Children's Home run by North Yorkshire County Council in North Yorkshire

Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 1 SC034235 Registered provider: North Yorkshire County Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is owned and managed by a local authority under the ‘No Wrong Door’ model. The home provides care for up to six children between the ages of 13 and 18 years with social, emotional or mental health difficulties. The home can also care for a further two children in separate accommodation for up to 28 days.

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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 requires improvement to be good

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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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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: inadequate

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

This children’s home was judged inadequate at the full inspection on 17 and 18 May 2022, and 26 May 2022, because there were significant shortfalls in the safety and protection of children and the leadership and management of the home. Ofsted issued four compliance notices under regulations 11, 12, 13 and 14, and a notice restricting accommodation. These notices were reviewed at a monitoring visit on 21 June 2022. Leaders and managers had not made sufficient progress in meeting those notices and they were reissued. The four compliance notices and the notice restricting accommodation were reviewed as part of this inspection. Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

26/05/2022 Full Inadequate 15/02/2022 Full Requires improvement to be good 03/09/2019 Full Outstanding 18/02/2019 Full Outstanding Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 3

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improvement to be good

Children’s overall progress and experience has improved since the last inspection. However, there remain shortfalls that leaders and managers need to address.

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improvement to be good

The home environment is safe but there are signs of wear and tear throughout the home that need to be addressed. Some areas of the home were not clean, repairs were needed, and furnishings needed to be replaced. Some of these tasks were completed during the inspection in response to feedback. This is not a proactive approach to creating a welcoming, good-quality or comfortable environment for children.

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improvement to be good

Children who are preparing to move on from the home are not making good progress towards their next steps. The plans for children have been affected by decisions made within the local authority. This has meant that identified accommodation is no longer available. This leaves children with an uncertain future and impacts on their ability to engage in education and planning for moving on. For one child, this compounds their anxieties about leaving the home.

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improvement to be good

Staff are not always successful in encouraging children to participate in opportunities to broaden their experiences. When children do take part in planned activities, there is not a constant approach to capturing and recording children’s experiences. There are discussions to improve how to collate children’s memories. However, this is not yet embedded and means that good-quality life-story work is not yet consistently in place.

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improvement to be good

Children living in the home do not regularly attend school or college. Plans to support children to engage in educational activities are more structured. Staff are enrolling to lead groups such as the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. This will offer children the opportunity to explore their talents and interests outside of formal education while continuing to learn. Plans to support children into school and engage in informal learning are more constructive. However, there has been no evidence of this in practice and therefore children’s educational outcomes remain uncertain.

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improvement to be good

Children are registered with local health services and are supported to attend appointments. The home also employs a life coach, who offers psychological support to children and assists in developing the staff team, children’s care plans and risk assessments. This helps children to better understand their own needs and the staff’s understanding of those needs, and their ability to meet them. Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 4

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improvement to be good

There has been a shift in the safeguarding culture in the home. The quality of risk assessments and plans to manage and reduce risk have improved. Concerns for children are plainly identified, and actions for staff are clearly stated. This means that when children are at risk of harm, staff have a guide to respond appropriately and consistently.

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improvement to be good

The response of staff to children who are missing from the home has meant that sometimes children are found quickly, and return to the home with staff. This reduces the length of time that children are at risk of harm. However, current staffing arrangements mean that staff are not able to intervene immediately when children leave the home at night. This prevents staff taking immediate action to safeguard children.

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improvement to be good

Not all staff respond consistently to children or follow their individual risk assessments. While improvements have been noted, there are instances when staff have not immediately looked for children who are missing. Also, not all staff are effective in responding to the emotions of children when they are angry or upset. This can exacerbate their behaviour and lead to incidents increasing in severity. This inconsistency is confusing for both the children and staff.

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improvement to be good

Staff complete mandatory training, and this is monitored by the manager. However not all staff have completed training that is specific to the needs of children, for example in relation to self-harm. This means that staff may not have the skills and knowledge to support children who display this behaviour. This could increase the risk of harm for children.

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improvement to be good

Children report feeling safe in the home and said that they know who to approach if they have any worries or concerns. They benefit from key-working sessions which target their risks and behaviours with a view to supporting them to develop appropriate coping mechanisms. This helps children to understand their risks and learn how to stay safer.

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good

Leaders and managers have now met the steps outlined in the four compliance notices issued at the last inspection. The notice restricting the home from admitting children has also been lifted.

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good

Leaders and managers are developing their monitoring and oversight of the home. The addition of regular meetings to oversee children’s progress and plans have led to improvements in assessing and responding to the needs and risks of children. This enables managers to make improvements to the quality of care provided to children. Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 5 The home uses both electronic and paper filing systems to record information about children. This means that staff, and others who require access, need to look in several places to review that information. Some staff also keep information pertaining to children in their own computer files. The manager is not able to effectively control the security of that information. This leaves children’s personal details vulnerable to being lost or shared inappropriately. It also makes it difficult to follow a child’s story and make sense of decisions made in the best interests of

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good

Feedback from professionals has noted the improvements made so far. One social worker commented on the positive impact that monthly meetings are having on information-sharing and opening communication. However, some parents said that communication can be mixed. Staff generally keep them well informed, but sometimes the response is mixed.

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good

The manager notifies Ofsted of serious concerns relating to children, although the quality of these notifications varies. In some instances, these notifications contain large amounts of recording which is not pertinent to the safeguarding concerns for children. Notifications lack an evaluation of the effectiveness of actions taken to safeguard children, and they contain large amounts of unhelpful detail from the daily logs. This inhibits Ofsted’s oversight of how the home manages serious incidents concerning children. Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 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.

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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

understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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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. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(v)(vi)(vii))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that the staff team act to safeguard children in line with their individual risk assessments. 16 September 2022

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Requirement Due date

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 promotes their welfare.

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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 work as a team where appropriate;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; and 16 September 2022 Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 7 ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(b)(c)(e))

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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; and

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Requirement Due date

have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the 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

ensure the effective induction of each child into the home; and

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Requirement Due date

plan for, and help, each child to prepare to leave the home or to move into adult care in a way that is consistent with arrangements agreed with the child’s placing authority. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)(b) (2)(b)(i)(iii)) 16 September 2022

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children’s homes are nurturing and supportive environments that meet the needs of children, and, 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. In particular, the manager and staff should ensure that the home is clean and tidy at all times and ensure that bedrooms are kept ready for children who may be admitted to the home at short notice. (‘Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The registered person should notify Ofsted and other relevant persons if one of the situations specified in regulation 40(4)(a)-(d) occurs, or if there is an incident relating to the protection, safeguarding or welfare of a child living in the home

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Recommendations

which the registered person considers to be serious (40(4)(e)). In particular, the registered person should ensure that a brief summary of the concerns is clearly recorded along with the actions taken to safeguard children from further harm. (‘Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 63, paragraph 14.10) Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 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: SC034235 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: North Yorkshire County Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: County Hall, Northallerton DL7 8AD

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Inspector

Deb Duffy, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC034235 10 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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