Foundations Walsall

Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 1 Foundations Walsall Progressive Care Limited Parklands, 12 - 14 Little Aston Road, Walsall WS9 0NN Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this residential family centre

This service is privately run and is registered to provide parenting assessments for up to 10 families.

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Information about this residential family centre

The registered manager left soon after the centre was registered in December 2022. A monitoring inspection was undertaken in February 2023 and the report is published on Ofsted’s website. This is the home’s first full inspection since registration A new manager has been appointed and she is in the process of submitting her application to register with Ofsted. She is working towards her level 5 qualification.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and parents, taking into account

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good

How well children and parents are helped and protected good

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good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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good

The residential family centre provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Date of previous inspection: not applicable

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 2

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

The centre is relaxed and has a calm atmosphere. Each family has their own fully furnished self-contained flat. The accommodation is decorated and furnished to a high standard. This supports families to feel valued when they move into the centre for an assessment.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

When families move into the centre, the staff team works closely with placing authorities to ensure that parents understand the purpose of the assessment. There is a clear planning process from the point of referral until the family joins the centre. However, welcome information, such as a resident’s guide, is not accessible for children, particularly for older children. This means that when children move into the centre, they are not provided with information about the assessment that they can take on board and understand.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

The quality of the individual support that the team provides to families is good. Support plans are tailored to families’ needs. Parents build trusting relationship with staff, helping them to accept feedback in a way that supports their progress. One parent described staff as ‘amazing’. She stated that staff provided her with guidance and support that enabled her to safely return to the community with her child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

Social workers provide excellent weekly feedback to families. This is focused and highlights the family’s strengths and areas for development. Parents’ views are routinely sought and considered as part of this process. Targeted actions are identified to ensure that parents know what areas they need to focus on the following week. This helps to keep assessments focused and specific to each family.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

Final assessments are carried out by a qualified social worker and are of good quality. The assessments highlight parents’ strengths and weaknesses, their current parental capacity, any concerns relating to safeguarding and recommendations for improvement. Parents are fully involved in their assessments, and their views about their progress are regularly obtained. This helps parents to understand the assessment process and the recommendations made about their parenting skills.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

Staff support families to meet their own health needs and those of their child. Families register with local GP surgeries and can access the advice and guidance of a health visitor who regularly attends the centre. This gives families opportunities to access additional support and advice, and some parents have benefited from external parenting courses to support them in meeting their child’s needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

Parents have opportunities to learn new life skills. Parents attain qualifications in mathematics and English, and some have been awarded certificates in paediatric first aid and food hygiene. Staff also arrange fun activities for families, including craft sessions, cinema nights and group activities in the community. Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 3 Direct-work sessions provide parents with the opportunity to explore a variety of safeguarding and parenting topics, such as child development, domestic abuse, risky individuals, healthy relationships and support networks. Work undertaken by social workers is thorough and informative.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

In contrast, direct work undertaken by staff sometimes lacks professional curiosity. There are missed opportunities to explore subjects such as healthy relationships in more depth. This compromises the quality of support and teaching that should be balanced with the assessment of parenting capacity. Managers had already identified these shortfalls at the time of the inspection and have action plans in place to improve the quality of work undertaken by staff. This includes sourcing additional training and increased monitoring and review of direct work.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and parents: good

There has been an increase in accepting referrals that involve families with older children. There are limited systems in place for obtaining the views, wishes and feelings of older children. This means that children do not have sufficient opportunity to express their views or contribute to the assessment process. Managers were reflective about these challenges and recognise this is an area for development.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Safeguarding is a priority. The staff keep children safe at the centre. Risk is assessed from the point of referral through to the end of assessment and beyond. A strength of the centre is its approach to risk management when parents spend time away from the centre. These risk assessments are regularly reviewed and clearly set out the expectations of parents and staff. This helps both parents and staff to understand their role in keeping children safe.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Parents read and sign a range of agreements. They are provided with a range of information to ensure they understand what is expected of them. This includes a contract of expectations, safe sleeping guidance for babies, consent for surveillance as well as other safety agreements in relation to fire procedures and visitors to the centre. This means that clear boundaries and opportunities are set out for families at the beginning of the assessment.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Managers understand the challenges of managing the dynamics and complex vulnerabilities of up to 10 different families. Any incidents of potential bullying are addressed promptly. Staff work in partnership with families and their relevant social workers to revisit expectations and the potential impact of bullying. Risks are reviewed, and plans are quickly put into place to manage relationships between families and to help them regain focus on their assessment.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Monitoring and surveillance systems are robust. Managers and staff continually review the need for CCTV monitoring, and levels of supervision decrease in line with progress to ensure that this is no more intrusive than necessary. Managers challenge other professionals when they feel risk-averse decision-making prevents supervision levels from being reduced. This is because managers understand that Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 4 parents need to be able to demonstrate that they can care for their children independently and safely outside of a highly supervised environment.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Good safeguarding practice contributes to few incidents occurring at the centre. When incidents do occur, they are generally responded to well. On one occasion, when staff did not act robustly in line with the centre’s safeguarding policy, managers took swift action to safeguard a child. The actions of staff did not compromise the child’s safety on this occasion. Reflective work was undertaken with the member of staff to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.

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How well children and parents are helped and protected: good

Some recruitment files did not comply with safer recruitment guidelines. For example, managers had not consistently ensured professional curiosity and due diligence when recruiting staff who have worked overseas. Managers have not satisfied themselves that there were no safeguarding concerns during that time. This compromises safer recruitment practice.

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good

The centre has experienced a period of instability since it began operating in December 2022. A new manager has been appointed who was previously the deputy manager for the centre. This appointment took some time to formalise, and the new manager was appointed in June 2023. The new manager is passionate, motivated and committed to developing the service. At the time of the inspection, she has not submitted a completed application to register with Ofsted but is within the timescale to do this.

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good

Managers and staff work in partnership with other agencies. Two local authority social workers were positive about communication and information-sharing. Review of risk management is completed in partnership with the child’s social worker to ensure a robust approach to managing risk. Staff at the centre link in with other relevant professionals who can assist in supporting families, such as the health visitor and mental health services. In addition, when one parent required additional support around domestic abuse, support was obtained from an external organisation.

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good

There are some vulnerabilities around recent changes in the social work team. This means that some social workers are carrying higher caseloads than usual. However, this is a short-term arrangement while new social workers are undertaking an induction period. Managers are aware of the vulnerabilities and have clear plans and systems in place to mitigate the risk of this affecting the quality of the assessments undertaken.

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good

Families receive support from a committed, passionate but inexperienced staff team. However, there is a strong senior management team that has identified areas for development and has plans in place for service improvement. For example, more experienced staff have been brought in from other services within the company, and Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 5 training plans have been devised to support staff development.

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good

There is a robust two-week induction for all new staff. This helps to prepare staff for their individual roles. Following their induction, staff receive a wide range of training to support them in their role. Regular monthly team meetings are also used as a platform to upskill staff. However, managers do not always ensure that staff have the required training to meet the emerging needs of families. For example, staff have not had training in managing children’s behaviour. This compromises the quality of support provided to parents who are caring for older children.

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good

There are a wide variety of monitoring systems in place. The manager has some good oversight of the service and implements action plans when shortfalls are identified. However, some monitoring systems do not evaluate and analyse the quality of the service to ensure a focused response when improvements are needed. For example, the quality of care review does not take account of emerging themes and patterns in the quality of records and direct work. This is a missed opportunity to consider reoccurring themes and ensure that monitoring systems support improvement.

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good

The quality of records completed by managers and staff is variable. For example, some daily logs are brief and do not always inform the reader about the day-to-day care and relationships between parents and children. In addition, staff and social workers have access to regular supervision and report that they have information case discussions and helpful direction in their work with families. However, records do not always demonstrate these case discussions and reflective practice. Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 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 Residential Family Centre Regulations 2002 and the national minimum standards. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

In preparing or reviewing the placement plan the registered person shall, so far as reasonably practicable—

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Requirement Due date

seek and take account of the views of the members of the family. (Regulation 13 (3)(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the manager must ensure that there are systems in place to obtain children’s views and take these into account throughout the assessment process. 4 October 2023

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Requirement Due date

The registered person shall ensure that all persons employed by him—

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Requirement Due date

receive appropriate training. (Regulation 17 (5)(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the manager must ensure that all staff receive training that is relevant to the needs of parents. This includes managing children’s behaviour and the use of professional curiosity in the assessment process. 4 October 2023

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Recommendations

 The registered person should prepare a resident’s guide that includes a summary of the statement of purpose and provide a copy for every parent and child (of appropriate age) resident in the centre and for prospective residents. In particular, the information in the resident’s guide should be accessible to all parents and children. (Residential family centres: NMS 8.6)  The registered person should ensure that the residential family centre has a record of the recruitment and vetting checks that have been carried out on those working (including as volunteers) for the residential family centre. The record should include where the person has lived outside the UK and further checks, as appropriate, when obtaining a Disclosure and Barring Service check is not sufficient to establish suitability to work with children. (Residential family centres: NMS 14.3)  The registered person should ensure that there is a system in place to monitor

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Recommendations

Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 7 the quality and adequacy of record-keeping and take action when needed. (Residential family centres: NMS 20.2)

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children and parents 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 Residential Family Centre Regulations 2002 and the national minimum standards. Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 8

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Residential family centre details

Registered provider: Progressive Care Limited

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Residential family centre details

Registered provider address: 51 Attercliffe Common, Sheffield S9 2AE

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Residential family centre details

Email address: info@progressivecare.co.uk

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Inspectors

Natasha Skinner, Social Care Inspector Rumbi Mangoma, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for residential family centre: Foundations Walsall 9 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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