Children's Home run by North Tyneside Council in North Tyneside

Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 1 Registered provider: North Tyneside Council

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is owned and operated by a local authority. It 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 manager registered with Ofsted in November 2022.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, four children were 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 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: 2694582 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

23/04/2024 Full Good 20/06/2023 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children say they are happy living at this home. They feel that they can talk to staff if they have any worries, and they feel well supported. There is a stable staff team that offers children consistency. Children benefit from this and have developed strong, trusting relationships with staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Regular children’s meetings provide children with a forum to share their views, wishes and feelings. Staff encourage children to be involved in planning activities and food menus. This enables children to attend activities and have enjoyable experiences that match their interests.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are proactive in ensuring that children have regular family time. Family members and professionals describe effective communication with staff, who help to facilitate the children’s time with their parents. This helps to ensure that children stay connected with those most important to them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Moves in and out of the home are well managed. One child needed to leave the home at short notice. Staff minimised the impact of this by staying with the child until they were able to move to their new home. Staff helped the child to meet their new carers, offering them emotional support and reassurance. Staff have remained in touch with the child since this time, to help the child to move on and adjust to life after leaving this home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s progress in education is mixed. Some children are engaged with their learning and making progress. For some, however, their outcomes have significantly reduced since living at this home. There is limited evidence of the manager taking proactive steps to escalate this issue with a view to reviewing the current education plan to improve outcomes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Some children spend significant time in their bedrooms. Staff have not been effective in helping children to overcome the barriers that may be holding them back from feeling comfortable living at the home. This does not help children to develop their confidence to try new things and impacts on their social development with the other children.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The children have light, airy bedrooms personalised to their liking. The garden offers children a relaxing space where they can watch movies on an outside projector. There is work underway to make a new games room for children to enjoy. However, the home is not consistently maintained to a high standard. The bathrooms are not cleaned effectively. The general cleanliness in communal hallways is not to a satisfactory standard. This limits the homeliness of the environment. Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 4

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

Staff are trained in therapeutic parenting. They have moved away from mostly using consequences to manage behaviour, and now help children to reflect on their actions to recognise the impact they can have on themselves and others. One member of staff has been delegated to help other staff understand therapeutic approaches to improve practice across the team.

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

There has been one physical intervention since the last inspection. This was necessary to prevent a child from hurting themself. When physical intervention is used, staff reflect on the incident with the manager. The manager then meets with the restraint instructor to unpick the incident and assess the effectiveness of staff’s practice. This helps staff to learn and improve their behaviour management techniques.

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

Incidents of self-injurious behaviour are reducing. Children regularly tell staff if they intend to harm themselves. This demonstrates that children trust staff to intervene and help them. Key-worker sessions have contributed to helping children to become more open when they experience difficult emotions.

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

Allegations are taken seriously. The manager follows safeguarding procedures to ensure that children are safeguarded and takes appropriate action to investigate the concern.

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

Children understand how to complain. The manager is consistent in their approach and keeps children informed about the progress and outcomes of complaints. This encourages children to have a voice in the home and gives them confidence that their views are taken seriously.

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

Children’s individual risk assessments reflect known risks and vulnerabilities. They are comprehensive and guide staff’s safeguarding practice. As a result, children mostly experience a consistent response. However, some risk assessments have not been updated to ensure that staff have the latest information for all children.

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

Risk assessments in relation to incidents of children going missing from the home do not provide staff with full information about what to do when concerns escalate. It is unclear what staff should do if a child is missing overnight. This has led to inconsistent responses from staff when children are missing from the home.

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

There is a lack of preventative work completed about the dangers of substance misuse, even though this concern is present for some children. This does not help children understand the risk or to make better lifestyle choices.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager knows the children well and can confidently describe the children and their personalities. This knowledge about the children is consistent throughout the staff team. This helps to ensure that children experience consistent care. Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 5 The manager works with other professionals to improve outcomes for children. Regular advice sought from the psychologist and the restraint instructor strengthens the team’s knowledge and responsiveness to the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Practice-related supervision is held regularly. Staff talk about the children and reflect about how best to meet their needs. Opportunities for developing practice are discussed. Staff are supported with areas of difficulty and extra support is provided when this is required. This helps staff to feel well supported and committed to their roles.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Team meetings are used to develop the team’s practice. All children are discussed in detail including what is going well for them, what isn’t working well, and clear actions agreed about what staff members will do to address this. Discussion about the staff’s training needs is a constant feature, with external guest speakers sometimes attending team meetings to promote constant learning.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The monitoring system for collating information is not effective and has resulted in inaccuracies. The manager’s audit does not correspond with recorded details about incidents of self-injury. This may lead to important information being overlooked and prevent the right course of action being taken.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Some documents were missing from the children’s files, including a pathway plan for one child and looked after review decisions for another child. This means the manager cannot be assured that they are following the agreed plans for children. Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 6

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Statutory requirements

This section sets out the actions that the registered person 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

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

seek to secure the input and services required to meet each child’s needs;

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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)(b)(c) 1 September 2025

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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

understand the barriers to learning that each child may face and take appropriate action to help the child to overcome any such barriers;

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Requirement Due date

promote opportunities for each child to learn informally; 1 October 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 7 raise any need for further assessment or specialist provision in relation to a child with the child’s education or training provider and the child’s placing authority. (Regulation 8 (1) (2)(a)(i)(iii)(v)(vii))

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Recommendations

 The registered person should specify the procedures to be followed and the roles and responsibilities of staff when a child is missing from home overnight and how staff should support the child on their return to the home. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 36, paragraph 9.28)  The registered person should ensure that the importance of understanding who we are and where we come from is recognised, for example through undertaking life- story work or other direct work. Staff in children’s homes should play a full role in work of this kind. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 16, paragraph 3.14)  The registered person should ensure that children’s relevant plans are obtained to form the basis of their care. In particular, the registered person should have systems in place to ensure that delegated authority, healthcare plans and statutory review

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Recommendations

documents are received. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 10, paragraph 2.1)  The registered person should ensure that the home is a nurturing, supportive environment and adequately cleaned throughout. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 2.13.9)

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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: 2694582 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: North Tyneside Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: The Quadrant East, Cobalt Offices, 15b-15c The Silverlink North, North Tyneside NE27 0BY

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Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Jacqueline Ingram

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Inspectors

Cat Makel, Social Care Inspector Karen Karlsson, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2694582 9 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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