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

Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 1 SC408584 Registered provider: Channels and Choices Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home provides care for up to three children aged between six and 17 years old. According to the statement of purpose, the home provides therapeutic care for children with social and emotional difficulties. The home aims to provide short-term placements that support children into foster care.

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Information about this children’s home

The home is operated by a private organisation. The manager has been registered with Ofsted since 23 November 2015.

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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 good

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

22/03/2022 Full Outstanding 24/09/2019 Full Good 07/08/2018 Full Good 03/10/2017 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 3

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outstanding

Children receive outstanding care at this home. Staff are attuned to children’s needs and provide them with high levels of nurture and support, in line with therapeutically-informed care plans. This helps children to feel emotionally contained, happy and valued. Children grow in confidence and self-esteem and develop trusting relationships with staff who help them prepare for being cared for in a family setting. Family members and professionals are very positive about the care provided. Comments include: ‘Absolutely and totally 100% satisfied’; ‘I’m so impressed, staff go above and beyond, I can’t praise them enough’; ‘very child- focused’, and ‘First bit of stability [name of child] has experienced.’

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outstanding

Staff have an excellent understanding of the children’s needs and how to meet them. This is informed by specialist assessments of the children’s educational, sensory, emotional and behavioural needs, in line with the organisation’s therapeutic programme. As a result, most children make steady progress across all areas of their development. When progress is slow, or children regress in areas of their development, staff identify this quickly and secure the additional assessments children need, alongside adapting the support and responses they are providing.

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outstanding

Children lead busy, fun lives filled with hobbies and enriching experiences, such as football, athletics, dance and swimming. Staff go above and beyond to provide children with extraordinary opportunities. These include helping one child raise over £4000 to secure a place on an international trip with the Explorer Scouts. Staff recognise and celebrate children’s achievements and positive behaviours. They speak about the children with warmth and an abundance of pride. Staff ensure that important moments in children’s lives are captured for ongoing life-story work.

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outstanding

All children attend an appropriate education provision and engage well at school. Communication between education and care staff is regular and effective. The manager has been instrumental in reducing delays in children accessing education and ensuring that children have the resources they need at school. This includes providing staff to work in the school.

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outstanding

Children are regularly consulted in meaningful ways about their views. Staff carefully plan informative daily meetings that help children express their emotional needs and develop their language skills. This helps children share their wishes and feelings more clearly and confidently. Children are listened to, and staff plan the weekly meals and activities based on their feedback.

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outstanding

Staff are sensitive to children’s identity needs and ensure that the children maintain positive relationships with family members. Staff help children to learn about and celebrate their cultural heritage and, for example, they attend church with children. Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 4 One child benefits from a culturally-matched independent visitor, who acts as a mentor and positive male role model.

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outstanding

Staff provide children with a settled, loving home where children can relax, play and enjoy predictable daily routines. The house is a small comfortable family home with games, toys and photos of the children and people important to them. The institutional look of the fire doors was raised at the last inspection (ensuring that any changes do not impact on their core safety purpose). Children were invited to take part in a competition to redesign the look of the doors, but no responses were received. Consequently, the doors remain unchanged and continue to detract from an otherwise homely environment.

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outstanding

The one child who has moved on from the home since the last inspection had a successful move to foster care. Staff provided much-valued support to the foster carer and child during the meticulously planned move. This child remains in contact with staff and has visited the home at times of celebration. This is testament to the enduring relationships staff build with children.

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

Children are provided with a safe home environment. The home has had minimal safeguarding concerns since the last inspection and no children have gone missing from home. Staff are sensitive to changes in children’s behaviour and remain vigilant to any emerging patterns or concerns.

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

When safeguarding concerns are raised, they are dealt with quickly, in line with safeguarding protocols. The manager escalates concerns to relevant external safeguarding teams. Any staff practice that falls below the manager’s expectations is taken seriously and addressed through disciplinary processes.

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

Staff help children gain the independence skills and confidence they need to take age-appropriate risks. This has resulted in children cycling to school without staff supervision, using a bus independently and making formal telephone calls. Staff regularly have planned conversations with children about their safety. Staff are effective in finding helpful resources that include educational videos, songs, quizzes and written activities about safety that children engage in well. When needed, staff create bespoke short stories describing social situations to help children understand risks. These have included how to respond to a fire in the house, stranger danger and personal boundaries.

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

There is effective planning to reduce risks in and out of the home. This includes staff obtaining essential information about the clubs children attend, including a copy of the club’s safeguarding policies and level of first-aid training for staff who will be supervising the children.

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

Staff review their practice every day during reflective shift handovers and each month with the home’s allocated therapist. Staff use these discussions to learn from Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 5 incidents and adapt their responses accordingly. As a result, incidents for one child settling into the home have decreased.

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

Physical intervention is only used as a last resort. Incidents are subject to additional scrutiny by a behaviour management trainer when the manager is involved or the intervention was not effective. The manager ensures that staff and children have a debrief about the incident. However, these conversations do not always focus on the child’s feelings about the hold and, at times, are used to reaffirm expectations of staff.

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

Staff have completed training in safeguarding children, safer caring, behaviour management and first aid. New staff complete this training as part of their induction programme, before they start working with children. This helps increase staff confidence and readiness to respond to children safely.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The home is led by a highly competent, qualified manager who promotes a culture of reflection and continuous learning. The manager delivers the home’s statement of purpose by providing therapeutic care informed by established child development research.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has a detailed knowledge of the children’s needs and is dedicated to providing outstanding care. She is a strong advocate and has been tenacious in progressing children’s plans for education and seeing family members.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has formed positive relationships with professionals and family members. They are wholly satisfied with the regular communication and feel confident in her practice. The manager has an excellent knowledge of the services available to children from within the home’s organisation and from external local resources, to provide children with the services and experiences that support their development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager has established and retained a qualified core staff team. This provides the children with a sense of stability and contributes to children gaining trust in the adults caring for them.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff are supported in their roles and feel safe to critically reflect on their practice as a team. This ensures that children receive well-planned care and consistent responses from staff who work well as a team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Recording and monitoring systems are highly effective. They allow for detailed oversight of children’s plans, progress and any emerging trends. The manager regularly completes comprehensive, good-quality reviews of the quality of the service. These are informed by children’s feedback. Combined, these systems ensure that any areas for development are addressed quickly. Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 6

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Recommendations

 The registered person should seek as far as possible to maintain a domestic rather than ‘institutional’ impression. This specifically relates to the fire doors. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)  The registered person should ensure that any child who has been restrained should be encouraged to add their views and comments to the record of restraint. This specifically relates to ensuring children are offered the opportunity to access an independent person or advocacy support to help them with this if needed. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 50, paragraph 9.60)

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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: SC408584 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Channels and Choices Limited

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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

Paula Edwards, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC408584 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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