Children's Home run by Channels and Choices Kent LLP in Kent

Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 1 SC385631 Registered provider: Channels & Choices Kent Limited Liability Partnership Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is registered to provide care for up to four children. It is operated by a private organisation. According to the statement of purpose, the home caters for children aged between seven and 16 who have social and emotional difficulties. There were four children living at the home at the time of the inspection, three of whom have moved to the home in the past six months.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has applied to register with Ofsted. The previous manager left in July 2022.

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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: SC385631 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

07/03/2022 Full Good 05/02/2020 Interim Sustained effectiveness 22/10/2019 Full Good 21/03/2019 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is settled, and children have, or are establishing, daily routines which suit them well. Children enjoy living at the home and are making good progress to overcome adverse experiences and prepare them for future care in foster family settings.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are treated with kindness by staff who care about them and want them to feel secure. Staff embrace children’s individual identities and value their cultural needs. Children’s family members are spoken of respectfully and warmly by staff, and children are helped to maintain these relationships.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

All the children are of primary school age and have school placements with good and improving levels of attendance. The manager works closely with education professionals to help children receive consistent boundaries and expectations in positive behaviour and engagement at school. The manager has put in place additional support from staff for children to improve their reading skills and enjoyment from books. Children value this, becoming avid readers and participants in book reviews.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff promote the importance of a healthy lifestyle to children, encouraging healthy eating, regular exercise and activity. Staff are skilled in supporting children to regulate their emotions and mood, which in turn brings positive benefits to children’s well-being. The provider’s specialist therapeutically trained staff provide high-quality, responsive and consistent clinical oversight of children’s mental health needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children who move to the home have previously experienced multiple placement breakdowns. Since moving to the home, they have remained settled. Unplanned endings of placements at the home have not occurred. Children who move on from the home are well prepared for this planned move and maintain positive relationships with staff. The manager and staff capture children’s journeys while they are living at the home in beautifully presented books of photos and memories for children to take with them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to make new friendships and connections with their community. Staff help children to find and join sports teams and enjoy a wealth of activities and opportunities for enrichment, including holiday clubs. The home is a welcoming, vibrant environment. Children have been supported to personalize their own spaces at a sensitive pace to help them settle and not feel overwhelmed. There are multiple communal spaces, including games rooms and a sensory room. These are well-used spaces and have been very important to help children regulate emotion and feel calm, away from others.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s views are welcomed and valued. The manager looks at creative and individual ways to help children share their opinions in a way that suits them. Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 4 Towards the end of each day, children and staff talk about how the day has gone and how they are feeling. Children feel valued as a consequence.

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

Children say they feel safe and secure; relatives and professionals confirmed this. The home has a therapeutic model of care in which staff receive comprehensive training. Staff understand the risks to children because of their vulnerabilities, and complete regular safeguarding training. Safeguarding matters are regularly discussed at reflective daily debriefs and team meetings.

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

Staff understand the adverse experiences children have had so they can provide care that helps to stabilize behaviours and reduce negative incidents. They receive appropriate training to anticipate escalation in negative behaviours and only use physical interventions as a last resort. However, some records of incidents needing physical intervention do not clearly detail the actions taken by staff to de-escalate before a restraint was needed.

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

Children are sensitively helped to engage in restorative practice when they make mistakes. Staff show patience and understanding to help children who find this difficult to do. Their training in the therapeutic model of care helps them to understand the previous adverse experiences children have had. They recognise that children may experience feelings of failure when they make mistakes, and work with kindness to help children put this right.

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

There have been very few incidents of children going missing from the home. Staff are well prepared for any event, with resources to help find the child readily available. Each child has an individual plan for staff to follow in the event they are missing. However, further detail is needed to clearly direct staff when to call for additional support or inform the police that the child is missing.

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

Children make good progress with independence and building their confidence. Staff weigh the benefits of this against the risks to children’s safety proportionately. Children are asked to provide written consent for their care when it is appropriate to do so. However, the use of monitoring alarms on children’s doors to alert staff at night-time has not been regularly reviewed to check that it remains necessary.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has worked for the provider in a number of roles and is an experienced childcare practitioner. She became manager of the home in August 2022 and has applied to register with Ofsted. Since taking up post, she has worked subtly and sensitively to integrate into the established staff team. The manager and deputy have a very positive working relationship and approach that staff say is supportive, visible and experienced.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Although new in post, the manager has established positive working relationships with external professionals in the local authority and at children’s education Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 5 placements. She feels well supported by the provider’s senior management team and is completing additional training and qualifications relevant to her role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are well led, enthusiastic and committed to children. The manager has embedded a culture of change and learning so that established and new staff evolve their practice. This has been essential to deliver the therapeutic model of care to a younger group of children who now live at the home. Staff are willing to learn and value the training support provided. Staff speak very highly of the manager’s support to them and how well connected they are to the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager and staff team work closely together; there is a culture of open and honest reflection to challenge practice. Staff appreciate the non-judgemental and supportive opinions and challenge from others of their performance. They say this helps them learn quickly and improve the support they provide to children. Staff have good-quality, regular supervision sessions, during which their performance and the progress of children are reviewed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

New staff complete very through, well-planned inductions, which are a blend of face-to-face training with expert staff and spending time observing and shadowing staff providing support to children. All staff have an extensive programme of training to complete which they say is of high quality and challenges their thinking. Staff complete vocational qualifications in required timescales. When staff need support for this, it is identified and provided so that it is achieved. Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 6

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that a written policy is in place describing how any monitoring equipment will support the safeguarding and well-being of those living and working in the home, in accordance with regulation 24. In particular, they should ensure that the implementation of the policy ensures that the need for the use of the monitoring equipment is regularly reviewed to ensure that its use is proportionate and necessary. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.16)  The registered person should specify the procedures to be followed and the roles and responsibilities of staff when a child is missing from care or away from the home without permission and how staff should support the child on return to the home. In particular, the registered person should ensure that children’s individual missing-from-care protocols clearly state when staff should call for additional

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Recommendations

support from on-call managers or the police. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 45, paragraph 9.28)  The registered person should ensure that all incidents of control, discipline and restraint are subject to systems of regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair and the principles as set out in 9.35 are respected. In particular, they should ensure that records of incidents clearly identify where efforts to de-escalate incidents have taken place before staff have needed to use physical interventions. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36)

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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: SC385631 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Channels & Choices Kent Limited Liability Partnership

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 44 The Pantiles, The Pantiles, Tunbridge Wells, Kent TN2 5TN

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Inspector

Jamie Cousins, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC385631 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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