Children's Home run by J24 Resourcing Ltd in Derby

Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 1 Registered provider: J24 Resourcing Ltd

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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 is registered to provide care for up to three children who may have emotional and social difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, two children were living at the home.

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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 or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded.

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: requires improvement to be good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

30/04/2024 Full Requires improvement to be good 06/06/2023 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

There are aspects of the interior and the furnishing of the home which mean the environment appears institutionalised. For example, an office chair is in the kitchen for staff to sit on when the children are making or preparing food. There are elements of the home which need to be repaired. The radiator covers are damaged and need to be replaced. Children are not allowed to access all areas of their home. The kitchen door is locked on an evening and access restricted. This prevents the children from feeling that they live in a nurturing and homely environment.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Care plans in place do not highlight the children’s care and support needs, meaning children do not receive individualised care. Staff are not aware of what each individual child’s needs are, and therefore staff are not aware of how best to help them. As a result, children are not being fully supported to achieve emotional well-being.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff do not support families to build or sustain positive relationships with the children. As a result, children miss out on consistent support from those closest to them. The lack of proactive approach by staff to promote family relationships means that children are disconnected from their families. This limits the number of effective relationships the children have. When children do spend time with their family, this is not always appropriate, and staff do not manage this in line with children’s wishes and feelings.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Staff actively support children to attend education. Children make clear progress in their attendance. One child now travels to school independently. This progress contributes positively to the child’s educational outcomes and independence.

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

Staff have not taken effective action to keep children safe. This includes not looking for children when they are missing. Children are left to return home by their own means, with little support from staff, placing children at significant risk of harm. For example, one child was not collected and made their own way home under the influence. The child was returned to the home by a concerned member of the public, having found the child in the middle of the road.

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

When children return under the influence of alcohol and/or substances, they are not appropriately monitored in order to ensure their safety. Staff do not seek appropriate medical advice based on a child’s presentation. Children are not routinely checked by staff throughout the night when these concerns are present. This places children at increased risk of harm.

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

One child is a victim of criminal exploitation. Management of this child’s involvement in drugs is not adequate to keep them safe. Staff are not challenging this behaviour Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 4 effectively and are not seeking sufficient support around the risks. There is significant risk to the child’s safety.

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

Staff do not have the skills to be professionally curious. When a child returned home with injuries to their face, staff failed to check on their welfare. Concerns around a disclosure of harm that was shared by a child were not explored by staff. This disclosure of harm was also not escalated to management. Children are at increased risk of harm due to staff showing lack of curiosity around their safety and welfare.

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

Risk management plans do not contain the most current information around risks. Leaders and managers have failed to ensure that these plans give staff guidance and strategies on how they are to reduce risks to children. As a result, staff are not managing risks effectively, which is creating unsafe situations.

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

Children are not supported to understand risk or how to keep themselves safe. There is no proactive work completed with children around these risks. Debriefs with children do not always happen. Staff are not helping children to reflect on their behaviour to learn better ways to manage risk.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers do not have effective systems in place to provide oversight and quality assurance of the care children receive in the home. Plans do not reflect current needs and lack guidance for staff. The manager’s auditing tools are insufficient to the risks being posed by the children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager does not scrutinise incident reports effectively. Opportunities for learning are missed. As reports fail to prompt reflective practice, additional measures needed to safeguard children are missed. Without meaningful evaluation, staff miss chances to adapt their approach and strengthen protective strategies.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Debriefs with staff do not always take place. Staff are therefore unable to reflect and learn from incidents of dealing with behaviour. This impacts on the manager’s ability to assess the effectiveness of staff actions and prevent further incidents.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The manager does not adequately monitor risk management plans. This means that risks are not suitably assessed. This has resulted in poor management of serious incidents. There are behaviours in the home that are having a significant impact on the children’s safety.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Leaders and managers have not taken effective action when escalating concerns. Where external meetings have taken place, there is a lack of urgency and actions in place to reduce risk. This has left a child at significant risk of harm and as a victim of criminal exploitation.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Staff do not receive sufficient training to manage the risks they face in the home. They respond to high-risk behaviours without the necessary skills or knowledge. The manager Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 5 does not monitor staff training effectively, leaving gaps in competence. As a result, staff lack the tools to address serious behaviours and do not fully understand children’s views, wishes and feelings.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Ofsted are not always made aware of significant incidents in line with requirements. Meaning incidents that happen within the home are not always shared in appropriate timescales with professionals outside of the home. Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 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 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

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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;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff work as a team where appropriate;

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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

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

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Requirement Due date

demonstrate that practice in the home is informed and improved by taking into account and acting on—

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Requirement Due date

research and developments in relation to the ways in which the needs of children are best met; and

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Requirement Due date

feedback on the experiences of children, including complaints received; and 29 September 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 7 use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements in the quality of care provided in the home. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(1)(a)(b)(c)(e)(f)(g)(i)(ii)(h))

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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 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

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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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; and

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies;

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Requirement Due date

that the home’s day-to-day care is arranged and delivered so as to keep each child safe and to protect each child effectively from harm. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(vi)(vii)(b)) 29 September 2025

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Requirement Due date

The health and well-being standard is that—

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Requirement Due date

children receive advice, services and support in relation to their health and well-being. (Regulation 10 (1)(b)) 5 November 2025

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Requirement Due date

The care planning standard is that children—

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Requirement Due date

receive effectively planned care in or through the children’s home; and that each child’s relevant plans are followed;

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Requirement Due date

that, subject to regulation 22 (contact and access to communications), contact between each child and the child’s parents, relatives and friends, is promoted in accordance with the child’s relevant plans; 5 November 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 8 that the child’s placing authority is contacted, and a review of that child’s relevant plans is requested, if—

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Requirement Due date

the registered person considers that the child is at risk of harm or has concerns that the care provided for the child is inadequate to meet the child’s needs;

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Requirement Due date

the child is, or has been, persistently absent from the home without permission. (Regulation 14 (1)(a)(c)(d)(e)(i)(ii))

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Requirement Due date

children can access all appropriate areas of the children’s home’s premises; and

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Requirement Due date

any limitation placed on a child’s privacy or access to any area of the home’s premises—

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Requirement Due date

is intended to safeguard each child accommodated in the home;

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Requirement Due date

is kept under review and, if necessary, revised; and

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Requirement Due date

allows children as much freedom as is possible when balanced against the need to protect them and keep them safe. (Regulation 21(b)(c)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)) 5 November 2025

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Requirement Due date

Engaging with the wider system to ensure children’s needs are met.

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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)) 5 November 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 9 The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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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)(e)) 5 November 2025

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Requirement Due date

* These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Recommendations

 The registered manager should ensure the home is a nurturing and supportive environment that meets the needs of the children, and will, in most cases, be a homely, domestic environment. Children’s homes must comply with relevant health and safety legislations (alarms, food hygiene etc.); however in doing so, homes should seek as far as possible to maintain a domestic rather than ‘institutional’ impression (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)

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Information about this inspection

The inspector has 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: 2686855 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unit 3, Burley House, Rowditch Place, Derby DE22 3LR

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Inspector

Gary Smithson, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2686855 11 regulates 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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