Tree House Care Fostering Solutions

Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 1 Tree House Care Fostering Solutions Tree House Care Fostering Solutions Ltd Tree House Care Fostering Solutions, The Old Vicarage, 17 Heneage Road, Grimsby, North East Lincs DN32 9DZ Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this independent fostering agency

Tree House Care Fostering Solutions is a privately run independent fostering agency. The agency provides emergency, short-term, long-term and respite placements. The agency also provides specific therapeutic placements and sibling group placements.

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Information about this independent fostering agency

At the time of the inspection, the agency had 59 approved fostering households and 80 children living with foster carers.

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Information about this independent fostering agency

The registered manager has been registered with Ofsted since July 2017.

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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 independent fostering agency provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 2

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children benefit from stability and a sense of permanence. Most children have lived with their foster carers for a long period of time. The managers actively think about long-term planning at the start of any matching processes. This includes how best to support children to return to family if this is in line with their plans.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Foster carers and the team of support staff actively promote and advocate for children’s education. During the COVID-19 pandemic, every child and foster carer had the support they needed to help to maintain the education of the children in their care. Risk assessments were in place for those children who were unable to return to school. These were regularly reviewed to ensure that information remained accurate. Children have been able to achieve the results they need to progress to college and to find work due to the support given to them by foster carers and the agency.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager and staff team work well with other agencies, including health, education and local authorities, to ensure that children’s needs are met. Children with complex health needs are cared for by foster carers with the relevant training to do so. This helps to ensure that children have the support they need to stay fit and well.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s birth families are valued and are an important part of children’s lives. Foster carers support these relationships in line with the children’s plans, and some children have returned to their birth family as a result of this support. Birth families are consulted with and are included in decisions about children’s lives, which helps them to remain connected.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The agency was quick to adapt to the restrictions in place due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The manager prioritised foster carers’ and children’s health while maintaining appropriate contact throughout the pandemic. The manager was quick to revert to face-to-face visits as soon as possible, and supported the team to be creative in how this could be achieved.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The assessment of new foster carers is thorough, and the agency follow up any concerns if they arise. Prospective foster carers are given information about to what to expect from the start. This helps to ensure that carers feel well supported throughout the assessment process.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The management team has recognised the importance of children feeling welcomed into the foster carer’s home, and recently implemented welcome boxes for foster carers and the children. These provide children with information, but also opportunities to bond with their foster carers, such as promoting a movie night in order to spend time together. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 3 The agency regularly seeks the views of children, and they advocate on their behalf. When children first arrive in their new home, they are given a copy of a children’s guide. This provides basic information about the agency. However, this document lacks depth and is not child focused. This is a missed opportunity to ensure that children know what to expect from their foster carers and the agency.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There are pockets of exceptional work delivered by individual staff members, such as supporting children through a bereavement. Supporting staff members also help individual children when it is identified that this would be beneficial, such as helping children with their independence. However, this additional support is not in place or considered for all children, and depends on the individual supervising link worker identifying this need.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The agency is aiming to work therapeutically and it has strong links with consultant therapists to support the foster carers and staff team. There is a clear focus on trying to upskill and embed this into everything that the agency does. However, there are some missed opportunities, and some foster carers have not been encouraged enough to access this support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children make progress in all areas of their lives. However, the manager’s tools for capturing this and identifying areas for development are not fully effective. This is particularly evident for children aged five and under. The manager is currently working on developing a more effective system.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Support groups for children have been tried, and there are lots of opportunities for children to take part in activities to celebrate seasonal activities. However, some opportunities have not always been well received by the children. A recent reinvention of a book club has improved interaction and engagement with the children, as well as encouraging children to develop a love of reading.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Approved foster carers feel supported and receive regular supervisions. The supervisions are very child focused and have clear actions for children. However, the foster carers’ professional development and emotional well-being are not always consistently discussed or addressed. It is not clearly documented . Therefore, the manager is unable to track if actions have been met and information may be lost if staff members change.

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

Incidents when children go missing from their homes are managed well. Foster carers respond well. They are proactive in looking for children and reporting them to the police to ensure that they are returned quickly. Plans are put in place to reduce reoccurrences.

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

Support for foster carers is in place, with a supportive out-of-hours service. The manager ensures that out-of-hours support staff know about all of the families through discussions at team meetings. This ensures that supervising link workers Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 4 understand children’s needs and can offer appropriate support to the foster carers. This, in turn, helps to support children well.

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

There are very few incidents of children being held to keep them safe. When this takes place, the records are completed fully. The manager reviews these records and identifies areas for improvement and addresses them.

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

The agency responds quickly to safeguard children if an allegation is made. The actions taken help to reduce the risk of harm and ensure that all relevant professionals are notified.

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

Children’s individual support plans are not all of a high quality and are not implemented in a timely way. This means that areas of support that children need are not identified or acted on quickly. This has the potential to hinder how foster carers respond to the children’s risks and vulnerabilities.

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

Individual work is not always promoted to be undertaken by carers, and there is a reliance, at times, on external resources. This can mean a delay in the work being done to help children or their foster carers. While risks are reducing, more could be done to reduce this further for children.

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

Safe recruitment is thorough, and the provider follows safeguarding processes in detail. The manager ensures that the agency only employ the right people, who are safe to work with children.

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

Not all carers receive an unannounced visit twice a year as per the agency’s statement of purpose. Some foster carers have had gaps of more than 14 months in between visits. The systems in place to ensure that these visits happen are not effective. This does not ensure that foster carers and children are seen as they should be, and may prevent potential concerns being identified.

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

Some foster carers who have had a complaint or allegation made against them do not feel well supported. Foster carers have raised concerns with the agency that they do not have access to information in a timely manner before attending panel or significant event reviews. This prevents the foster carer from being able to prepare or respond to complaints or allegations.

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

Despite there being clear safeguarding processes, there have been three instances where carers resigned while waiting for a review to take place due to unexplained delays. The meetings have now taken place and the information is on the foster carer’s file that they would have been deregistered. However, this does impact on external safeguarding as these foster carers can continue to work with vulnerable children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 5 The manager registered in 2017 and is child focused. She has supported the staff team throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to ensure that they remain connected to children, foster carers and other professionals, even when working at home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The supervision of social workers is regular, purposeful and progressive. Staff confirm that they feel very well supported in their role. They are helped and encouraged to expand their competence and confidence in all areas of work. Consequently, this is a staff team whose members remain motivated and well equipped for their roles.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The therapeutic model of care is becoming further embedded. Some foster carers and supervising link workers understand and embrace the therapeutic model, whereas some struggle with the model. This is a continuing area of development that the manager recognises and supports.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The agency has adapted and created new training based on the needs of the children, which are ever changing. The manager continues to explore new ways of developing training to ensure that it continues to help to support the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The panel ensures that they have the information needed to make informed decisions and recommendations for children. The panel are good gatekeepers and offer stringent scrutiny of all applications to foster. Furthermore, the panel provide helpful feedback for the agency on the quality of reports and other matters. This helps the agency to continually develop and improve.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The process of decision-making following the panel’s recommendation is good. The decision-maker considers a full range of information to satisfy themselves that recommendations are fair and based on evidence.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager works with her team to undertake lessons learned following complaints or areas where information may have been missed. These lessons have not yet been embedded in practice, which is preventing change from being made.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is ambitious and has plans to further develop the agency. She has an action plan in place to help strengthen key areas of the service. However, progress is inconsistent, as not all identified actions have been acted on in a timely manner. For example, the manager identified the need to implement recording training for foster carers. This took six months to complete. This delay has contributed to inconsistent quality in children’s records.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Due to staff turnover, the manager and team leaders made the decision to support some families in order to promote consistency. However, this has impacted on the ability for them to do their roles effectively. Plans were in place to try to prevent this from happening, but they have not been fully effective. This has contributed to some of the shortfalls in practice identified. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 6

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Recommendations

 The registered manager should ensure that foster carers encourage children to take appropriate risks as a normal part of growing up. Children are helped to understand how to keep themselves safe, including when outside of the household or when using the internet or social media. (‘Fostering Services: national minimum standards’, 4.4)  The registered manager should ensure that each approved foster carer is supervised by a named, appropriately qualified social worker who has meetings with the foster carer, including at least one unannounced visit a year. Meetings have a clear purpose and provide the opportunity to supervise the foster carer’s work, ensure the foster carer is meeting the child’s needs, taking into account the child’s wishes and feelings, and offer support and a framework to assess the carer’s performance and develop their competencies and skills. The frequency of meetings for short-break foster carers should be proportionate to the amount of

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Recommendations

care provided. Foster carers’ files include records of supervisory meetings. (‘Fostering Services: national minimum standards’, 21.8)  The registered manager should ensure that as soon as possible after an investigation into a foster carer is concluded, their approval as suitable to foster is reviewed. There is a clear policy framework which outlines the circumstances in which a foster carer should be removed as one of the fostering service provider’s approved foster carers, in the interests of the safety or welfare of children. This is available to foster carers. (‘Fostering Services: national minimum standards’, 22.8)  The registered manager should ensure that they regularly monitor all records kept by the service to ensure compliance with the service’s policies, to identify any concerns about specific incidents and to identify patterns and trends. Immediate action is taken to address any issues raised by this monitoring. (‘Fostering

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Recommendations

Services: national minimum standards’, 25.2)  The registered manager should ensure that the foster carer understands the important supporting role they play in encouraging the child to reflect on and understand their history. The child, subject to age and understanding, is encouraged to keep appropriate memorabilia (including photographs) of their time in the placement. The fostering service makes this role clear to their foster carers and ensures they can record, and help children make a record of (subject to age and understanding), significant life events. (‘Fostering Services: national minimum standards’, 26.7) Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 7

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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 Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and the national minimum standards. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 8

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Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions Ltd

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Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider address: Treehouse Care Fostering Solutions Ltd, 107 Cleethorpe Road, Grimsby, North East Lincolnshire DN31 3ER

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Independent fostering agency details

Email address: enquiries@treehousecare.org

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Inspectors

Debra Boldy, Social Care Inspector Rachel Walker, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for independent fostering agency: Tree House Care Fostering Solutions 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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