Children's Home run by Aspris Children’s Services Limited in Suffolk

Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 1 Registered provider: Aspris Children’s Services 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 home provides care for up to six children with mental health needs.

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Information about this children’s home

Three children were living at the home at the time of the inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in May 2023

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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

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

13/08/2024 Full Good 04/03/2024 Full Good 12/07/2022 Full Good 13/07/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have a good awareness of children’s individual support needs. As a result, the children have made progress from their starting points. Staff help the children feel secure, and the children appear comfortable in their presence. This has helped children form stable and trusting relationships with staff. One child has written a poem about their experience living at the home. They said they feel a sense of belonging.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand how to communicate with the children effectively. Staff are creative in how they gather the children’s wishes and feelings. Opportunities to do so have led to some positive changes in routines for children. Children feel listened to and part of their care planning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s social workers are highly complimentary about how well children are cared for by staff. One professional said that staff have been consistent and worked with the child to help the child manage their personal challenges. The professional said that the staff ‘have not given up’ and that the child ‘had never felt stability before’ they moved into this home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand how best to motivate and support the children to explore their individual interests. This has helped children to develop their own hobbies and talents. Consequently, children are becoming more confident, independent and sociable.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children enjoy a range of activities. Children have gone abroad on their first holiday, attended their first concert and visited a comedy club. Staff organised for one child to attend an awards event. The child’s achievements were recognised with an award. Staff routinely create and capture high-quality records of special memories and achievements for children. This helps children to reflect on important events and accomplishments over time.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s engagement with education is varied. For one child, there has been significant improvement. For example, their school attendance rate has doubled. For other children, staff have a good understanding of the challenges relating to their educational attendance. Staff work in close partnership with local colleges, virtual schools and other local organisations to overcome these challenges. This partnership approach, with detailed communication between providers and staff, has meant professionals have worked together to ensure that children are given opportunities to further their education. One child has participated in work experience with a prestigious racing venue, and another has been offered a place at their chosen college.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff recognise the importance of supporting children in maintaining and building family relationships. One child’s parent said, ‘Staff are so friendly and welcoming and have made family time really positive.’ Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 4 Staff work closely with external health agencies to ensure the children’s health needs are met. One child has several professionals overseeing their individual care needs. Staff continue to seek support to ensure that these needs are consistently met through a multi-agency approach. Staff challenge health professionals when appropriate. As a result, they have secured specialist care that one child has greatly benefited from.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child has moved into and out of the home since the last inspection. The manager plans carefully for new children to move into the home. Planning includes meeting with children and social workers to gain a good understanding of the child’s needs. Effective care planning arrangements helped one child to begin to build relationships with staff before they moved into the home. However, despite these efforts, staff were not able to meet the needs of one child who moved on from the home in an unplanned way. During this unplanned move, staff provided the child and their placing authority with well- considered care and support.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is decorated and furnished to a good standard and provides a comfortable space. Children can personalise their bedrooms. However, some areas of outside spaces are overgrown with weeds and other areas lack some homely touches. This detracts from what is otherwise a homely environment.

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

The children have complex needs and vulnerabilities. The most significant incidents have been managed well. Staff understand risk and how to help children stay safer. They use creative responses to help children remain safe and develop skills to manage their personal safety. Children said they feel safe and can talk to staff and managers about their worries.

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

Staff use well-thought-out, person-centred approaches to help children understand risks. Overall, the severity of incidents for children has reduced from children’s starting points. One child was subject to a deprivation of liberty order. Because of staff’s support, this has since been deemed to no longer be necessary.

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

Family and professionals said staff identify and help manage risks for children well. They recognise that children’s risks have reduced as a direct result of staff’s support.

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

Children benefit from regular access to well-being practitioners, who help them develop coping mechanisms to improve their emotional resilience. These practitioners contribute to children’s risk management plans and the children are involved in identifying strategies that help them. These plans are comprehensive and child centred.

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

Leaders and managers take effective action to address safeguarding concerns when staff practice has fallen short of expectations. This includes carrying out investigations to identify wider learning. The lessons learned are shared with the staff team as a whole to improve practice. Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 5 There have been several occasions when children have gone missing from home. Staff have responded in line with agreed procedures to help children return safely and as soon as possible. Leaders and managers appropriately liaise with police. However, staff have not always shown sufficient curiosity. There are no discussions with children after they have gone missing, about what they have been doing, who they have been with and where they have been. Leaders and managers do not routinely follow up with children’s placing authorities to ensure that they provide children with independent return home

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

interviews. This is a missed opportunity to try to understand push and pull factors that influence children going missing, and to explore the risks that they face while missing.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is led by a qualified and experienced manager. The manager works closely with the deputy manager. Managers encourage staff to take a kind and nurturing approach with children. This has created a culture where children are treated with care and compassion. Staff said they view their colleagues and the children they care for as ‘family’.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff said managers are approachable and supportive. Staff morale is good. As a result, children benefit from a consistent staff team that provides a sense of security and stability. This consistency has helped staff to support children during a recent unsettled period at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers have begun to embed a therapeutic model of support. They have identified and organised the delivery of a range of specialist training for staff. All senior staff hold appropriate qualifications. This training helps equip staff to confidently support children with complex needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager’s review of the quality of care is thorough. They seek and value feedback from children and other stakeholders. This means that the care children receive continues to develop. The manager demonstrates a good understanding of the home’s strengths and areas for development.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

One child has made a complaint since the last inspection. Despite the child choosing to retract their complaint, leaders and managers still responded in line with procedures to ensure that the child felt listened to.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Records detailing the use of physical interventions are not routinely quickly reviewed by managers. This limits the opportunity to promptly identify any learning that may be necessary in these interventions. The recommendation made at the last inspection in reference to establishing and maintaining a system for monitoring has therefore been reinstated.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

On occasion, staff search children’s rooms in line with the child’s risk management plan. However, on one occasion, leaders and managers had not made the child aware that this Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 6 action was being taken. This meant the child had no opportunity to provide a response to this risk reduction measure.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers have not sought up-to-date local authority statutory documents for children. This means outcomes that local authorities expect staff to meet may not always be clear and known.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff receive annual appraisals of their performance. However, staff have not had regular supervision. This means staff do not benefit from continuous support to reflect and develop their practice. Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 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 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

take effective action whenever there is a serious concern about a child’s welfare. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(vi))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that staff demonstrate professional curiosity when children have been missing from home, and request that the child’s placing authority conducts an independent return home interview. 22 May 2025

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that all incidents of control, discipline and restraint are subject to systems of effective regular scrutiny to ensure that their use is fair proportionate. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.36)  The registered person should ensure that a child’s bedroom is usually only searched if the child has been informed or asked for their permission. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.20)  The registered person should ensure that they have systems in place so that all staff, including the manager, receive regular supervision of their practice from an appropriately qualified and experienced professional, which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the children assigned to their care. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph

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Recommendations

13.2)  The registered person should ensure that children’s case records are kept up to date and contain all of the required information. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.3) Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 8  The registered person should ensure that the children’s home is a nurturing and supportive environment that meets the needs of their children. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)

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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: 1183069 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Aspris Children’s Services Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 2 Barton Close, Grove Park, Enderby, Leicester LE19 1SJ

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Michelle Batchelor

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Inspector

Lexi Mitchell, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 1183069 10 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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