Children's Home run by McRae Residential Care Services Limited in Croydon

Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 1 SC025813 Registered provider: McRae Residential Care Services Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This privately owned home is registered to provide care for up to eight boys who experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The home and the manager registered with Ofsted in March 2007.

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Information about this children’s home

There were three children living at the home at the time of this inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

The inspection started on 20 May 2025. Inspectors returned on 24 June 2025 to gather additional evidence in line with Ofsted inspections and visits: deferring, pausing and gathering additional evidence policy.

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Information about this children’s home

Information applicable to the provider at the time of the original inspection was received after the inspection was completed but before the planned publication date of the inspection report. The relevance of the information received necessitated a further visit by an inspector to gather additional evidence, and a review of this evidence alongside that gathered at the original inspection to enable the inspection outcome and to complete this report.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected, and their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded. The care and experiences of children and young people are poor, and they are not making progress.

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inadequate

Date of last inspection: 26 February 2025

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: inadequate Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 2 Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 3

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

26/02/2025 Full Inadequate 06/09/2023 Full Outstanding 01/11/2022 Full Good 24/02/2022 Full Outstanding Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 4

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The inadequate leadership and management and safeguarding arrangements in this home, undermine the quality of care that children receive.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

When leaders and managers do not receive local authority care plans for children there is a lack of rigour in pursuing this with those local authorities to get these. Children’s home care plans are also not all up to date. Information about health services is unclear in children’s records. This makes it very difficult for staff to access the right information that they need to support the children appropriately.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff are successful in encouraging most of the children to engage in education. One child is completing their exams, and another child is at college.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children are registered with relevant health services, and staff support them to attend health appointments.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Children have positive relationships with staff. They feel comfortable sharing their wishes and feelings with them. One child said that staff advocate for them and encourage them to attend their meetings.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff support children to develop their independence skills. One child said that they are learning how to budget. A social worker commended staff for helping a child to understand the importance of cooking and cleaning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

One child has left the home since the last inspection. Leaders and managers bought the child kitchen items, and staff accompanied the child to their new home to help them settle in.

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

Leaders and managers have failed to take prompt and effective action following serious incidents. Staff action to safeguard children is ineffective. For example, leaders and managers expect staff to search one child’s room daily. Despite this, the police found a significant amount of drugs in the child’s room after staff had completed a room search earlier that day and had failed to find the drugs, which had been in the room at the time of their search. The registered person has not updated children’s risk assessments in a timely way, and they lack detail. This leaves staff without essential information to ensure children’s safety.

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

When children go missing from the home, leaders and managers require staff to call the children regularly on their phones to find out where they are and do their best to assess their welfare. This does not happen consistently. Staff are also not alert to the indicators of extra-familial harm, such as criminal or sexual exploitation, and they do not look for Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 5 children when they are missing from their care. On one occasion, a vulnerable child had been missing from the care of staff for seven hours before the police were informed. When the police are contacted, staff do not provide accurate and up-to-date information about children. The police have raised concerns that staff do not understand the risks to children when they are away from the home.

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

Staff lack curiosity. They do not engage with children effectively about where they go when they leave the home late at night or for long periods during the day. Some staff are unclear about their role when a child is absent from the home. The home’s policy on children going missing from home does not instruct staff clearly on how to manage a missing-from-home incident. Return home interviews are requested from the local authority, but requests are not escalated by managers if the interview fails to take place within expected timescales. This is a missed opportunity to understand what happened to the child when they were missing from home.

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

Leaders and managers do not escalate safeguarding concerns to children’s local authorities in a timely way. Leaders and managers do not complete external referrals for children to receive additional support efficiently, and they do not follow these up as quickly as needed. This means that there is a delay in children getting the additional support they need.

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

Leaders and managers complete an internal fire risk assessment. However, it is not clear whether this is carried out by a suitably competent person.

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

Staff ensure that children’s health needs are met. This includes ensuring that children receive the correct amount of medication at the right time.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Management oversight in the home is poor. Leaders and managers are unaware of staff’s shortfalls in practice and recording. There is no internal system to regularly check this and address the concerns. In addition, leaders and managers’ oversight of safeguarding is poor. This has meant that support for children is not gained quickly, and children are at risk of harm.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers do not notify the regulator of all serious incidents that happen in the home. Furthermore, the independent visitor does not visit the home monthly. This limits the regulator’s continued oversight of the home and does not enable leaders and managers to receive regular feedback to improve safeguarding and care in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Managers and staff receive supervision; however, discussions do not focus on children’s needs and vulnerabilities or staff practice. Not all staff receive annual appraisals. Appraisals that do take place do not focus on staff’s knowledge, skill and development over the previous year. Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 6 Some staff do not have the necessary training that is relevant to the needs of the children currently living in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers have failed to identify gaps in the recruitment process. This has resulted in gaps in employment histories not being challenged.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Compliance notices were issued following the last full inspection. These were deemed met at the subsequent monitoring visit, but these positive steps have not been maintained. As a result, these areas of concern remain, and compliance notices have again been raised in relation to the leadership and management of the home and the help and protection of children. Leaders and managers have also failed to address the requirements from the previous inspection, and some requirements have been restated on more than one occasion. Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 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 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

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

understand the impact that the quality of care provided in the home is having on the progress and experiences of each child and use this understanding to inform the development of the quality of care provided in the home; and

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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)(c)(f)(h))

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated. 10 August 2025

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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

that staff— 10 August 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 8 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;

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Requirement Due date

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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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

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

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Requirement Due date

full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (3)(d))

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated. 10 August 2025

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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;

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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 (a)(c))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, leaders and managers must ensure that they provide the police with up-to-date information about children.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must also ensure that they notify local authorities about safeguarding concerns in a timely way and escalate such concerns if they are not satisfied with the response they receive. 18 August 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 9 Leaders and managers must also ensure that they gain consent from children’s social workers about changes to care arrangements within the home.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

undertake appropriate continuing professional development;

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience; and

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Requirement Due date

have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year. (Regulation 33 (4)(a)(b)(c))

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated. 18 August 2025

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must prepare and implement a policy ("the missing child policy") setting out—

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Requirement Due date

the steps taken, and to be taken, to prevent children from being absent without permission; and

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Requirement Due date

the procedures to be followed, and the roles and responsibilities of persons working at the home, in relation to a child who is, or has been, so absent. (Regulation 34 (6)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure the missing- from-home policy supports staff to understand their role when a child is missing from the home.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated. 18 August 2025

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain records ("case records") for each child which—

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Requirement Due date

include the information and documents listed in Schedule 3 in relation to each child; and

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Requirement Due date

are kept up to date. (Regulation 36 (1)(a)(b)) 18 August 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 10 In particular, the registered person must keep children’s records up to date and ensure information in children’s files is clear and accessible.

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that an independent person visits the children’s home at least once each month. (Regulation 44 (1))

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Requirement Due date

This requirement was made at the last inspection and is restated 18 August 2025

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

a child is involved in or subject to, or is suspected of being involved in or subject to, sexual exploitation;

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Requirement Due date

an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child which the registered person considers to be serious;

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Requirement Due date

there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious. (Regulation 40 (4)(a)(b)(e)) 18 August 2025

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that the home has an updated fire risk assessment carried out by an appropriate, qualified body or individual. (‘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: SC025813 11

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: McRae Residential Care Services Limited

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Inspectors

Chelsea Agyeman, Social Care Inspector Salean Bryant, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC025813 12 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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