Children's home run by Cambian Childcare Limited in Hammersmith and Fulham

Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 1 Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Limited 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 managed by a private provider. It provides care for up to two children who may experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in July 2021.

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Information about this children’s home

One child was living in the home at the time of inspection.

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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

Date of last inspection: 11 September 2024

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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: 1226978 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

11/09/2024 Full Good 11/12/2023 Full Good 25/05/2022 Full Good 01/09/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

When children leave the home, staff promote positive endings to help children move on to the next stage of their lives. When risks increase and the child’s needs cannot be met, staff work with professionals to ensure a review of the child’s care plan. Staff support children to participate in meetings about their care, including when they are preparing to move on. The use of life-story work and advocacy supports the children to share their views and make choices. This ensures that they feel heard and valued during significant transitions.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to access external services to help manage traumatic childhood experiences and emotional and behavioural challenges. The child receives support through play-based activities, which has helped them to build trusting relationships. Staff speak warmly about the child having gradually developed healthier ways to cope with difficult emotions.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One parent expressed confidence that staff keep their child safe. They speak highly of staff’s approach to working closely with them, particularly about staff respecting parents’ wishes regarding behaviour management strategies. This helps children to experience consistency in behaviour support both in the home and within their family environment.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The child has made positive progress in their education. The child is meeting expected academic targets, and school attendance has been exemplary. This has resulted in the child recently earning a ‘gold award’ in recognition of good attendance and learning. At home, staff help the child to learn through interactive card games and encourage story book reading at bedtime.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand children’s health needs. When required, the manager escalates the need for specialist assessments and seeks out advice and support from health professionals. Staff take a proactive and compassionate approach to supporting the child’s ongoing health challenges. The manager has escalated delays in receiving the child’s statutory health and education plans, but the actions taken lacked sufficient rigour to ensure timely access for staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Leaders and managers ensure that staff are appropriately skilled to administer medication. However, a medication recording error in the controlled medication log breaches the home’s medication policy . This means it is unclear whether the medication was administered or not and leaves children in the vulnerable position of being wrongly medicated. Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 4

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

The child says that they feel safe and that they are happy. Staff’s close bond with the child helps the child to express themselves more openly, reducing their anxiety. Staff know the child’s safeguarding risks and vulnerabilities. Increased emotional difficulties and recent behaviours have been challenging to manage. However, leaders’ and managers’ close working relationships with the child’s social worker helped when reviewing the child’s safety plan to mitigate the risks. This included increasing the ratio of staff supporting the child. This helped to keep the child safe.

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

Staff use restorative approaches when addressing unwanted behaviours. When consequences are given, they are done so proportionately. They are given in consultation with the child so that they understand and learn from their actions.

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

Staff are skilled in managing positive behaviour through using de-escalation techniques and creative, child-specific strategies. When children are held or guided for their safety and the safety of others, staff use holds proportionately and keep detailed records. However, managers do not consistently keep written records of staff debriefs after incidents occur. This does not demonstrate how the manager promotes learning after incidents.

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

Children know how to make a complaint. The manager ensures that staff listen to the views of children and take appropriate steps to reassure them and investigate the concerns. However, on one occasion when an allegation against staff was made, the manager did not follow the home’s safeguarding procedure. An investigation into the incident was not sufficiently completed. Additionally, the parent and child have not been advised of the outcome of the incident. This may leave children feeling unsupported and reluctant to disclose concerns in the future.

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

The manager ensures that staff respond with empathy and take a measured approach when damage occurs in the home. However, the manager did not promptly update a specific risk assessment in relation to risk of ligatures after damage to the home. This increased the risk of potential self-injury.

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

When children go missing from the home, staff respond in a way that helps to reduce the risk of harm. Room searches are completed, and staff do this with sensitivity. Staff have discussions with children when they return to the home to understand how the child is feeling. However, one record of a missing-from-home incident had incorrect details about the length of time the child was away from the home. This error could impact on care-planning decisions.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is managed by an experienced manager. She provides calm and effective leadership to the team. The manager is ambitious for staff to be highly skilled and Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 5 motivated to provide children with the best possible care. She is child focused and develops close relationships with the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home has sufficient staffing and is well resourced to meet the needs of the children. Staff are suitably vetted and qualified and receive a comprehensive induction. Staff say they are well led and managed. Staff work well together to provide consistency and stability to the children. The manager has good oversight of the home. She ensures that staff are aware of their roles and responsibilities and that there are clear lines of accountability for each person in their roles.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager has strong and proactive working relationships with safeguarding professionals, which further enhances the protection of children. Staff work well with local police officers to safeguard children and to prevent unnecessary involvement in the criminal justice system, ensuring that interventions remain child centred and proportionate.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The manager values the home’s therapeutic model of intervention. The manager has redesigned the staff supervision form and children’s key-work document to reflect this model. By embedding the approach into these forms, the manager ensures that staff discussions are more meaningful and focused, helping staff to keep children at the centre of their practice. However, despite these positive changes, not all supervisors ensure that the actions agreed for staff in supervision sessions continually support their development and that they are reviewed consistently.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers provide oversight of children’s case records to ensure that children’s plans and care are progressing. Key-work sessions provide evidence of staff’s strength in building relationships with the children. Staff maintain focus on the children and evidence is provided in records of staff supervision and monthly team meetings. However, some reflections by staff in their meetings are written in a way that is not kind or caring, which detracts from the good work they do with the children. Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 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

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

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

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person must ensure that allegations are addressed in line with the home’s policy and that timely outcomes are provided to the adults and children involved.

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Requirement Due date

Furthermore, the registered person must ensure that the home is a safe environment, that any hazards are thoroughly reviewed and that risk assessments are updated. 30 November 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. (Regulation 5(a))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, the registered person should ensure that the child’s health and education plans are accessible for staff to review. 30 November 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 7

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that supervision actions have clearly defined review dates to promote accountability and progress tracking. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.2)  The registered person should ensure that records kept detailing all individual incidents when children go missing from the home are accurate. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 46, paragraph 9.31)  The registered person should ensure that medication records are completed correctly in accordance with the medication policy. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 35, paragraph 7.15)  The registered person should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping and understand the importance of careful, objective recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a language that is kind and

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Recommendations

caring. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 62, paragraph 14.4)  The registered person should ensure that records of restraint enable the registered person and staff to review the use of control, and through debriefs, provide the opportunity for amending practice to ensure it meets the needs of each child. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 49, paragraph 9.59)

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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: 1226978 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Cambian Childcare Limited

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 4th Floor, Parkview, 82 Oxford Road, Uxbridge UB8 1UX

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Inspector

Tenji Wesa, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 1226978 9 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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Inspector

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