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Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 1 SC437069 Registered provider: Derbyshire County Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The service is registered to provide short breaks for up to six children, at any time, who are aged between seven and 17 and who have moderate to severe learning and/or physical disabilities. The children may have additional sensory impairments and disabilities. A local authority owns and manages the service.

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Information about this children’s home

There is a suitably qualified and experienced registered manager in place.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, 14 children were accessing short breaks.

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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

Date of last inspection: 12 October 2021

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none

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Recent inspection history

Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/10/2021 Full Good 20/06/2019 Full Outstanding 25/04/2018 Full Outstanding 04/07/2017 Full Outstanding Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 3

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outstanding

Children have positive experiences during their stays and they have fun. Staff use the home’s resources and the wider community well to provide these positive experiences. Children have opportunities that may not have been possible for them without the short-breaks service. Staff are passionate about offering children a variety of positive, enjoyable and sometimes new experiences.

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outstanding

Staff have worked hard to improve the environment to make this more homely and individualised for children. This is a significant improvement. Staff adapt children’s bedrooms to their individual tastes for each stay. The communal indoor and outdoor areas are colourful spaces. Children enjoy and benefit from the environment and have positive interactions with staff and each other.

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outstanding

External professionals and parents and carers consistently referred to the service as ‘amazing’. Children make exceptional progress in a variety of aspects of their lives. Systems are in place to evidence this progress for children, and this is shared with parents and other agencies. Exceptional progress is noted in children’s personal and social development, in addition to improved access to social opportunities and education.

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outstanding

Feedback from parents and carers is unanimously highly positive. There are excellent working relationships between staff and families. One parent said: ‘They are at another level. The approach that staff use is a can-do approach and there are no blocks to anything. If we were to give her [their child] the choice she would choose to live there.’

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outstanding

It is evident that the support children receive is in the context of their wider family network and that this positively impacts their home life. A social worker reported: ‘The staff have done an amazing job. The progress for the child is phenomenal. This service is very much valued, and I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.’ The short breaks have been an integral part of children’s and families lives.’

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outstanding

Staff understand children’s individual healthcare needs. Staff receive regular, up-to- date training, and they work closely with health colleagues. Consequently, staff are equipped to meet the health needs of every child who attends the home. Staff appreciate the importance of fully understanding children’s specific likes and dislikes, to ensure that their health needs are fully met.

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outstanding

A variety of communication methods are used with children to enable them to share their views. Staff work creatively to ensure that there are regular opportunities for children to have their say. This work with the children, who do not use verbal language as their first means of communication, is highly effective. Children’s ability Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 4 to communicate their needs, wishes and feelings improves because of their short- break stays.

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outstanding

The service is a lifeline for some children and families. Staff quickly respond to children’s crisis and have provided short breaks to enable continuity of support to children and families when times have been difficult. The connection between staff and children is maintained positively when children leave the short-breaks service.

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outstanding

Children receive excellent support and care during their stay. Parents are confident their children are very happy and safe.

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outstanding

Risk assessments and residential plans for children are thorough. They include all known behaviours for each child and detail the best ways for staff to respond. These assessments and plans are used as live, working documents and are discussed regularly in handovers. As a result, staff are continually aware of risks and how to keep children safe.

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outstanding

Any potential safeguarding concerns are taken seriously and responded to appropriately by the manager. This includes an immediate response to ensure the safety and welfare of children There is clear communication with relevant safeguarding agencies and a comprehensive understanding of other professionals’ roles and responsibilities in safeguarding. If there is any learning from incidents, the manager ensures that this is done, and changes are implemented immediately.

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outstanding

Children’s risk of social isolation is significantly reduced because they attend their short breaks. A parent told the inspector that because of staff being ‘brave and bold’, the family has now been able to support their child to access community activities. This work has significantly impacted on children’s lives and has influenced their futures.

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outstanding

The use of physical intervention is rare. While there is appropriate consideration of alternative strategies before a physical intervention, the recording of incidents is not sufficiently clear or detailed. Some records are hard to read. More detail on how the child has responded would be helpful for the manager to be able to monitor any physical interventions used.

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outstanding

Recruitment checks are robust and designed to ensure that children are kept safe. This ensures that suitable people are recruited to work at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers are inspirational, confident and ambitious for children. They create a culture of high aspiration and positivity. They have high expectations of staff. The manager has taken the feedback from the last inspection and worked hard to make improvements, alongside recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. This is evidenced Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 5 in a comprehensive development plan. This included providing opportunities for discussions in supervisions with staff, gathering children’s views, making improvements to the home environment, and developing new and innovative care plans for children. There has been a whole-team approach to making improvements to the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Communication and information-sharing in the staff team is excellent. There has been a change in how handover meetings between staff are run and these ensure that staff are aware of all aspects of children’s care needs. This, alongside excellent communication with families, enables staff to be well prepared to work with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff have had regular supervision meetings with their manager and there have been useful discussions about children’s care plans and actions moving forward. Staff have been supported to share their views and have been involved with the changes in the service.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Management oversight of the service has improved. Leaders advocate exceptionally well for children. Staff seek out the best possible outcomes for children at critical times. There was evidence of the manager challenging a local authority in relation to education plans which supported children to return to education. As a result, children who have been out of education for some time are now successfully engaged.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers are diligent in taking learning on board and developing practices after any key events. For example, there has been learning around how children like to receive their medication, and this is being embedded across the service for all children who receive medication. Appropriate action is taken to reduce risks of medication errors. Leaders and managers have increased management monitoring of systems to ensure tighter management oversight. Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 6

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non-stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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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: SC437069 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Derbyshire County Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Derbyshire County Council, County Offices, Matlock DE4 3AG

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Inspectors

Bev Allison, Social Care Inspector Julie Knight, HMI Social Care Inspection report for children’s home: SC437069 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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