Children's home run by London Borough of Waltham Forest

Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 1 Registered provider: London Borough Of Waltham Forest Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is owned and run by the local authority. It provides short breaks or long- term care for up to eight children.

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Information about this children’s home

The home was registered with Ofsted in January 2020. The manager registered with Ofsted in June 2023.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, three children were living at the home and three children were on a short break.

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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 requires improvement to be good

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good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Date of last inspection: 22 February 2023

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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: 2563530 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

22/02/2023 Full Good 03/11/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive individualised care that meets their needs well. Children develop strong and trusting relationships with staff. This is important, as most of the children are non-verbal and are reliant on staff understanding their needs. Children engage well with the staff team and clearly enjoy spending time with them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s communication skills improve the longer they live at the home or attend for a short-break stay. One health care professional said: ‘He [child] was very different compared to the last time I saw him. He’s much more engaging, has given me eye contact and a “high five”.’ Staff are attentive and skilled in communicating with children. They regularly use social stories and pictorial cues to help children to understand what is happening and to make their own choices, for example choosing their favourite meals and preferred leisure activities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s learning outcomes are good. Children, staff and parents celebrate children’s achievements. Staff set appropriate short-break and long-term placement targets that are in line with children’s care plans. These typically include children working towards becoming more independent, attending to their personal care and socialising safely with their peers. Staff’s communication with school personnel is very regular; for some children, this takes place every day to help staff understand children’s experiences at school and to follow up on any issues.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have fun and make good use of the home’s soft play and activity areas, and sensory and music rooms. They take part in barbecues and enjoy summer holidays away. Children have some access to community-based activities. However, they do not appear to regularly have innovative play experiences off site. Some staff identify this as an area for improvement.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children lead healthy lifestyles. Their health needs are understood by staff, who manage their healthcare and treatment plans safely. Staff receive training in relevant healthcare issues, such as first aid, and also bespoke training, such as diabetes training. Staff manage children’s medication safely; this was an area identified for improvement at the last inspection.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children attend routine health appointments and staff are creative in encouraging them to attend. As needed, children receive specialist services, such as speech and language therapy and support from child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS).

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children develop practical daily living skills that help to increase their independence. Typically, this includes children managing their own personal care, and contributing to household chores. Staff are instrumental in preparing young people to move into adult provision or back to their family homes. Staff are keen advocates for young Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 4 people when they leave the home. Some children remain in contact with staff, who continue to provide emotional and practical support.

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

Staff work hard to keep children safe. They provide one-to-one supervision to all children. This ratio of staff increases if activities take place away from the home. Staff receive training in child protection and are familiar with safeguarding procedures. They are knowledgeable and vigilant about children’s individual vulnerabilities, which helps to keep children safe.

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

Children do not go missing from the home, or experience exploitation, abuse or bullying. Staff’s supervision of children is effective. As a result, very few serious incidents occur. Staff do not restrain children and there have been no allegations or complaints made against staff. If there are safeguarding concerns, staff work effectively with other professionals to develop plans that promote children’s safety.

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

Staff protect children from harm and abuse. Strategies to manage risks are effective and help to reduce potential harm to children. However, in some cases, risk assessments do not highlight emerging risks. These risk assessments do not inform staff of potential new risks posed to children.

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

Staff set clear structure and boundaries with children. Staff work well together and their practice is consistent in promoting children’s positive behaviour. Staff do not restrain children and their management of challenging behaviour is measured, appropriate and effective.

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

For some children, there has been a noticeable reduction in the frequency of incidents and challenging behaviour soon after they start living at the home. Where children’s behaviour is a cause for concern, staff work closely with CAMHS professionals to explore alternative strategies.

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

The home’s building is safe and secure. The premises are well furnished and children make use of adapted equipment which promotes their safe care. Closed- circuit television covers the building’s external areas. Access to and from the building is managed via a fob system, which prevents unwarranted entry. However, some of the children’s bedrooms do not have adequate window covering, such as window frosting or net curtains. This does not promote children’s privacy and dignity.

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

Managers continue to make improvements to the decor of the building, as some of the rooms and corridors are bare. There are plans in place to develop the garden area to offer children creative play and new learning opportunities. Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 5

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good

The leadership and management of the home are not consistently strong. There have been significant staffing issues and a level of discord involving a small cohort of staff. The energy and attention of leaders and managers have been diverted to managing difficult staffing issues. This has hampered their efforts to follow through effectively on plans for the home’s development and improvement.

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good

Since the last inspection, the manager has registered with Ofsted. The registered manager is appropriately qualified and experienced to manage the home. The majority of issues highlighted for improvement at the last inspection have been successfully resolved. The registered manager has strengthened the management structure of the home by recruiting to deputy and team leader posts.

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good

The responsible individual has a significant presence at the home and is a source of support to both managers and staff. A designated staff member of the local authority’s human resources team has a weekly presence at the home to help resolve staffing queries.

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good

The staff team generally works well and collaboratively. However, not all staff are clear about their responsibilities and accountability and there is evidence of continued disharmony within the staff team. This does not help to promote improvements to the home.

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good

Management oversight and monitoring of the quality of the home’s operation are not yet strong. For example, the quality of some key records is poor. Issues include the quality of some risk assessments; key-work sessions are not consistently held and records of key-work sessions are missing from children’s case files. Monthly summaries are also not consistently recorded on file. Staff personnel files are not orderly and do not contain full staff vetting information as expected. During the inspection, missing staff information was located elsewhere.

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good

The registered manager’s review of the home’s quality of care is largely descriptive and does not explore learning from the review or include action planning to help drive improvement.

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good

Leaders and managers make child-centred decisions about children coming to live or stay at the home for a short-break experience. Managers’ care planning processes are sound and are driven by the specific needs of children. Introductions to the home are carefully considered and managed at the child’s pace. Managers ensure that there are regular reviews of children’s short-break provision to ensure that the experience still meets their needs.

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good

Staff are supported by the home’s management team, and receive regular supervision. Training opportunities are good. Managers encourage staff to identify Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 6 areas of their practice they wish to improve upon through training and development activities. Staff recruitment and vetting practices are safe.

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good

Children benefit from the close partnership working between staff, parents and external professionals. One child’s parent said: ‘I really appreciate how helpful you have been. [Child’s name] always looks forward to going to [name of the home]. You are all doing a fantastic job. Thanks again.’ Communication between all parties is consistent and effective. This promotes children’s safe care, their progress and experiences which are positive. Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 7

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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 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

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, managers must ensure that staff take responsibility and accountability for their conduct and practice. 15 March 2024

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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

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(h))

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Requirement Due date

This relates to managers’ monitoring of the quality of some key records. These include risk assessments, key-work sessions and monthly summaries. 15 March 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 8 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

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating—

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Requirement Due date

the quality of care provided for children;

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Requirement Due date

the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children.

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a result of the quality of care review (“the quality of care review report”). (Regulation 45 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c) (3)) 15 March 2024

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children are offered a wide range of activities both inside and outside the home and are encouraged to participate in those activities. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 31, paragraph 6.5)  The registered person should ensure that the home environment meets each child’s day-to-day needs by ensuring that all bedroom windows have appropriate coverings. This is to promote children’s privacy and dignity. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 33, paragraph 7.3)

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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) Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 9 Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’. Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Sycamore House, Forest Road, Walthamstow London E17 4JF

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Inspectors

Sandra Jacobs-Walls, Social Care Inspector John Mitchell, Senior HMI, Social Care Inspection report for children’s home: 2563530 11 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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Inspectors

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