Lincolnshire Secure Unit

Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 1 SC042921 Registered provider: Lincolnshire County Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this secure children’s home

This secure children’s home is managed by a local authority. It is approved by the Department for Education to restrict children’s liberty.

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Information about this secure children’s home

The children’s home can care for up to 12 children aged between 10 and 17 years. It provides care for up to 11 children placed by the youth custody service and one child placed by local authorities under section 25 of the Children Act 1989. The home was caring for 11 children at the time of the inspection.

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Information about this secure children’s home

Admission of any child under section 25 of the Children Act 1989 who is under 13 years of age requires the approval of the Secretary of State.

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Information about this secure children’s home

The commissioning of health services at this home is the statutory responsibility of NHS England under the Health and Social Care Act 2012. Education is provided on site in dedicated facilities.

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Information about this secure children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since 2008.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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good

Children’s education and learning requires improvement to be good Children’s health 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 secure children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good. Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 2 Date of last inspection: 16 November 2021

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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 secure children’s home: SC042921 3

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

16/11/2021 Full Good 18/05/2021 Interim Sustained effectiveness 04/02/2020 Full Good 24/09/2019 Interim Sustained effectiveness Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are consistently positive about their experiences and the progress they make. They gave inspectors examples of how staff have helped them to better understand the reasons why they are in a secure home. Some said that this has changed their thinking and they are more positive about the future.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are receiving good, nurturing care that helps them to make progress and keeps them safe. Care practice is underpinned by meaningful and supportive relationships that create a culture of unconditional respect.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Multidisciplinary working promotes a team around the child approach. Detailed assessments are carried out, plans are formulated and progress is continuously reviewed. Information is shared effectively between care, health and education staff. This means that staff are knowledgeable about the children and provide good continuity of care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work effectively with family members and professionals to ensure that children can move on in a planned way. Professionals are constantly reminded of their obligation to source placements in a timely way and identify support networks for the child. Professional challenge is made when this duty is not met. As a result, most children have moved on in a planned way with some level of continued support from the home’s resettlement officer.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s views and wishes are integral to the day-to-day running of the home and children are encouraged to be involved in decisions about their care. Children’s records, such as risk assessments and safety plans, are developed in partnership with the child and written from their perspective. Consequently, children understand and take ownership of their plans, and also recognise the progress they make.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff routinely involve children in making choices about the food they eat and the activities they do. Children have been supported to develop and use a ‘requests and suggestions’ form for improvements, such as special activities and additional resources.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are good at motivating children to enjoy their time at the home and make purposeful use of the recreational opportunities on offer. Opportunities to maintain personal hobbies and interests are readily available and children are encouraged to develop their talents. For example, one child took great pleasure in showing inspectors how they had used their skills in playing the clarinet in also playing the piano. His rendition of a Christmas song that he wrote was particularly impressive.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The development of peer mentoring is a particularly good initiative. This programme was developed in partnership with a child who then trained his peers to offer Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 5 support to other children. Although in its early stages, this has proven effective when supporting children coming into the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Overall, the standard of accommodation is good, with most areas being child- friendly, within the limitations of a secure home. The newly refurbished lounge has been a particularly positive improvement since the last inspection. However, more work is needed to bring other communal areas and some children’s bedrooms up to the same standard.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Leaders and managers have acted on the shortfalls identified at the last inspection. However, a number of these changes are relatively new and are not yet fully effective in bringing about the necessary improvements.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

The assessment and use of children’s starting points to inform and develop the curriculum are inconsistent across subject areas. Starting points are not always used effectively to create an individualised curriculum that prepares children fully for their next steps.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Teachers’ planning of the curriculum is based on the achievement of unit criteria for qualifications rather than on the development of the knowledge and skills that children need in their academic and personal development. Children sometimes struggle to recount what they learn over time.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

The teachers’ ability to teach the curriculum is limited. This is because they struggle to meet the wide range of children’s abilities in the teaching groups. In a minority of instances, lessons are not structured well enough or they do not have a clear purpose. Teachers do not always challenge children sufficiently to enable them to achieve what they are capable of.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Teachers set targets for children that are too broad. Most reflect the development and improvement of children’s behaviours as well as the achievement of learning goals. Children do not always know what goals they are working towards, or where they are in terms of their academic journey.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Feedback on children’s work, to help them understand what they have done well and what improvements they could make, is inconsistent. In a few subjects, children benefit from detailed feedback that includes what topics they need to practise further. In other subjects, teachers highlight where children have met unit assessment criteria, with little feedback on how they can improve their work. While teachers provide detailed verbal feedback, children do not recall this. Consequently, children are not fully helped to avoid making the same mistakes in future work.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Children’s attendance at education sessions is very good. All children attend regularly and most attend every day. Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 6 Children develop respectful relationships with staff, and mostly with each other. However, in a few instances, staff do not routinely challenge children’s use of inappropriate language in lessons.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Leaders have introduced vocational activities into the curriculum that help children to develop wider skills that will be useful to them in their personal lives. In cooking, children learn how to follow recipes and to create dishes that they can reproduce themselves. In design and technology, children learn how to dismantle and repair equipment, such as bicycles and lawnmowers, and to develop basic woodworking skills.

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Children’s education and learning: requires improvement to be good

Leaders provide high-quality, impartial careers advice and guidance through an external agency, and internal activities are provided that help children to consider their future careers. Staff manage children’s expectations effectively and sensitively when advising them on potential careers.

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Children’s health: good

Children’s health needs are quickly assessed at the point of their admission to the home. Information is captured in comprehensively detailed plans. These are kept under constant review through a range of well-attended multidisciplinary meetings. Bespoke packages of support are offered through age-appropriate health interventions. As a result, children’s known and emerging physical, emotional and mental health needs are met effectively.

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Children’s health: good

Children benefit from high levels of physical and emotional support from this very experienced team. This includes access to the right healthcare professionals following incidents of self-harm or physical restraint. Multidisciplinary meetings are used to review such incidents, and learning points are captured and incorporated into each child’s safety plan. This ensures that children receive the right level of support when they are in crisis and/or presenting a risk to themselves or others.

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Children’s health: good

Healthcare staff work hard to break down barriers and build positive relationships with the children. These relationships are used well to help children engage and take increased responsibility for their individual health needs, for example, attending routine appointments, eating more healthily, doing more exercise and better managing their feelings, resulting in reduced incidents of self-harm.

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Children’s health: good

There are some vacancies in the healthcare team, but children’s access to healthcare services is not affected. This is because of the expertise and creativity of the healthcare team, who have established effective pathways into community services.

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Children’s health: good

Staff across the home are well trained, knowledgeable and highly effective in implementing a trauma-informed model of care. Opportunities for staff to reflect and understand their own experiences are provided through regular clinical supervision. This helps staff to develop resilience and maintain high levels of empathy in some very difficult and challenging situations. Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 7 Improvements in the recording and auditing of medication are ongoing. When errors have been identified, managers have taken action to investigate and address shortfalls. Some areas of practice need to be strengthened further. This includes how medication is moved around the home, the storage arrangements for medication that requires refrigeration and the extent of checks on the defibrillator.

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

Managers and staff understand and take seriously their safeguarding responsibilities. They use their knowledge, information and support from partner agencies, and children’s experiences to identify, assess and plan to reduce risk. Informative and child-centred risk-management strategies are implemented by staff. As a result, children experience good levels of safety planning, which they say make them feel safe.

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

Complaints and allegations are rare. When these happen, staff know how to respond, and managers follow procedures with objectivity and rigour. Concerns are shared promptly with key professionals, such as placing local authority social workers and the local authority designated officer. Investigations are thorough, open and transparent and action is always taken in the best interests of the child.

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

Children’s safety is given the utmost priority. Staff know the children well and are responsive to each child’s known and emerging risks and behaviours. High levels of supervision promote a culture of individualised support. This ensures that risks such as suicide and self-harm are managed in a way that provides both the physical and emotional support the child needs to stay safe.

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

Children spoke about the home’s reward scheme and how this incentivises them to behave well. Staff are positive role models and could be seen acknowledging and praising good behaviour throughout the inspection. Inspectors experienced a calm atmosphere where they were respected and made to feel welcome by the children and staff.

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

Relationships between children, and between children and staff, are respectful. These positive relationships are used to good effect by staff who make every effort to address poor behaviour through negotiation and compromise. When consequences are given, they are proportionate, relevant and restorative, where possible.

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

Children are only restricted to their rooms or kept away from the group when necessary. Detailed records of such events are maintained, and they clearly evidence that these methods are used in the least restrictive way and for the shortest time possible.

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

All staff are trained in the use of physical restraint. Staff are skilled in the use of de- escalation techniques and only use physical restraint as a last resort. Scrutiny of records and CCTV confirms this. Children are seen by a health professional and given the opportunity to reflect and learn following every incident of restraint. These Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 8 views are fed into their behaviour support plans and used to inform future staff responses.

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

Management oversight and scrutiny of restraint are extremely thorough. Managers critically analyse incidents, seeking to highlight good practice as well as points for learning. Information is then shared with staff in the form of a post-incident debrief. However, inspectors found several examples when staff debriefs had not taken place within the required timescales. These are missed opportunities to support these staff and promote professional development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is run by a very experienced and suitably qualified manager. He is supported well by three deputy managers, who maintain good oversight and ensure that high standards of nurturing care are maintained, including when the manager is absent from the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Cohesive working between care, education and health teams promotes an integrated team around the child approach. Links with partner agencies are strong and are used effectively to implement a holistic model of care. Professionals speak with confidence and positivity about high standards of care that keep their children safe and help them overcome barriers and make progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There is no doubt that the experience of being at this home is positive for the children. Staff understand how past experiences can affect children and they make every effort to provide the level of support each child needs. Relationships between children and staff are strong and reinforce a sense of self-worth.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There is a very relaxed and positive feel to this home. It was a pleasure to see lots of happy children and staff enjoying each other’s company. Managers are skilled at promoting and maintaining a positive culture in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff demonstrate a can-do attitude that supports children to fulfil their potential in many aspects of their lives. They are extremely positive about their work and talk with pride about the children and their achievements. Inspectors saw many examples of staff supporting children to overcome the challenges they are facing on a day-to-day basis. This was done with compassion and warmth.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers are visible and provide high levels of support for staff. Professional development and improved care practice are promoted using a purposeful range of supervision methods. Good practice is further promoted through the process of annual appraisals. These could be improved by incorporating the views of children and other professionals who have worked with the staff member over the year.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff have access to a good range of mandatory and needs-led training opportunities. Completion rates are monitored effectively to ensure that relevant courses are completed within timescales. Gaps in learning opportunities that have come about because of changes to the local authority offer have been addressed Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 9 quickly. This ensures that staff maintain good levels of up-to-date knowledge and skills.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers have high expectations of staff. They make good use of a broad range of systems to quality assure staff practice and ensure the safe implementation of each child’s plan. Middle managers are clear about their roles and responsibilities in this respect and are diligent in their efforts to drive an improvement agenda.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

External scrutiny from the local authority designated officer and the regulation 44 visitor further strengthens quality assurance. The current visitor clearly understands secure settings and offers a good level of professional critique that is openly encouraged by managers. The views of children, staff and professionals are routinely captured. However, the views of parents are not.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff understand the importance of good security, which is maintained overall. However, on a few occasions, inspectors found the door to the office area unlocked. This did not present a security risk at the time because children were not in this area. Managers did take steps to address this during the inspection. Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 10

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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

When the independent person is carrying out a visit, the registered person must help the independent person—

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Requirement Due date

if they consent, to interview in private such of the children, their parents, relatives and persons working at the home as the independent person requires. (Regulation 44 (2)(a)) 16 February 2023

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Recommendations

 The registered person should improve children’s bedrooms and communal living areas to make them feel more homely, as far as is safely possible. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The registered person and education leaders should ensure that they measure starting points appropriately and that these are used to inform an individualised curriculum to help children achieve their learning potential. They should also ensure that teachers plan their curricula beyond the assessment criteria of qualifications and/or units so that they focus on the knowledge and skills as well as the behaviours that children need to achieve for their next steps. They should ensure that teachers set appropriately challenging targets that help children to make the progress they should over time. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 29, paragraph 5.18)

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that safe arrangements are in place for staff to move medication around the home and that suitable provision is made to store medication that requires refrigeration. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.15)  The registered manager should ensure that staff consistently follow the locked door policy and keep the door to the office/reception area locked when not in use. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)  The registered person should ensure that debriefs with staff are completed in a timely manner following the review of all incidents of restraint. (‘Guide to the Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 11 Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 49, paragraph 9.59)  The registered person should ensure that where reasonable and practicable, the

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Recommendations

views of children and professionals are gathered and considered when carrying out staff annual appraisals. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.5)

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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 secure children’s home: SC042921 12

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Secure children’s home details

Registered provider: Lincolnshire County Council

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Secure children’s home details

Registered provider address: Lincolnshire County Council, County Offices, Newland, Lincoln LN1 1YL

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Inspectors

Paul Scott, Social Care Inspector James Tallis, Social Care Inspector Cath Sikakana, Social Care Inspector Suzanne Wainwright, HMI Further Education and Skills Catherine Raycraft, Health and Justice Inspector, Care Quality Commission Inspection report for secure children’s home: SC042921 13 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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