Children's home run by Active Young People Limited

Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 1 Registered provider: Active Young People 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 children’s home is owned and managed by a private provider. It provides care for children and young people with special educational needs and/or disabilities. The home offers long-term residential placements for up to six children. It also provides short-break services for up to three children.

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Information about this children’s home

Five children were in the home during the inspection. The inspectors spent time with all the children.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in December 2021.

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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 provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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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: 2624223 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

12/03/2024 Full Good 21/03/2023 Full Outstanding 28/03/2022 Interim Sustained effectiveness 18/11/2021 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children who live in and visit this home have complex needs. Children only move on when they reach adulthood or when they return to the care of their family. Where appropriate, staff stay in touch with them. Children who visit the home for short breaks do so for many years. This is partially because the manager carefully considers how children’s competing needs can be managed effectively, which includes facilitating stays between children who are friends. This helps children to develop support networks and creates a sense of belonging. This is contributed to by a stable staff team.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are set targets to encourage them to make progress. These are reviewed and evaluated regularly, which helps the staff to understand the children’s current developmental stage and encourages children to make continued progress. For some children, this has resulted in improved communication and independence skills. Children’s achievements are celebrated as ‘wow’ moments, which are displayed throughout the home. This helps children to feel valued and respected.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children who live in the home to attend their medical appointments. This helps to ensure that children receive the level of medical oversight that their complex needs require. Staff proactively seek specialist support to reassess children’s medical needs. This results in better-suited specialist equipment being provided and helps to prevent children from being unnecessarily prescribed medication.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to access and make progress with their education. The manager liaises with education professionals to ensure that children receive consistent care, both in their home and school. This has included helping one school to liaise with a speech and language therapist and inviting a teacher to observe mealtimes in the home. The manager appropriately challenges the relevant local authority when it fails to meet its legal responsibility to provide a child with education.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to develop trusting relationships with staff. This is strengthened by the activities that children are encouraged to participate in, such as ice skating and holidays. Children are developing their self-esteem and are encouraged to contribute to events in their local community. Photos of the children’s achievement and participation in activities are captured in children’s individual memory books. However, although these capture the children’s experiences, they are not up to date and do not contain important details to remind children of their time in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Families speak highly of the service provided to their children. Staff develop positive relationships with these families, who they also help. Staff support families to visit their children when they are in hospital and support children to spend time with their Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 4 families. This helps children to understand that the staff care about the child’s world, as well as the individual child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The most current needs of the children who access the short-break service are not consistently known. This is because the manager does not have a process in place to support staff to gather this information. This prevents the staff from having access to all the most up-to-date information that is relevant to the child.

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improvement to be good

Children’s complex health needs are well understood. When children require medication, staff who are suitably trained administer this. However, staff do not consistently follow the medication administration process. This has resulted in one child being over-medicated and another child not being given their prescribed pain relief.

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improvement to be good

Staff do not consistently follow children’s safe care and handling plans. On one occasion, this resulted in a child falling from their bed. Staff took the appropriate immediate action and called for emergency medical support. The manager has addressed these shortfalls in practice with the individual staff members concerned and the wider staff team. He has introduced clearer processes for staff to follow.

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improvement to be good

The manager takes responsibility for his role in the shortfalls in staff practice, such as identifying that care plans could be clearer. However, he does not review all processes to ensure that all staff are following clear and consistent guidance. This prevents the manager from reducing the likelihood of similar mistakes happening again.

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improvement to be good

Staff do not consistently follow the provider’s incident recording procedure. For example, notes written by staff on one document reflect that a child fell out of their bed on one occasion, but another document states that this has happened twice. This lack of consistent record-keeping means that the manager may not be assured that staff are recording all events involving children accurately.

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improvement to be good

The home operates a policy that children are not restrained in any way and consequences are not used. Children are helped to learn about their behaviour through role modelling and direct work.

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good

The manager identifies training to support staff with their learning and development. This has included ‘professional curiosity’ training. However, not all staff have completed the provider’s mandatory training, and there is no evidence of them being held to account. This prevents the manager from being assured that all staff have the necessary skills and knowledge required to care for children with complex needs. Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 5 Staff do not receive supervision sessions in line with the manager’s expected timescales. When supervision sessions take place, these are not consistently reflective This prevents the manager from being assured that staff can reflect on their own actions and behaviours and the impact these have on the care that children.

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good

The manager does not consistently follow the recently introduced escalation policy. Furthermore, the policy does not include what to do when services are not provided in line with children’s needs. As a result, there are some gaps in the support provided to children and documentation on children’s files.

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good

The manager does not consistently complete an annual review and evaluation of the development of the home’s workforce and does not consistently complete a six- monthly review and evaluation of the quality of care provided to children by the staff. This lack of timeliness and evaluation prevents the manager from identifying strengths and areas to develop. Furthermore, he has not sent the report to Ofsted in the necessary timescales. This hinders Ofsted in maintaining oversight of the home.

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good

Staff team meeting minutes reflect that detailed discussions are held about the children. These meetings are well attended and provide opportunities for additional learning. However, minutes reflect that they are not held consistently. This limits opportunities for important staff discussions to be held.

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good

Staff say they feel well supported by the manager, both professionally and personally. Staff have commented on the manager’s ‘open-door policy’, which helps staff to feel comfortable raising any issues or problems. Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 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 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

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)(v)(b)) 5 May 2025

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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; 5 May 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 7 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)(h))

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

if the registered person considers, or staff consider, a placing authority’s or a relevant person’s performance or response to be inadequate in relation to their role, challenge the placing authority or the relevant person to seek to ensure that each child’s needs are met in accordance with the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 5 (c)) 5 May 2025

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b)) 5 May 2025

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Requirement Due date

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

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”).

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed; and 5 May 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 8 make a copy of the quality of care review report available on request to a placing authority, if the placing authority is not the parent of a child accommodated in the home. (Regulation 45 (1) (2)(a)(c) (3) (4)(a)(b))

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non- stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)  The registered person should recognise that the home’s records on each child represent a significant contribution to their life history. The registered person should ensure that staff keep and encourage children to keep appropriate memorabilia of the time spent living at the home and help them record significant life events. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality

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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: 2624223 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Active Young People Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 1 Suffolk Way, Sevenoaks TN13 1YL

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Inspectors

Julia Hagan, Social Care Inspector Lee Riley, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2624223 10 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 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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