Children's Home run by Fairways Care (UK) Limited in Hampshire

Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 1 Registered provider: Fair Ways Community Benefit Society Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is owned by a large charity. It is registered to provide care for up to six children aged from seven to 15 years who experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

Five 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 July 2022.

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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 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: 20 September 2022

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/09/2022 Full Outstanding 19/05/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive good-quality care and support from care staff and a therapeutic team. This team is made up of an occupational health specialist, speech and language therapists and child psychologists. This ensures that staff have a good understanding of children’s needs and develop thoughtful strategies to support them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s needs are well understood. Many of the children have experienced significant change and trauma in the past. Staff seek to understand the uniqueness of each child and their backgrounds. Staff help children to make sense of their past through life-story work, which has helped them to manage their feelings better.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children feel settled in the home and have made good progress in relation to their emotional and social development. Staff are successfully supporting children to overcome health issues that affect their daily living. As a result, children have grown in confidence.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to engage in interesting and diverse activities. All the children attend school and have busy lives outside of education, which includes attending football clubs, gymnastics classes and going to the gym. Staff are always available to children to ensure that they can attend their extra-curricular activities. For one child, this has had a significant impact and he has extended his interests and spends less time playing electronic games.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s moves into the home are carefully planned. All the children who have moved out of the home have done so in a planned way and two children have been able to successfully return to live at home with their families.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s views are valued and are often sought. Every week, children attend community meetings at the kitchen table where they are encouraged to share their successes or concerns. Children also complete six-monthly questionnaires about what is working well in their lives. Two of the children said that they get on well with staff but do not always feel listened to in conversations, which they attributed to staff being so busy. The manager of the home accepted that this is an area that he is looking to address.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is warm, welcoming and decorated to a good standard. The children’s bedrooms are personalised. They take pride in their space and were proud to show the inspector their rooms.

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

Children feel safe and their welfare is paramount. The children have developed trusting relationships with staff. In recent months, many new staff have joined the home. Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 4 However, established members of staff are always present, which has ensured continuity for the children.

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

Staff understand the children’s unique vulnerabilities, which are also recorded in the children’s records and safety plans. These documents contain essential information for staff to help keep children safe. Some information in one child’s safety plan was unclear and did not address car safety despite this being a risk associated with the child in the past. In practice, staff understand the risks associated with taking children in the car and there have been no incidents of concern.

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

Some of the children in the home have regular medication. There are good systems in place to monitor staff practice, so any errors are noticed and generally managed well. However, there have been some recent medication errors, which were appropriately reported. However, the member of staff continued to administer medication without their competency being reassessed and unfortunately an error occurred again. No harm was caused to the child because of these errors.

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

Staff help children to feel safe. They are skilled at supporting children when they struggle with their feelings and emotions. At times, physical restraint is required to keep children safe. This is done only when necessary, and incidents are generally resolved quickly. When these incidents occur, records are detailed and debriefs with the children take place. However, management oversight of records after these incidents is often not completed in a timely manner. Such delay can result in important learning being lost or overlooked.

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

Children rarely go missing from the home. For one child, this was an established behaviour; however, he has not done so since the last inspection. The child’s mother described her son as ‘thriving’ because of living at the home. Another parent described the staff as ‘amazing’ and said that their child is ‘so happy’.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager is passionate and committed to his role. He has had to manage a great deal of change in the past year, such as staff and children moving on. The manager feels supported by senior leaders and has been given additional clinical supervision to assist him in his role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff feel supported and enjoy coming to work. They receive regular supervision and appraisals. They describe supervision as ‘meaningful’ and feel able to approach their line manager should they need to. The staff spoken to commented on the interesting and diverse training opportunities provided which contribute to their feeling of being valued by the wider organisation. When practice issues occur, or areas for development are identified, bespoke training is organised.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There are detailed records and assessments pertaining to the children’s history and current care. Presently, these records are held on two platforms. During the inspection, the manager was initially unable to locate key documents for children. Although these Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 5 documents were located, there is a risk that staff may not easily access them. This presents a barrier to them in terms of keeping placing authority care plans live and relevant.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

External professionals speak positively about the care provided to children. Staff and leaders are strong advocates for children, particularly in terms of their education.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Great care is taken to ensure that children are cared for by suitable staff. Recruitment processes are managed by a separate human resources team. Pre-employment checks for staff are meticulous. Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 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

within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so (“the authorised person”)—

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Requirement Due date

has signed the record to confirm it is accurate. (Regulation 35 (3)(b)(ii)) 29 April 2024

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that all children’s case records are kept up to date. This specifically relates to ensuring that essential documents are available to staff and children’s risk assessments are up to date. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3)  The registered person should ensure that staff have the skills and confidence to communicate easily and understand the importance of listening to, involving and responding to the children they care for. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 22, paragraph 4.10)  The registered person should ensure that they make suitable arrangements to manage, administer and dispose of any medication. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.15)

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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: 2551007 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Fair Ways Community Benefit Society

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Fair Ways, Ground Floor, Building 1000, Western Road, Portsmouth, Hampshire PO6 3EN

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Inspector

Jane Balfe, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2551007 8 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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