Children's home run by Raise House Limited

Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 1 Registered provider: Raise House Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is registered to provide care for up to three children. The provider states in its statement of purpose that it provides care for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties. There were two children living at the home at the time of this inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

The home and the manager registered with Ofsted in July 2020.

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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: 2592361 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/05/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children settle in well when they first arrive. They share trusting relationships with staff. A child said, ‘I like the staff, my key worker is great, one of the best professionals I’ve ever met.’ Another child said, ‘It’s going to be a good journey here. You can tell early if your time is going to be boring or a good time.’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children say that they feel listened to. They understand the process for making complaints. However, they do not make complaints about the home and prefer instead to share any concerns they may have directly with staff. However, written information in the children’s guide about making complaints requires review. Currently, the document does not include the contact details for Ofsted, the Children’s Commissioner or the organisation’s complaints officer. These details should be provided to ensure that the guide provides children with good information about external advocates.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive personalised care and are treated with dignity and respect. Support plans address well the issues highlighted by the placing authority at the point of referral. However, an area identified for improvement is that managers should ensure that support plans are explicit in how staff are to meet children’s identity needs. This is to ensure that children’s holistic needs, as outlined in local authority care plans, are fully met.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to lead healthy lifestyles. This is in relation to their health and their emotional, social and psychological well-being. Staff register children with primary care services and encourage them to attend medical appointments. This ensures that children follow recommended medical treatment plans. Children have access to specialist healthcare professionals, including, for example, substance misuse programmes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s learning outcomes are variable. Staff are working hard to promote children’s academic achievements and encourage continued learning. Some children are making steady progress in their education. Others, however, are less engaged in their education and so their learning outcomes are not as good as expected. For some children, there is a renewed interest in their education. A child said in a key- work session, ‘I’m trying! I went to school today. I actually liked it!’

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy a creative range of leisure activities. Staff have recently focused on increasing children’s participation in the home’s activities. This has been successful, and children are readily choosing and taking part in planned activities. These have recently included a trip to London Zoo to feed the giraffes and going go-karting and ice skating.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children keep in touch with their families and friends when it is safe for them to do so. If children prefer not to have contact with family members, staff respect this. Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 4 Staff regularly consult with parents and keep them informed of key events in their children’s lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children develop practical living skills with the support and supervision of staff. This helps them to prepare for adulthood. Children routinely carry out household chores, and are encouraged to shop, prepare meals and do their laundry. Children are supported to participate in day-to-day decision-making about their lives, such as making menu choices and deciding on the decor of their bedrooms.

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

Children say that they feel safe. Staff protect them from harm, abuse and neglect. A child said, ‘I do feel safe here. I can speak to someone here about anything.’ Children benefit from the staff’s knowledge of and updated training in safeguarding. Staff are familiar with the home’s child protection policies. This helps to keep children safe.

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

Staff understand the risks posed to children. Risk assessments include strategies that help to curb risk-taking behaviour. These strategies are detailed and effective in reducing risks posed to each child. However, the staff’s recording of risk assessments does not always include historical risk-taking behaviour. This is important to ensure that staff are aware of and can anticipate risks that are likely to emerge.

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

Some children are frequently missing from their home. Staff are working hard with children and professionals to reduce this trend. Records of unauthorised absences and incidents of children going missing from care are clear. These are explicit in highlighting the action staff take when children are missing from the home. Records are consistent with children’s individual safety plans. This helps to promote the safe return of children when they are missing from care.

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

Staff promote positive behaviour and they encourage children to adhere to boundaries and house rules. Staff make these clear to children and some have signed contracts in place to further encourage positive behaviour. When staff use sanctions, these are clear and proportionate to the offending behaviour. Increasingly, staff are using praise and incentives to encourage positive behaviour.

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

Staff only restrain children in exceptional circumstances, when children and others are deemed to be at immediate risk of harm. Recording tools are clear and highlight why staff intervened using restraint. Improvement is needed to some staff records of restraint, to clarify the type of technique used, if there have been any injuries to children and whether children wish to make a complaint. Managers do not always sign off these records.

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

Children share mutual, trusting relationships with staff. Allegations against staff are rare. However, when allegations are made, managers deal with these quickly and sensitively. Safeguarding officers and other professionals are promptly informed and Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 5 investigations are comprehensive and fair. This helps to protect children from harm, as children’s safety is kept central to investigations.

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

Staff help children to keep themselves safe. Key-work sessions include discussions about risk-taking behaviour and the danger posed by such behaviour. Children’s meetings often include discussions that explore safeguarding issues.

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

Staff recruitment practices are generally thorough. However, managers do not consistently obtain confirmation of staff’s formal qualifications. This does not confirm that staff have the qualifications required to work with children.

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

Staff’s communication with safeguarding professionals is good. This ensures that when child protection issues arise, there are effective and coordinated plans in place that help to protect children. A local authority social worker said, ‘The staff have been providing [child’s name] with regular key-work sessions about keeping himself safe when out in the community. He has been adhering to the house rules and has been adhering to the curfew. He feels included in the home and engages in regular weekly home meetings.’

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers have an ambitious vision for the service and have high expectations for what children can achieve. The registered manager is well qualified and suitably experienced to manage the team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There are robust systems that help to monitor children’s progress or placement issues. Children’s case files evidence monthly summaries that highlight children’s experiences and progress and any issues of concern. These monthly summaries are shared with children’s local authority social workers.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The director’s six-monthly review of the home’s quality of care highlights future improvement priorities. The review charts children’s progress and experiences and identifies how the managers plan to improve the quality of care that children receive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are well supported by the manager. Staff training opportunities are excellent, with a renewed focus on safeguarding policies and practice. The staff team has recently undertaken a week-long training programme. This training explored key issues to support staff’s effective work with children. Managers are encouraging staff to reflect on providing effective, safe care.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff appreciate the open and encouraging manner in which managers work with them. A member of staff said, ‘The best thing about working here? There’s a good atmosphere, we’re all on the same page as a staff group. We’re really tight here. You couldn’t get nicer managers.’ Staff receive regular formal supervision and annual appraisals. These ensure that staff’s care practices are safe and meet the needs of children. Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 6 Leaders and managers have worked hard to address shortfalls identified at the last Ofsted inspection. These have all been successfully resolved.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders, managers and the staff team place the well-being of children at the centre of their practice. The registered manager and other leaders challenge other professionals when the responses from other services are not in children’s best interests. This has been the case when managers have been clear that children’s risk-taking behaviour is of such concern that their placement at the home is no longer safe and appropriate.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers and staff share very effective working relationships with parents and external professionals. The staff team’s consultation with parents is consistent and appropriate. Managers promptly request that professionals’ meetings are held to explore concerns for children’s progress and safety. An independent reviewing officer said, ‘The local authority social worker feedback is that she feels [child’s name] is doing really well. The home is good for him, and he has thrived in the placement.’ Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 7

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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 children’s views, wishes and feelings standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

keep the children’s guide and the home’s complaints procedure under review and seek children’s comments before revising either document. (Regulation 7 (2)(c)) 1 August 2022

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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; 1 August 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 8 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)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children s safety.

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Requirement Due date

employ an individual to work at the children’s home; or

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Requirement Due date

if an individual is employed by a person other than the registered person to work at the home in a position in which the individual may have regular contact with children, allow that individual to work at the home,

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Requirement Due date

if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3). The requirements are that

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Requirement Due date

the individual is of integrity and good character; and

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Requirement Due date

full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (1) (2)(a)(b) (3)(d)) 1 August 2022

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that support plans highlight and promote each child’s welfare, taking into account the child’s gender, religion, ethnicity, cultural and linguistic background, sexual identity, mental health, any disability, their assessed needs, previous experiences and any relevant plans. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 14, paragraph 3.2)  The registered person should ensure that staff fully assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are historical Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 9 safeguarding concerns for a child, their placement plan, agreed between the home and their placing authority, must include details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risks on a day-to-day basis. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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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: 2592361 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Raise House Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 3rd Floor, Paternoster House, 65 St Paul’s Churchyard, London EC4M 8AB

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Inspector

Sandra Jacobs-Walls, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2592361 11 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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