Children's Home run by Keys Child Care Limited in Nottinghamshire

Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 1 SC454901 Registered provider: Keys Child Care Ltd Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is privately owned. It provides care for up to five children who may experience emotional and social difficulties. Two children were living in the home at the time of the inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager has been in post since 2016 and is suitably experienced.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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requires improvement to be good

How well children and young people are helped and protected requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

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requires improvement to be good

The children’s home is not yet delivering good help and care for children and young people. However, there are no serious or widespread failures that result in their welfare not being safeguarded or promoted.

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requires improvement to be good

Date of last inspection: 16 November 2022

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requires improvement to be good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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requires improvement to be good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

16/11/2022 Full Good 30/11/2021 Full Good 27/08/2019 Full Good 10/07/2018 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 3

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improvement to be good

Overall, the experience and progress of children require improvement. This is due to shortfalls in the protection of children and leadership and management of the home. Children do make progress in many areas of their lives, but this is not consistently monitored by the manager and staff.

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improvement to be good

When children leave the home in an unplanned manner, staff do not provide them with effective support and help to make this move, which can, at times, be difficult. Additionally, staff do not record children’s experiences of moving out of the home and so fail to reflect on what they could do differently or learn any lessons from the child’s placement.

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improvement to be good

Staff support children to share their wishes and feelings within planned and unplanned one-to-one discussions with designated staff. However, actions are not always put in place following these sessions. This can lead children to feeling they are not listened to because issues they raise in meetings and are not acted on.

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improvement to be good

Children receive support for their emotional health and well-being. Children have one-to-one sessions with staff to talk about the things that matter most to them. Staff are provided with sessions with a psychotherapist, who offers consultation to the home. Staff develop different ways and greater understanding of how to support children with their emotional health.

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improvement to be good

Staff understand the importance of education. The manager works well with external professionals to find alternative provisions for children who require this. One child was struggling to attend school. However, with staff support, the child achieved 100% attendance at an alternative provision. This is good progress.

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improvement to be good

Staff recognise the value of continued family relationships. Staff support children to spend time with their families and those important to them. However, the recording of time children spend with family members lacks detail. It does not help understand the quality of this time, or what additional support staff might need to provide to children or their families to ensure it is positive, and safe.

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improvement to be good

Serious incidents are not always recorded clearly. The manager informs appropriate professionals after events but does not always notify Ofsted. This limits Ofsted from assessing the delivery of safe care and protection of children in the home.

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improvement to be good

The manager and staff do not update children’s risk assessments to reflect newly identified concerns and recent incidents. One child was a victim of bullying from their Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 4 peers. Previous incidents involving bullying are not considered within the risk assessments. This makes staff less able to de-escalate situations because they do not have all the information required. Additionally, children are at an increased risk of not receiving the support they need at times of crisis.

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improvement to be good

Where there is an identified risk that children may go missing from care, staff do not always check their whereabouts. On one occasion, for example, staff believed one child was in the home. This was not accurate and, instead, the child was missing and had not been seen by staff for several hours. This resulted in delayed action from staff. Although there have also been some good examples of staff helping to keep children safe when they have been missing from home, practice is inconsistent.

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improvement to be good

When children make a complaint or allegation, investigations are thorough and completed in a timely manner. Children are informed of the outcomes by the manager. However, the responses are not always written in a child-friendly way.

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improvement to be good

Physical intervention to manage children’s behaviour and use of consequences for negative behaviour are rare. When they are used, information is recorded clearly. An opportunity to debrief is offered to children and staff. This helps the child and staff to reflect on and discuss the support needed to reduce the likelihood of future incidents occurring.

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good

The manager has oversight of the care provided to children. However, this oversight lacks critical analysis of what needs to change to drive improvements. There are missed opportunities to learn from practice and improve the care provided to children. For example, written records do not always reflect details of children’s daily experiences or what support staff provide. The manager has plans to improve oversight, but these plans are not yet embedded into day-to-day care practice.

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good

Staff shortages have affected the experiences of children. One member of staff shared worries about staffing issues, adding that children in their care deserve to have some stability. Staff from other homes in the organisation are being used to fill gaps in the rota. New staff do not know the children well. One core member of staff said, ‘All the responsibility was on me,’ when sharing their experience of supporting children’s behaviours.

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good

Staff make good and meaningful contributions to team meetings, which take place regularly. Discussion is focused on the needs of children and how staff can provide the support they need. Professional supervision for staff is regular and includes conversations about how care practice can be improved to support children. Actions for staff to achieve are not always forthcoming from professional supervision, which impacts on how well staff feel listened to.

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good

The manager and staff communicate well with local authorities and other external professionals working with the children who live at the home. A local authority Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 5 reviewing officer said, ‘Staff communicate well with other professionals and are extremely child focused.’ The manager has involved external professionals in children’s care, including challenge where required to ensure that each child’s needs are met. Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 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 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—

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

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

help each child to understand, in a way that is appropriate according to the child’s age and understanding, personal, sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful; 10 January 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 7 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;

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Requirement Due date

understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable; and

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to recognise incidents or indications of bullying and how to deal with them; and

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Requirement Due date

that each child is encouraged to build and maintain positive relationships with others. (Regulation 11 (1)(a)(b)(c) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(x)(xi)(xii)(xiii)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that children are supervised and supported to build positive and safe relationships with peers. This also relates to ensuring that prompt and effective action is taken where there are concerns relating to bullying.

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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—

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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; 10 January 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 8 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

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that staff are equipped with clear, concise and up-to-date information needed to help reduce children being exposed to risk of harm.

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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’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

feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; 10 January 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 9 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)(e)(f)(g)(ii)(h))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that sufficient and experienced staff are in place, and develop a culture of positive morale.

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Requirement Due date

This also relates to ensuring that all records are reviewed and monitored, and clear actions are identified and acted on.

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Requirement Due date

If children make a complaint, the responses provided need to be child friendly in language and focused on the complaint.

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The care planning standard is that children—

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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. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that children are provided with positive experiences of moving out of the home that are planned effectively. 10 January 2024

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records (“case records”) for each child which—

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Requirement Due date

include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child;

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Requirement Due date

are kept up to date. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure clear and detailed records are kept up to date. 10 January 2024

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40 (4)(e))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that Ofsted is notified of serious events. 10 January 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 10

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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: SC454901 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Keys Child Care Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Keys Care Ltd, Second Floor, Maybrook House, Queensway, Halesowen B63 4AH

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Inspector

Kathryn Hurley, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC454901 12 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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