Children's Home run by The Cuckfield Care Consultancy Limited in West Sussex

Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 1 SC066466 Registered provider: The Cuckfield Care Consultancy Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This private children’s home is registered to care for up to six children. The home’s statement of purpose states that medium to long-term placements are provided for vulnerable children with emotional, behavioural and psychological difficulties. At the time of inspection, there are five children living in the home.

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Information about this children’s home

This home currently has no registered manager.

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: Inadequate

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Enforcement action since last inspection:

Following the last inspection of the home a compliance notice was given under regulation 12 of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015. In addition, a notice of restriction was issued, which meant that the provider was not able to admit any further children to the home. Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

17/07/2024 Full Inadequate 03/05/2023 Full Good 28/06/2022 Full Requires improvement to be good 25/08/2021 Full Good Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children feel safe and happy in the home. They enjoy positive relationships with staff and spoke of how much staff care about them. These relationships have been important in children making progress recently. For one child, they are attending college daily having previously had poor school attendance. This child is making positive plans for their future and has been supported to access appropriate benefits. For another child, they are benefitting from being in a more settled environment having previously experienced lots of different placements.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive good quality care from staff who are passionate and persistent. This has resulted in children being involved in less risk-taking behaviours and engaging with support from specialist services such as drug cessation advisors. Children are therefore living healthier lives, and this means that they able to enjoy a wider range of activities that interest them. This is helping them to develop social confidence, and break previous routines that were unhealthy and unsafe.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children were excited to talk about the activities that they have enjoyed such as boxing, youth club and visits to the cinema, which have helped them to expand their interests and develop more positive social groups.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are helped to spend time with family and friends where this is appropriate. Staff manage this sensitively and seek guidance from social workers if needed. As a result, one child is hoping to leave care soon to rejoin his family. For another child, they have additional support from staff around periods where they spend time with family, to help them to explore any difficult feelings that this might cause.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have positive relationships with professionals such as social workers and with children’s families. Children’s social workers and family members have noted recent improvements in communication and in working together to care for children and feel that this has had significant benefits to children’s progress and wellbeing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are nuturing. They listen to, and understand children’s needs and wishes. They work with them to explore issues around identity and to better understand their journey into care. For one child, they have been able to safely explore their gender identity and have been helped to manage the practical aspects of their health needs discreetly. As a result, children have greater confidence in speaking to staff and seeking help when needed.

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

Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 4 Children are becoming safer. Since the previous inspection, there have been no instances where restraint has been used. Children spoke about how the home has felt calmer and the dynamics in the home felt better. This has meant that children have experienced less periods of distress and are engaging well with staff and youth services to identify more appropriate strategies to manage their emotions.

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

In addition, children are also less involved in using drugs. Staff are helping children to engage with substance cessation services and to think about making informed choices. This is a significant change for children and is helping them to live healthier, safer lives.

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

When children go missing from the home, staff take effective action to try and prevent this and to ensure they return safely. They work closely with professionals such as social workers and the police, as well as children and their families, to locate children and to understand the circumstances that have led to them going missing. When children return to the home. Staff explore with the child their motivation for going missing and any measures that can be put in place to prevent this from happening again.

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

Staff are clear about their responsibilities to keep children safe. They recognise incidents of concern about children’s welfare and share their concerns appropriately with social workers and police. They also seek support and advice from other specialist agencies that are well placed to offer children additional support to become safer, such as youth workers. Records of these concerns have improved, and further developments are being prepared for implementation to make sure that all information is captured in one place.

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

Managers are not confident in following up concerns with safeguarding partners to ensure that all concerns have been concluded with agreed outcomes. For example, on one occasion managers have not ensured that a social worker had responded to concerns that were shared about relationships between children and whether any further actions were needed.

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

Staff have a good understanding of children’s individual vulnerabilities and what is needed to help them to become safer. They are guided by assessments which are clear and are usually updated regularly. On one occasion however, a risk assessment had not been updated to reflect recent concerns. In practice, staff were aware of these concerns and steps to keep the child safe. When children experience difficult feelings that lead to them harming themselves, staff respond appropriately to ensure that they are cared for. They share information with appropriate professionals to try and ensure that children get support to help them achieve good mental health, though on one occasion, managers did not share information with mental health services when a child had expressed thoughts of harming themselves. This child had been referred to other support services that might help them to explore their feelings further.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The acting manager is enthusiastic and passionate about their role and has submitted an application to register. They have high ambitions for children and high expectations for Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 5 staff. The manager is clear about the home’s strengths and is developing a good understanding of areas where the home needs to develop further. Some of the findings from the inspection were not known by the manager as they do not have confidence in their understanding of some of the regulations. They have worked to meet requirements set at the last inspection and whilst important improvements have been made, some areas were not fully embedded in practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Staff speak warmly of their relationships with managers. They feel supported and valued in the roles and recognise the efforts made to improve experiences for children. Staff value regular supervisions, however, these are not always recorded and do not cover areas that support staff to reflect on the safeguarding culture in the home. Managers have shown clear evidence of work done to address this through a new administration system, which is to be rolled out as soon as all documents are fully ready.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Staff have continued to receive training that is relevant to their roles. However, managers do not have effective oversight or clear records of when training has been completed. In addition, where staff have not achieved their necessary qualifications within the appropriate dates, managers have not put clear action plans in place to address this.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Managers have improved upon monitoring of the home. A new independent visitor has enabled the manager to benefit from better scrutiny and make changes where needed. They continue to work on developing plans to further improve oversight within the home, but this is taking time to develop and. as such, some shortfalls have not been identified. Managers also need to ensure that their quality-of-care reports capture external feedback about the home to inform plans to develop the home further.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Managers have improved on their relationships with the wider network that support children and have increased the network to ensure that support and advice is available for children and staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Managers and staff recognise the progress that children are making and celebrate this appropriately. They have a good understanding of some of the barriers to progress being made and try to help children overcome these. Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 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, 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

In meeting the quality standards, the registered person must, and must ensure that staff—

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Requirement Due date

seek to involve each child’s placing authority effectively in the child’s care, in accordance with the child’s relevant plans; and seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child’s needs. (Regulation 5 (a) (b)) 10 December 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— helps children aspire 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— ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child; use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home.

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that appropriate plans are in place when staff have not achieved the required qualification within the relevant date, which should be reviewed regularly. In addition, the registered person must ensure that there are effective processes in place to enable them to identify weaknesses in the home and develop plans to address these. (Regulation 13 (1) (a) (b) (2) (c) (h)) 10 December 2024

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are safeguarding concerns for a child, their risk assessments, must reflect current risks Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 7 and include details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risks on a day-to-day basis. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)  The registered person should ensure that the supervision of staff practice ensures that individual adults in the home are engaged in the safeguarding culture of the home so they understand what they would need to do if they found other staff misusing or abusing their position to the detriment of the safety of a child. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 43,

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Recommendations

paragraph 9.5)  The registered person should have a workforce plan which can fulfil the workforce related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1 (paragraphs19 and 20) The plan should: - detail the processes and agreed timescales for staff to achieve induction, probation and any core training (such as safeguarding, health and safety and mandatory qualifications); The plan should be updated to include any new training and qualifications completed by staff while working at the home, and used to record the ongoing training and continuing professional development needs of staff – including the home’s manager. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)

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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 children’s home: SC066466 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: The Cuckfield Care Consultancy Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Ashburnham, Cuckfield Road, Ansty, HAYWARDS HEATH, West Sussex RH17 5AG

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Inspector

Jay Shekleton, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children’s home: SC066466 9 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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