Children's Home run by Springfield Road Children’s Homes Ltd in East Sussex

Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 1 SC412296 Registered provider: Springfield Road Children’s Homes Ltd Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home offers care and support for up to four children between the ages of 10 and 18 years. At the time of this inspection, there were four children living in the home.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since March 2019.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

21/04/2021 Full Outstanding 25/04/2019 Full Good 26/07/2018 Full Good 29/06/2017 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 3

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outstanding

Children benefit from a stable and consistent staff team. Staff pride themselves on creating positive experiences for children in their care. Children make excellent progress in all areas of their lives, including in education, emotional and physical well-being, independence and in keeping themselves safe.

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outstanding

Staff ensure that the house is beautifully presented. They strive for a non- institutional feel. Children benefit from the addition of a full-time maintenance worker to the staff team who keeps the home in high decorative order and continually works to improve the environment.

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outstanding

Children have high-quality relationships with staff and spend a lot of time socialising in the communal areas of the home, including engaging in warm exchanges full of humour and affection.

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outstanding

Children are all making good educational progress, either through having excellent school attendance or being on apprenticeships. For some, this is their first positive experience of a stable and successful engagement in education.

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outstanding

Since the last inspection, there have been some transformative changes for children. One child, who previously lived in a sparse bedroom and was resistant to settling into the home, now lives in a beautiful bedroom, full of personal touches. Another child who was struggling in education, engaging in high-risk behaviours and finding it difficult to form positive relationships is now excelling at college, has restored positive contact with their family and has formed stable relationships and friendships outside the home.

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outstanding

Children are supported to review their own progress every month and set their own goals to work towards. This ensures that they can focus on what is important to them and how they want their lives to move forward.

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outstanding

One parent told the inspector, ‘Staff are consistently helpful and professional. I feel respected and taken seriously at all times. My views and opinions matter.’

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outstanding

Staff have an extensive understanding of the risks that children can face. They ensure that risk assessments are frequently reviewed and updated as necessary. Staff follow agreed strategies closely when incidents occur. This has resulted in a reduction of severity and frequency of incidents. Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 4 When one child started to go missing from the home, staff worked in close partnership with the child’s social worker, the police and their family to create a consistent approach. Consequently, staff were able to reduce and eventually eliminate this risk. The child is proud of their own learning and development around personal safety.

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outstanding

Staff manage children’s behaviours in a supportive and non-stigmatising way. When any issues do occur, restorative work with children is strongly evidenced. When two children were not getting on, staff engaged the children in a ‘living together’ review. This had an immediate and positive impact on the quality of relationships between the children.

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outstanding

Staff have formed excellent working relationships with safeguarding professionals, the police and placing authorities. This enables staff to respond to risk quickly and effectively, providing a stable and consistent base from which children can flourish.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers are passionate and driven. They continually strive for ways to improve the service for children and staff alike. Leaders have instilled a strong therapeutic framework, working in partnership with experts in the field of trauma. This gives staff a clear foundation for their work, including a strong emphasis on reflective practice. Leaders have also made good use of a consultant in recent months to enhance practice around the supervision and support of staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and staff are passionate and dedicated advocates for the children. They are not reluctant to challenge external agencies when appropriate. This is always done in a professional manner which elicits constructive responses.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff benefit from warm and supportive supervisory relationships. They get opportunities to reflect on the emotional impact of their roles. Staff say that supervision and appraisal have a strong developmental impact on their practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The leadership team members talk of close collaborative relationships with each other. Management of the home is strengthened by effective team leaders who play a vital role in the training and development of staff. The quality of leadership results in a dedicated, established staff team, many of whom have completed long years of service at the home. In turn, staff provide children with excellent consistency, with reliable, trusted adults around them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Currently, leaders are taking part in an academic research project on effective outcomes for looked after children. They hope this will assist them in reflecting on their own practice and increase their understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of their service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff benefit from a well-developed training programme. Leaders are also very quick to identify additional training requirements for staff. For example, following a recent assessment of a child for attention deficit disorder, all staff were enrolled on a Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 5 dedicated training course. Staff say this helped them to improve communication with the child and to understand the child’s needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Children are confident and eloquent. Staff work tirelessly to place the children at the heart of everything they do. Children feel listened to and valued, and they were able to give many examples of ways in which their views are sought by staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Monitoring through regulation 44 and 45 processes does require some improvement. Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 6

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Recommendation

 The registered person should actively seek independent scrutiny of the home and make best use of information from independent and internal monitoring (including under regulations 44 and 45) to ensure continuous improvement. They should be skilled in anticipating difficulties and reviewing incidents, such as learning from disruptions and placement breakdowns. They are responsible for proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. In particular, a more structured approach to internal monitoring would ensure a consistent overview of all elements of service delivery. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 55, paragraph 10.24)

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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: SC412296 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Springfield Road Children’s Homes Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 5 Cornfield Terrace, Eastbourne, East Sussex BN21 4NN

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Inspector

Peter Jackson, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC412296 8 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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