Children's home run by Northamptonshire Children’s Trust Limited

Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 1 Registered provider: Northamptonshire Childrens Trust Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is run by a local authority and is registered to care for up to four children and young people with emotional and behavioural difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in October 2020.

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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 children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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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 children’s home: 2608892 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

07/03/2022 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

At the time of the inspection, four children are living at the home. The children have positive experiences and make progress from their individual starting points. Children provided good feedback about staff and said that they enjoy spending time with them. The staff have established secure relationships with children through nurturing, open and consistent communication.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff facilitate a range of experiences that reflect the children’s interests and hobbies. These include visits to arcades, roller skating, cinema and regular swimming sessions. One child has excelled in an opportunity to undertake mixed martial arts. All children have enjoyed a recent short-break resort holiday. The wide range of activities help children to develop their friendship networks and increase their well-being.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s views are central to the operation of the home. Children have been supported to write detailed and personalised placement plans capturing their preferences. Children can share their thoughts and feelings through reflective house meetings. When children do raise concerns, they feel satisfied with the staff’s responses and actions. This range of inclusive approaches supports children to feel empowered, make informed choices about their care and ensures their rights are respected.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work to remove barriers to education so that children can make progress. One child is expected to gain better than previously expected GCSE grades. Another child is doing well in a photography course at college. Currently, staff are working with external professionals to support other children’s reintroduction to formal school. In these instances, staff have maintained positive routines, supported home tutoring and have encouraged learning opportunities within day-to-day activities to assist these plans.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to make good progress with their life skills. There is a bespoke independent living programme which includes practical targets that enable the staff to track and evaluate children’s development. Children make positive contributions to the community and take part in charitable causes. This improves children’s self - determination, feelings of responsibility and helps them gain skills in readiness for adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff focus on meeting the children’s primary health needs and work well with specialist mental health teams when necessary to meet children’s additional needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff deliver targeted one-to-one discussions with children outlining the risks and dangers of nicotine addiction. However, staff have not yet supported one child to access the health services that they need to encourage them to stop smoking. Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 4

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

Children who were previously at risk of exploitation are now safer. Children participate in frequent and well-planned, one-to-one discussions with staff. Subjects include online safety, managing healthy relationships and developing coping strategies. This improves children’s knowledge of their personal safety and helps increase their emotional resilience.

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

Staff use good relationships with children as a basis for managing difficult behaviours and reducing risk. There are detailed individual risk assessments and behaviour support plans in place. Incentives are used to encourage positive behaviour, and consequences are used proportionately and appropriately.

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

When children have been missing from the home, they are helped to return at the earliest opportunity. Staff actively look for children and use one-to-one work well to help the children understand how to avoid difficult situations. Although incidents have recently increased for some children, staff have identified learning through these incidents and use this to improve and develop further risk-reduction strategies.

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

The staff are aware of their safeguarding responsibilities and have good knowledge of whistle-blowing procedures. When there are safeguarding concerns for children, managers ensure that these are shared with professionals and handled appropriately.

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

The use of physical restraint for children is infrequent, proportionate and always as a last resort. Incidents are reviewed by managers, who scrutinise practice appropriately. However, on two occasions, when the manager was involved in the restraint, senior managers have not ensured that the views of children about the restraint are captured. This hinders the overall analysis and learning from these incidents.

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

Children who have struggled to manage their self-harm behaviours have been helped to reduce them. There are clear strategies that staff follow. However, not all staff have attended up-to-date training in understanding and reducing the risks of self-harm, despite it being an identified area of risk for children.

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

Safer recruitment processes are not consistently followed. The use of agency staff has only recently been necessary to cover staffing shortages. However, managers have not ensured that systems in place to monitor the recruitment checks for agency staff provide the necessary assurances that all required information has been gained. Furthermore, the checks for one permanent staff member did not include a full employment history, or written explanation of gaps in employment. As a result, current systems do not sufficiently reduce the potential for unsuitable people to gain employment at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 5 An experienced manager is in post and is working towards the required qualification. He is supported by a newly appointed deputy manager. Managers are child-focused and committed to providing good-quality care. Managers have established excellent relationships with families and other agencies to help them to meet children’s needs. The feedback from the children’s families and from professionals is unanimously positive.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff speak highly of the manager’s expertise and approachability. The staff meet regularly as a team and prioritise the needs of the children. Open discussions about staff practice support a professional culture in which challenge is accepted. Staff morale is high, and their commitment provides stability in children’s experiences.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers give careful thought to the group of children that stay at the home together. Effective group impact assessments are completed that link with well- planned and personalised moves for children. The current group of children get along very well together.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has challenged the organisation in relation to issues identified in the environment. However, the response from the senior management team has not been swift or effective. There are areas of the home that need immediate attention, including broken cupboards, faded worktops and worn flooring in the kitchen. Carpeting throughout the home needs replacing. Despite some of these shortfalls being raised at the last inspection and work being planned, there is still no agreed date for the scheduled kitchen refurbishments to take place. This does not create a consistently well-decorated home that meets children’s preferences.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

External monitoring by an independent person takes place, which includes a good level of scrutiny to drive improvements. However, the manager’s internal review of the quality of care has been delayed beyond required timescales. One of these reviews was not submitted to Ofsted. Furthermore, objectives identified for development are not always clear, specific or measurable. Improvements are necessary to ensure that this form of monitoring contributes effectively to the quality assurance systems implemented in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Processes for notifying Ofsted are usually effective. However, on one occasion, an allegation against a staff member was responded to but was not notified. Other notifications have been delayed. This has not increased the risk to children; however, Ofsted’s capacity to monitor safeguarding arrangements has been reduced.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

A good proportion of staff have the required level 3 qualification. However, seven staff members who should have achieved this have yet to do so. The manager has devised a plan to ensure that these staff members achieve these qualifications promptly. Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 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 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

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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

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(h))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, senior managers must ensure that systems to monitor, resolve and improve the decorative condition of the home are effective. 30 March 2023

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children’s safety.

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Requirement Due date

employ an individual to work at the children’s home; or

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Requirement Due date

if an individual is employed by a person other than the registered person to work at the home in a position in which the individual may have regular contact with children, allow that individual to work at the home, if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3).

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Requirement Due date

full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (1) (2)(a)(b) (3)(d)) 30 March 2023 Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 7 In particular:

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Requirement Due date

ensure that agency staff have had the required checks prior to their deployment;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that full employment history and written explanation of gaps in employment for staff are obtained.

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Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained—

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Requirement Due date

the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) ("the Level 3 Diploma"); or

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Requirement Due date

a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma.

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Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home; or

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Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1st April 2014, 1st April 2016.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person may defer the relevant date if the individual—

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Requirement Due date

does not work, or has not worked, in a care role in a home for a prolonged period; or

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Requirement Due date

works, or has worked, in a care role in a home on a part- time basis. (Regulation 32 (4)(a)(b) (5)(a)(b) (6)(a)(b)) 31 May 2023

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children ("a quality of care review") at least once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed. (Regulation 45 (1) (4)(a)) 1 March 2023 Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 8

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff support children regarding the dangers of nicotine addiction, including helping them to stop, by referring them to specialist smoking-cessation services. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.18)  The registered person should ensure that any child who has been restrained should be given the opportunity express their feelings about their experience of the restraint as soon as is practicable, ideally within 24 hours of the restraint incident, taking the age of the child and the circumstances of the restraint into account. In some cases, children may need longer to work through their feelings, so a record that the child has talked about their feelings should be made no longer than 5 days after the incident of restraint (regulation 35(3)(c)). Children should be encouraged to add their views and comments to the record of restraint.

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Recommendations

(‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 50, paragraph 9.60)  The registered person should ensure that staff can access appropriate facilities and resources to support their training needs. In particular, they should ensure that all staff are offered training around reducing the risks of self-harm. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.11)  The registered person should have a system in place so that all serious events are notified, within 24 hours, to the appropriate people. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations including the quality standards’, page 63, paragraph 14.13)

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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: 2608892 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Northamptonshire Childrens Trust Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: One Angel Square, Angel Street, Northampton, Northamptonshire NN1 1ED

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Inspector

Mark Anderton, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2608892 10 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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