Children's Home run by Beaufort Care Group Ltd in Dorset

Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 1 Registered provider: Beaufort Care Group Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This children’s home is registered to care for up to three children. The home is operated by a private provider which has several other homes in the area. At the time of this inspection, there were two children living in the home.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in October 2022. At the time of the inspection, she was on maternity leave. The covering manager has not applied to register with Ofsted.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean the care and experiences of children and young people are poor and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: requires improvement to be good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

05/07/2022 Full Requires improvement to be good 10/12/2021 Interim Declined in effectiveness 30/06/2021 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 3

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inadequate

Leaders and managers have not ensured that the home operates effectively to provide children with the support they need to be healthy, safe and protected. The home has not achieved a good judgement since it opened in December 2020. Ineffective leadership and management mean that the quality of care is poor and not improving. Widespread failings mean children do not achieve good outcomes or reach their potential.

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inadequate

Decisions about whether this home can meet children’s needs effectively are not sufficiently robustly. At the time of this inspection, two children had already left the home because staff could not keep them safe. A third child is due to move because staff do not have sufficient skills or confidence to provide the child with the basic rules and boundaries they need to thrive. Neither child who left had a positive, planned ending. Neither child received a life-story or memory book to help them understand or remember their time in the home. Leaders and managers fail to properly understand the needs of children moving into the home and the capacity of staff to be able to meet those needs.

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inadequate

Children receive care from a wide range of different staff, due to ongoing recruitment problems in the home. This has a negative impact on the consistency of the support they are offered. One child does not receive support in line with their specialist plans related to their health diagnoses. Managers do not consider the child’s processing or communication needs when introducing new staff or communicating with the child.

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inadequate

Staff are not providing children with a healthy routine. Children go to bed late at night, often staying up until the early hours of the morning. At times, children hold the balance of power in the home and staff requests to children are ineffective. Because they go to sleep late, they do not wake up until late the next day. This means that they are less ready for their daily activities. Neither child is in full-time education. One child spends most of their time with their friends. This dominates their focus and means they do not spend much time with the staff team. The regular time out of the home impacts negatively on their diet. Their meals frequently consist of fast food and processed snacks, and they often skip meals. Weak monitoring of care by leaders and managers means they do not identify these concerns or implement plans to improve them.

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inadequate

While some remedial decoration has been completed in the home, it remains in need of attention. The stair carpet is stained following an incident several weeks before the inspection. The dining room walls are stained from food that was thrown at the wall. The main bathroom has black mould on the ceiling and cracked tiles. Broken glass from incidents at the home was found on the driveway by inspectors. The lack of care of the physical environment reflects the experiences of children. Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 4 Children make some progress from their starting points. However, due to poor management oversight it is not clear whether or not this is because of the actions of staff. Parents say that they feel their children are well looked after and that their children are happy in the home.

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

Staff do not provide children with the support they need to be safe in the home. When children’s behaviour leads to incidents in the home happen staff do no intervene effectively to prevent them from escalating. As a result, some incidents are lengthy, lasting several hours. These incidents stop when the children become tired, rather than through clear and decisive staff support.

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

Staff have not prevented children from smoking cigarettes in the home, or from locking themselves in each other’s rooms and damaging property. One child receives external support to help them to stop smoking. However, neither child has a clear plan in place for staff to follow to support them to reduce their smoking. There is a lack of curiosity from staff about how one child has access to smoking paraphernalia when they do not have any unsupervised time.

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

In contrast, the manager understands external risks and there are plans in place to protect children from risks outside of the home. However, these plans are not reviewed to understand how the restrictions placed on children can be reduced safely. Incidents that do occur are not reviewed for learning. For one child who recently left the home, there was a lack of safety planning in place when they returned to having overnight stays with their family. The child was involved in a significant incident of harm, resulting in their immediate move from the home. Leaders and managers had identified that a robust plan was needed to ensure safety for that child but failed to put one in place.

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

One child in the home has been physically restrained. Leaders and managers did not evaluate this intervention to assess if it was proportionate. The debrief with the member of staff involved was poor and did not provide learning from the incident.

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

Records of fire evacuations do not show that all staff have participated in one. This is a concern because of the number of different staff working in the home and the children smoking in their rooms.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leadership in this home has been judged as inadequate at the last two full inspections. There have not yet been sufficient changes to provide good care for children. The chronic nature of poor leadership has a cumulative impact on the poor care provided in the home. The longer children live with poor care the worse their outcomes will be. This is equally true for staff. The continued experience of poor leadership results in a fragmented team of staff who do not understand their roles effectively. Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 5 Leadership in the home is changeable and disjointed. The manager covering maternity leave has not registered with Ofsted and is soon leaving the organisation. Various senior leaders support the management of the home. However, this has lacked consistency or structure. As such, there has been no measurable impact of this oversight on the quality of care or support to staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The inexperienced staff team is fragmented. Although the manager has promoted a culture of reflection to encourage staff to think about their own practice these reflections often simply serve to highlight the depth of the difficulties in the home. Staff themselves report poor communication, disjointed working and a lack of cohesion in the team. The feedback from staff has not yet been used to support change. A review of the quality of care was submitted to Ofsted four months late. No review of the quality of care has been received for the most recent six-month period as required.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Recording by staff is inconsistent and disorganised. Records are of variable quality and sometimes incomplete. This makes it hard to understand the children’s experiences in the home. The manager identifies some of these shortfalls but struggles to implement change and support the team to improve. Care planning is weak and progress is not reviewed with any regularity or effectiveness. Learning from incidents is slow and lacks depth. Leaders and managers did not undertake a learning review after one child left the home. This means opportunities for learning are not identified or addressed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Some professionals speak positively about the home. They say there is good communication and ambition for children to achieve and there are strong relationships between children and staff. Leaders and managers rely too much on this positive feedback, instead of properly understanding the quality of care in the home. Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 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, The 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 quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

understand the children’s home’s overall aims and the outcomes it seeks to achieve for children;

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Requirement Due date

use this understanding to deliver care that meets children’s needs and supports them to fulfil their potential.

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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

understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose; ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

understand and apply the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

protect and promote each child’s welfare;

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Requirement Due date

treat each child with dignity and respect;

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Requirement Due date

provide personalised care that meets each child’s needs, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans, taking account of the child’s background;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop resilience and skills that prepare the child to return home, to live in a new placement or to live independently as an adult;

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Requirement Due date

provide to children living in the home the physical necessities they need in order to live there comfortably;

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Requirement Due date

make decisions about the day-to-day arrangements for each child, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans, which give the child an appropriate degree of freedom and choice; 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 7 ensure that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed and furnished so as to—

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Requirement Due date

enable each child to participate in the daily life of the home. (Regulation 6 (1)(a)(b) (2)(a)(b)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(ix)(c)(i)(ii))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that staff understand the ambition of the home and can provide children with care that meets this. Leaders should ensure that staff provide children with good- quality, consistent care that promotes positive and healthy routines. Leaders should also ensure that staff understand children’s needs and have the skills to meet these and prepare children for the next stages in their life. Leaders should ensure that they provide children with an environment which is well cared for and that they encourage children to care for.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is not yet met. There are further shortfalls seen against this regulation and so more actions are listed.

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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

lead and manage the home in a way that is consistent with the approach and ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child; 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 8 ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child;

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Requirement Due date

understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home;

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Requirement Due date

demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on—

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Requirement Due date

research and developments in relation to the ways in which the needs of children are best met; and

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Requirement Due date

feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and

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Requirement Due date

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f)(g)(i)(ii)(h))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that leaders and managers promote high-quality care for the children and provide staff with the resources and direction to make this possible. Also ensure that there is monitoring, review and learning from incidents that happen in the home to help prevent them happening again. This should also consider staff’s abilities and skills to respond, to understand whether they have the experience and skills needed to meet the needs of children. Leaders and managers should use feedback from staff to plan how to improve the quality of care in the home. Leaders and managers should also ensure they oversee and understand the quality of recording in the home and how this helps to give clear oversight of the care provided.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is not yet met. There are further shortfalls seen against this regulation and so more actions are listed.

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children—

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Requirement Due date

receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home; and

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Requirement Due date

have a positive experience of arriving at or moving on from the home. 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 9 In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure—

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Requirement Due date

that children are admitted to the home only if their needs are within the range of needs of children for whom it is intended that the home is to provide care and accommodation, as set out in the home’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure the effective induction of each child into the home;

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Requirement Due date

manage and review the placement of each child in the home; and

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Requirement Due date

plan for, and help, each child to prepare to leave the home or to move into adult care in a way that is consistent with arrangements agreed with the child’s placing authority. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)(b) (2)(a)(b)(i)(ii)(iii)

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that there is a clear and thorough understanding of the needs of children already living in the home when considering moving other children in. Ensure there is a full and comprehensive assessment of children’s needs and of staff’s abilities to meet those needs. Ensure that there is ongoing planning for the ending of children’s placements, through gathering children’s memories of their time at the home on an ongoing basis.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the previous inspection. The actions previously stated have been met but there are further shortfalls seen against this regulation.

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Requirement Due date

The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans; 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 10 help each child to develop socially aware behaviour;

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Requirement Due date

encourage each child to take responsibility for the child’s behaviour, in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone;

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Requirement Due date

communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

strive to gain each child’s respect and trust;

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Requirement Due date

understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children;

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Requirement Due date

are provided with supervision and support to enable them to understand and manage their own feelings and responses to the behaviour and emotions of children, and to help children to do the same;

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Requirement Due date

de-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(viii)(ix)(x)(xi))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure staff have the ability to support children with their behaviour, to promote positive routines in the home and to manage situations where children’s behaviour impacts on others.

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Requirement Due date

The health and well-being standard is that—

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Requirement Due date

the health and well-being needs of children are met;

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Requirement Due date

children receive advice, services and support in relation to their health and well-being; and

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Requirement Due date

children are helped to lead healthy lifestyles.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 11 that staff help each child to—

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Requirement Due date

achieve the health and well-being outcomes that are recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

understand the child’s health and well-being needs and the options that are available in relation to the child’s health and well-being, in a way that is appropriate to the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

understand and develop skills to promote the child’s well- being. (Regulation 10 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iv))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure staff have a clear plan in place for supporting children with smoking cessation. Leaders should also ensure that children receive a healthy, nutritious and balanced diet. Leaders should also ensure staff understand and follow plans relating to children’s specific health diagnoses.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the previous inspection. The actions previously stated have been met but there are further shortfalls seen against this regulation.

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Requirement Due date

The protection of children standard is that children are protected from harm and enabled to keep themselves safe.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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Requirement Due date

assess whether each child is at risk of harm, taking into account information in the child’s relevant plans, and, if necessary, make arrangements to reduce the risk of any harm to the child;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other; 11 August 2023 Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 12 understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vii)

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure there are safe arrangements in the home to understand and manage the risks associated with smoking. Leaders should also ensure there is curiosity about how children access smoking paraphernalia. Leaders should review safeguarding incidents to ensure staff action keeps children safe.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the previous inspection. The actions previously stated have been met but there are further shortfalls seen against this regulation.

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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))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure a review of the quality of care is completed at six monthly intervals, and submitted to Ofsted within the required timescales. 25 August 2023

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Requirement Due date

After consultation with the fire and rescue authority, the registered person must—

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Requirement Due date

ensure, by means of fire drills and practices at suitable intervals, that persons working at the home and, so far as reasonably practicable, children are aware of the procedure to be followed in case of fire. (Regulation 25 (1)(d))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that staff working in the home receive the opportunity to practice fire drills, and that these are recorded. 25 August 2023

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice. Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 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: 2623130 14

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Beaufort Care Group Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unit 2, Hollygrove Business Park, Verwood Road, Ringwood, Dorset BH24 2DB

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Inspectors

Clare Nixson, Social Care Inspector Sarah Sheffield, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: 2623130 15 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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