Children's home run by Associated Wellbeing Limited

Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 1 SC2753204

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Registered provider: Associated Wellbeing Limited

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This privately owned children’s home provides care for up to four children who may experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The home and manager were registered with Ofsted in January 2024. This is the first inspection after registration.

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Information about this children’s home

Three children were living in the home at the time of the inspection. They all spoke with the inspectors about their experiences of living in the home.

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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 requires improvement to be 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 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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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 2

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improvement to be good

Children are supported to develop positive relationships with the manager and staff team. Children and their placing authority social workers are complimentary about the care and support provided. However, shortfalls in management oversight and supervision of children means that children’s experiences are not always positive.

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improvement to be good

The children have all recently moved into the home. They experienced planned moves and were welcomed sensitively. The manager assessed the experience, training and skills of the staff alongside the needs of children to ensure that children’s needs can be met. However, prior to the third child moving into the home, the manager did not fully consider the child’s needs alongside the needs of the children living in the home.

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improvement to be good

The children’s progress in education is varied. One child has been supported in line with their wishes and receives individual tuition which is progressing well. Another child is not attending school, and there is no education provision identified. On-line learning is available, but the child is not engaging. The staff have devised an alternative timetable but have not supported the child to establish a structured, daily routine. The third child attends school, they have aspirations for their future and have requested their days in school be increased. The manager has attended education meetings and reviews. However, there is not sufficient challenge to ensure that children’s educational needs are met. This limits opportunities for children to achieve their academic potential.

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improvement to be good

Children are helped to access physical and mental health and medical services when needed. Specialist external support, such as child and adolescent mental health services, is sourced when necessary. The organisation’s in-house therapy team provide therapeutic support to children and staff.

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improvement to be good

Children are supported to spend time with people who are important to them and are encouraged to enjoy a variety of activities and have fun. Children have begun enjoying ‘family days’ and enjoy fun activity days with staff as a group.

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improvement to be good

Staff ensure that children have the opportunity to express their views, wishes and feelings through regular key-worker sessions and weekly meetings. This helps children to have an input into decisions about their day-to-day lives.

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improvement to be good

The home is clean, tidy and has a homely feel. Children’s bedrooms are decorated and personalised to reflect their interests and tastes. The front and back gardens are well maintained with a trampoline, basketball hoop and football net for children to use. Any repairs are completed in a timely manner. This enables children to develop a sense of belonging and to take pride in the home. Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 3

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improvement to be good

Children’s individual risk management plans include guidance and strategies for staff to follow to keep children safe. However, these plans are not always reviewed to include all known risks or updated following significant events. This means that the information in children’s plans is not current or reflective of lessons learned from previous incidents.

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improvement to be good

The supervision of children is not consistent. Children have been able to engage in unsafe behaviour when being supported by staff. This has included children engaging in substance misuse in a child’s bedroom and on another occasion one child piercing another child’s ears. The manager took appropriate action to reduce the opportunity of incidents occurring again, but guidance for staff about the monitoring of children when they are together is unclear. The use of door alarms on communal doors in response to a behaviour from one child limits all children’s movement around the home.

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improvement to be good

Staff focus heavily on praise and reward. However, when consequences have been imposed, they are not always proportionate or restorative. There is an over reliance on financial consequences that lack detail and are not evaluated for their effectiveness. This limits management oversight and does not ensure that only fair and effective consequences are used in the home.

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improvement to be good

When children go missing from the home, there are clear and comprehensive plans in place for staff to follow. Staff are proactive in their searches to locate children and support them to return home safely. They work collaboratively with external professionals, such as the local police and social care, to ensure that there are well- coordinated responses to keeping children safe.

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improvement to be good

Direct-work sessions take place with children to support their understanding of risks. However, these sessions do not consistently support children to understand the dangers or the potential criminal implications of some behaviours.

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improvement to be good

Leaders and managers have responded appropriately when safeguarding concerns have been raised. They have taken the necessary action to share information with other professionals ensuring that children’s needs are prioritised.

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good

The manager shows an ambitious vision, with high expectations for what all children can achieve. However, this is not yet embedded into the home. Staff and professionals provided positive feedback about the manager describing her as readily available and child focused. Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 4 The manager has been working shifts in the home. This has impacted on her oversight and there has been a delay in addressing shortfalls in the day-to-day running of the home.

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good

Team meetings take place monthly, they provide staff with a forum to discuss the children’s progress and to share their views about the home’s operation. The manager monitor’s staff training and uses meetings as an opportunity to discuss children, reflect on practice and support staff development.

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good

Supervision arrangements are not fully embedded. Shortfalls in the supervision of the manager and staff, limits opportunities for them to reflect on their practice and identify any learning and development to improve practice in the home.

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good

Internal monitoring and review systems are not robust. This does not support the manager to identify shortfalls or to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided to children. The home’s statement of purpose has not been kept under review and has not been updated to reflect the use of door alarms on communal doors.

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good

Leaders and managers recognise the areas for development required to improve children’s experiences of living in the home. They are realistic about the home’s current operation and have identified plans to improve the service and further develop staff practice. Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 5

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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 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. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i))

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Requirement Due Date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that children’s risk plans are kept under review, include current information and provide clear guidance for staff to follow to keep children safe. 16 July 2024

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Requirement Due Date

The education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so.

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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

help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due Date

help each child to understand the importance and value of education, learning, training and employment;

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Requirement Due Date

promote opportunities for each child to learn informally;

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Requirement Due Date

maintain regular contact with each child’s education and training provider, including engaging with the provider and the 16 July 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 6 placing authority to support the child’s education and training and to maximise the child’s achievement;

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Requirement Due Date

help a child who is excluded from school, or who is of compulsory school age but not attending school, to access educational and training support throughout the period of exclusion or non-attendance and to return to school as soon as possible;

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Requirement Due Date

help each child to attend education or training in accordance with the expectations in the child’s relevant plans; and

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Requirement Due Date

that each child has access to appropriate equipment, facilities and resources to support the child’s learning. (Regulation 8 (1)(2)(a)(i)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(x)(b)).

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Requirement Due Date

Specifically, the registered provider must ensure that children are supported to establish a consistent routine and engage in daily learning. Where children are not engaging in a formal education timetable, leaders must ensure that children are supported to engage with informal learning on a daily basis. The positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on— mutual respect and trust; an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and positive responses to other children and adults. In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to ensure— that staff—

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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, 16 July 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 7 sexual and social relationships, and how those relationships can be supportive or harmful;

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Requirement Due Date

help each child to develop the understanding and skills to recognise or withdraw from a damaging, exploitative or harmful relationship;

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Requirement Due Date

understand and communicate to children that bullying is unacceptable;

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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)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii)(xii)(xiii)(b))

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Requirement Due Date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that direct work with children is planned based on the child’s presenting needs and feelings and that any incidents of children being involved in risk taking behaviour are followed up with consistent and targeted direct work. 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 to inspire to fulfil their potential: and promotes their welfare.

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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)) 16 July 2024

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Requirement Due Date

The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement (“the statement of purpose”) which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1.

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Requirement Due Date

Keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it.

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Requirement Due Date

Subject to paragraph (6), the registered person must ensure that the home is at all times conducted in a manner which is consistent with its statement of purpose. (Regulation 16 (1)(5)) 16 July 2024 Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 8 In particular, the registered person must ensure that the statement of purpose accurately details the use and purpose of surveillance at the home. The registered person must ensure that—

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Requirement Due Date

the privacy of children is appropriately protected;

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Requirement Due Date

children can access all appropriate areas of the children’s home’s premises; and

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Requirement Due Date

any limitation placed on a child’s privacy or access to any area of the home’s premises—

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Requirement Due Date

is intended to safeguard each child accommodated in the home;

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Requirement Due Date

is kept under review and, if necessary, revised; and

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allows children as much freedom as is possible when balanced against the need to protect them and keep them safe. (Regulation 21 (a)(b)(c)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv))

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Requirement Due Date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that the use of internal door alarms on communal doors is only used as a safeguarding measure: does not impact on other children livening in the home, is time limited, follows a written assessment of risk and is kept under review. 16 July 2024

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Requirement Due Date

The registered person must ensure that all employees— receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b))

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Requirement Due Date

Specifically, the registered person must ensure that all staff, including managers receive regular supervision in line with the organisation’s supervision policy. 16 July 2024

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that all consequences imposed on children are subject to systems of regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair and proportionate. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36) Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 9

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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: 2753204 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Associated Wellbeing Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 1 Mallard Way, Porthcawl CF36 3TQ

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Inspectors

Kelly McCurdy, Social Care Inspector Donna Ryan, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2753204 11 regulates and inspects 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 children looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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