never had before.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All children engage in education, and the staff team is actively involved in supporting children’s educational outcomes. Some of the children had not engaged in education for several years prior to being at the home. The manager has advocated for children with regard to their education and escalated concerns to local authorities when required. This has contributed to children being in full-time education, receiving the appropriate level of support and making progress with their learning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have access to health services. When children decline health appointments, staff undertake work to promote engagement. Key-work sessions have taken place, including advice on oral hygiene and encouragement to attend appointments. Staff are, therefore, demonstrating the need for children to access health services for children to thrive.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand the importance of maintaining positive relationships between children and their families. Staff support children to visit their family, even when children live far from their family home. This maintains family bonds and strengthens the child’s family support network. This also creates a positive working rapport between the staff team and the child’s family, which benefits the child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager prioritises children’s emotional needs and their mental health. The organisation commissions input and support from an assistant psychologist, whose input is frequent. The clinician has made excellent efforts to establish a working rapport with children and staff. This has enabled children and staff to build trust with the clinician and value his input. Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 4

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

Staff are innovative and creative when responding to undesirable behaviour from children. Staff often use a restorative approach when applying consequences that enable children to learn a better way of managing responsibilities. However, staff do not apply this methodology in all instances. This potentially gives children mixed messages.

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

Incidents involving restraint with children are not frequent occurrences in the home. When staff have deemed it necessary to apply restraint to manage children’s behaviours, the manager has been thorough in her oversight. The manager ensures that children and staff receive an effective debrief and they reflect on the incident. This creates a learning space for staff and children and reduces the likelihood of recurring incidents.

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

The manager has failed to notify the regulator of significant incidents that have involved staff contacting the police to assist with managing children’s behaviours at the home. Although infrequent, there have been incidents where the police have arrested children for assaulting staff and causing property damage. Failure to notify the regulator of these events reduces the transparency around behaviour management and reduces the regulator’s capacity for timely intervention.

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

Although staff know the children well and are knowledgeable about children’s behaviours that cause concern and require intervention, the children’s risk assessments fail to communicate this. Risk assessments are not clear enough and fail to provide staff with clear direction and guidance. Risk assessments use broad, sweeping terminology, and do not clearly highlight behaviour of concern. This increases the risk of staff making poor judgements in times of crisis for children, particularly from inexperienced staff who may not be as knowledgeable about the children.

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

The manager ensures that there is frequent collaboration with social workers, teachers and parents. The manager will share and seek input from professionals and parents with any children’s behaviour that creates concern. The manager’s actions ensure that there is multi-agency input, and this prevents the home working in isolation and keeps children safer.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has audit systems in place to ensure that she has consistent oversight on the functioning of the home. However, the manager has failed to send successive quality of care review reports to the regulator. This diminishes the capacity for Ofsted to effectively monitor the management effectiveness of the home and, if required, intervene.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is proud of the decor in the house and is keen to make best use of the home’s resources for the benefit of the children. However, the manager has been Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 5 frustrated around the wider organisation’s arrangements for processing maintenance work. The delay has resulted in minor repair works building up; consequently, parts of the home look depreciated. The manager has now successfully addressed this and there is a plan to employ a maintenance person. This will better enable the upkeep of the children’s home environment.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is motivated to achieve, is experienced and has acquired the respect of her team. The manager empowers her staff to contribute their ideas and interests. Children, therefore, benefit from having the opportunity to broaden their interests and hobbies.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Professionals who work alongside the manager are full of praise for her tenacity associated with the children’s care. The manager is proficient in acquiring children’s statutory documents, but also in advocating for the children. This promotes accountability, but also champions the children to access the support and services that they are eligible to receive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and her deputy are supportive of their staff and their personal development. Staff have the benefit of a structured induction programme, and the manager supports staff development such as staff acquiring the necessary qualification for their role in a timely manner. Staff feel valued and supported in their role. This has had a positive influence on the team’s morale, which benefits the care provided to the children. Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 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 protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe. 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. (Regulation 12 (1)(2)(a)) 6 July 2022

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child which the registered person considers to be serious.

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Requirement Due date

A notification made under this regulation—

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Requirement Due date

the other persons, bodies or organisations (if any) who or which have been notified; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions taken by the registered person as a result of the matter;

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Requirement Due date

must be made or confirmed in writing. (Regulation 40 (4)(b) (5)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(b)) 6 July 2022

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children (“a quality of care review”) at least once every 6 months. 6 June 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 7 The registered person must—

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed; and

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Requirement Due date

make a copy of the quality of care review report available on request to a placing authority, if the placing authority is not the parent of a child accommodated in the home. (Regulation 45 (1) (4)(a)(b))

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that the children’s home is a nurturing and supportive environment that meet the needs of their children. Children’s homes will, in most cases, be homely, domestic environments. Children’s homes must comply with relevant health and safety legislations (alarms, food hygiene etc.); however, in doing so, homes should seek as far as possible to maintain a domestic rather than ‘institutional’ impression. The registered person should ensure that the various maintenance tasks that need remedying around the home are completed in a timely fashion.. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The registered manager should ensure that sanctions that are used to address poor behaviour are restorative in nature, to help children recognise the impact of their behaviour on themselves, other children, the staff caring for them and the

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Recommendations

wider community. Sanctions should be individualised as opposed to being routine and rigid across the group of children, such as all children having to physically hand their televisions over on an evening. (‘Guide to the children’s homes regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.38)

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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: SC462593 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 3 Victoria Street, Greetland, Halifax HX4 8DF

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Inspectors

Steve Guirey, Social Care Inspector Sadie Mulkeen, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC462593 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.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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