Children's Home run by Surrey County Council in Surrey

Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 1 SC068827 Registered provider: Surrey County Council Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is operated by a local authority and provides care for up to four children with social, behavioural and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since July 2022 and is suitably qualified.

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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

Date of last inspection: 5 December 2022

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: inadequate

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

Two compliance notices were issued at the last full inspection, under regulation 12, the protection of children standard, and regulation 13, the leadership and management standard. A monitoring visit was carried out on 16 January 2023 to monitor the provider’s progress against the compliance notices, and it was deemed that the provider had taken the required action to meet both the compliance notices. Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/12/2022 Full Inadequate 25/08/2021 Full Good 22/08/2019 Full Good 25/10/2018 Full Good Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Since the last inspection, three children have remained living in the home and one child has moved on. When children are preparing to move on from the home into independent accomodation staff ensure they develop the skills they need to be independent, such as budgeting, cooking and household tasks.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is a warm and welcoming environment for children to grow up in. Children have lovely relationships with staff, who care about them and their well- being. The registered manager ensures that current children’s needs are placed above those of any new children potentially moving into the home, to ensure there is no impact on their progress and safety.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There is excellent care planning by the registered manager, which includes joined- up working with external professionals to support the staff to meet the care needs of the children. The staff implement boundaries for children, even when this becomes quite difficult. They are offering consistent care and working well as a team to achieve this. Consequently, this has led to a decrease in incidents and children are more settled.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All children are accessing education. On the whole, children are making good progress and enjoying school and college. When a child is struggling to attend school, managers advocate for the child. They look at different activities and options to promote learning while the right setting is found.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All children are healthy and active. They attend regular routine appointments and when they need additional support, this is put in place. Children and staff have regular discussions about being healthy.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure that children have opportunities for regular key-work sessions to talk about topics that may be impacting on them. Staff also provide educational information to help children reduce their risks. This has led to a significant decrease in children’s cannabis and alcohol use. Work on this is continuing with children, with support from external professionals.

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

The registered manager ensures that staff are aware of their responsibilities to safeguard children. When safeguarding practice has fallen short, improvement plans for staff have been instigated and shared learning has been completed in team meetings.

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

Staff rarely use physical intervention to support children to be safer. However, when the registered manager has identified shortfalls in a staff member’s practice when using a physical intervention, this has been reported appropriately and investigated. Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 4 The staff use consequences to teach children about appropriate behaviours. For example, if a child has damaged items, a small monetary contribution is expected towards a replacement item. The registered manager ensures there is oversight and discussion with the child following each consequence being used.

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

There has been an increase in one child going missing from home. Staff are proactive and look for the child when they go missing. They engage them in key- working sessions and are trying out new risk measures to help reduce incidents of going missing. Regular multi-agency meetings are held to discuss current risks and there is collaborative working to reduce risks for this child.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has worked exceptionally hard since the last inspection and made improvements to the care, safety and experiences for children. Senior leaders ensure that there is effective support for managers and leaders in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Team meetings are used as an interactive opportunity for staff development. Scenarios have been used to give staff some reflective learning opportunities, and external practitioners have been invited to the home to share their expertise with the staff. All staff have the skills and experience to support the children’s care needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

All staff and managers have regular, supportive and reflective supervision. When this has been delegated to other staff by the registered manager, regular quality checks are completed to ensure that all staff receive good-quality and consistent support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

External feedback is consistently positive and reflects on the progress children have made. One child’s social worker said, ‘They haven’t given up on [name of child] and I really commend and thank them for that.’ This demonstrates the staff’s commitment to children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager has established excellent systems to support her monitoring and oversight of children’s care. Consequently, she is proactively implementing lessons learned and sustaining good practice. Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 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 children's home: SC068827 6

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Surrey County Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Quadrant Court, 35 Guildford Road, Woking, Surrey GU22 7QQ

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Inspector

Sara Stoker, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: SC068827 7 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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