Children's Home run by Brooks & Brooks Recruitment Ltd in Oldham

Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 1 Registered provider: Brooks and Brooks Recruitment Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

p.1

Information about this children’s home

This home is privately owned and provides care for one child who may experience social and emotional difficulties.

p.1

Information about this children’s home

At the time of this inspection, one child was living at the home.

p.1

Information about this children’s home

The previous manager left their role in October 2024. A new manager registered with Ofsted in April 2025. She is appropriately qualified and experienced. She is registered for another of the company’s homes and oversees them both.

p.1

Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

p.1

good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

p.1

good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

p.1

good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

p.1

good

Overall judgement at last inspection: requires improvement to be good

p.1

good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 2

p.1

Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/08/2024 Full Requires improvement to be good 01/08/2023 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 3

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The inspector spoke with the child living at the home.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The child has developed positive relationships with staff. They feel genuinely cared about and have built strong relationships with their key worker and the manager, whom they trust and can talk to. For the child, who struggles to build attachments with adults and professionals, this is progress. The home has been newly refurbished and made homely, and the child feels settled.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The manager has carefully planned the child’s care to ensure that their needs can be met effectively. A child-centred, detailed care plan means that staff understand the child’s needs and can track their progress.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff have worked effectively with the virtual school to secure a suitable provision to meet the child’s educational needs. The child has been involved in planning for this and has visited the school and met their teachers. Meanwhile, staff have been supporting the child with a routine in preparation for school and promoting daily in-house tutoring and life skills work. The child engages in regular structured leisure time linked to their interests, such as attending boxing classes and going to the gym.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff monitor the child’s health needs well. They support them in accessing health services to promote positive well-being, such as mental health and sexual health professionals. The in-house therapist meets regularly with the child to develop their relationship. He provides support and guidance to the staff team in the work they carry out with the child and attends staff meetings to provide additional oversight and consultation.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Key-work sessions with the child are focused. They are helping the child manage their emotions and understand their life experiences. The child’s views, wishes and feelings are central to any review of their deprivation of liberty (DoL) order.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child has moved out of the home since the last inspection. Leaders and managers worked tirelessly with the placing authority to try to maintain the child’s placement and to promote a planned move to another provider that could meet their complex needs. The provider was unable to extend the notice on the child’s placement due to increasing risk levels. The child’s transition to their new home was unplanned and not what the provider had hoped for.

p.3

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

The child is safe and secure in their home. Staff understand the child’s risky behaviour and use their positive relationships to encourage them to make safer choices. Professionals say that staff are proactive in their safeguarding practice. Safety plans are Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 4 regularly reviewed, providing staff with clear strategies and guidance to follow. The manager ensures that the child’s DoL order is managed in the least intrusive manner possible and allows the child to feel at home.

p.3

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

Restraint is used as a last resort based on the level of risk. Children are helped to understand that staff have been required to use restraint to keep them and others safe. Consequences are rarely used. Instead, the staff team rewards children for positive behaviour, using systems that motivate them to do well.

p.4

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

Staff try to prevent children from going missing from home. They are thorough in their attempts to locate the children when they are missing, working closely with other professionals to bring them home safely. However, not all records include a continuous chronology of the actions staff have taken to locate the children when they have been missing. This has not been identified by the manager in their review of records.

p.4

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

Following a serious incident when one child was missing from the home, the staff team spent time reassuring and supporting the child as professionals investigated the incident. The child told the inspector that the support they have received from staff has enabled them to work through the process. The staff team works well with safeguarding professionals, such as complex safeguarding officers, substance misuse agencies, placing authorities and child protection teams, to ensure that risks are explored with children to support risk reduction.

p.4

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

Staff swiftly respond to incidents of self-injury to ensure children’s safety. Staff consistently follow children’s risk management plans by carrying out room searches, implementing additional welfare checks and referring concerns to relevant mental health professionals. In addition, staff follow up incidents of self-injury with key-work sessions to explore what was going on for the child and changes required to support them. On one occasion, staff did not notify the placing authority out-of-hours team about a ligature attempt by a child.

p.4

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

Children have not made any formal complaints. The child said that any minor issues they raise are dealt with promptly by the manager. The manager’s proactive response to complaint management has been evidenced by the approach she has taken to address concerns about noise levels raised by a neighbour.

p.4

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

The provider’s on-call system has not always been effective. On one occasion, a manager’s decision to deploy two agency staff who were not adequately trained compromised a child’s safety and well-being. The home’s manager has carried out a lessons-learned exercise, which has been shared with senior managers and her own staff team. It reflects on incident management and the appropriate mix of staff that leaders and managers must deploy in response to shortfalls in staff rotas. Changes have been made across the company to support a more effective on-call system. Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 5 The manager has missed some opportunities to carry out reflective work with staff following a serious incident and some practice concerns. Staff debriefs are not always professionally curious, and they do not always provide clear guidance for staff about how the manager expects an incident to be responded to. In contrast, following the

p.4

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

manager’s reviews of other incidents, she has been proactive by implementing workshops to improve staff knowledge in areas such as helping children to safely manage their electronic devices and promoting staff professional curiosity.

p.5

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

The staff team is relatively new due to staff having left or moved to other homes. In the past, there was a high reliance on unknown agency staff and frequent staff changes, which negatively affected a child’s experiences while living at the home.

p.5

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

The manager knows the child well. She has developed a trusting relationship with the child, and this has been key to supporting the child through some difficult circumstances. She is focused on driving improvement in staff practice to improve outcomes for children.

p.5

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

The independent visitor does not always obtain regular feedback from the child, staff, family and professionals during his visits to the home. This is a missed opportunity for the manager to use the views of others accessing the service to make changes to the quality of care.

p.5

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

Staff feel well supported by the manager and the senior leadership team. All staff, including bank and frequently used agency staff, are provided with regular reflective practice-based supervision. Most members of staff are signed up to commence the relevant qualification for their role. The manager recognises that this should be made a priority.

p.5

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

The manager monitors staff’s training needs well. She ensures that staff are provided with training specific to the needs of the child and any training identified at care planning stages in preparation for new children coming to live in the home. The manager also uses her monthly team meetings effectively to share lessons learned, to review incident management and safety plans and to prepare for new children moving into the home. Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 6

p.5

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.

p.6

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—

p.6

Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

p.6

Requirement Due date

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

p.6

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;

p.6

Requirement Due date

ensure that the home’s workforce provides continuity of care to each child;

p.6

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;

p.6

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)(a)(e)(f)(h)) 4 September 2025

p.6

Requirement Due date

When the independent person is carrying out a visit, the registered person must help the independent person—

p.6

Requirement Due date

if they consent, to interview in private such of the children, their parents, relatives and persons working at the home as the independent person requires. (Regulation 44 (2)(a)) 4 September 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 7

p.6

Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that records are kept detailing all individual incidents when children go missing from the home. Specifically, records should include clear and continuous chronologies of the actions taken by staff when a child is missing from the home. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.31)  The registered person should ensure that they inform placing authorities, Ofsted and other relevant persons about serious events, in line with Regulation 40. Specifically, they should notify the emergency duty team of the placing authority when the child’s social worker is unavailable out of hours. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.4)

p.7

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: 2711581 8

p.7

Children’s home details

Registered provider: Brooks and Brooks Recruitment Limited

p.8

Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Hilton Jones Hollinwood Business Centre, Albert Street, Oldham OL8 3QL

p.8

Children’s home details

Responsible individual: Junior Brandford

p.8

Inspector

Cheryl Field, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2711581 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 children who are looked after, safeguarding and child protection.

p.8

Inspector

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.9

Inspector

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.9

Inspector

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.9