Children's Home run by Bridge2Future Ltd in Leicestershire

Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 1 Registered provider: Bridge2Future 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 is a privately run children’s home. The home is registered to care for up to three children who have learning disabilities.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection three children were living in the home. No other children have lived at the home during this inspection period.

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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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Date of last inspection:

Overall judgement at last inspection: not applicable

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Date of last inspection:

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

Not applicable Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are making good, personalised progress whilst living at the home. For two children there has been rapid progress in their independent toileting and acceptance of wearing clothes. All children are beginning to be able to express their wants and needs more clearly and staff are becoming well attuned to this. A comfortable group dynamic is developing amongst children, and they have recently begun eating meals alongside each other at the dining table.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s care plans are thorough. They include clear information about the child’s current needs and how these are informed by their historical experiences. As staff get to know the children better, they ensure that plans are regularly updated with useful and nuanced information. This then informs their approach to the child and how their care should be received.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work proactively to explore communication aids that best support children to express their wishes and feelings. Staff understand how children may express themselves with nonverbal cues such as their body language and staff keenly observe this. Staff recognise that more formal children’s meetings would not be appropriate for the children. Instead, staff are committed to working with children creatively using pictures to help them to understand and respond to their experiences. These one-to-one discussions are centred around developing the children’s sense of their own safety and are informed by their care plans.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to explore their interests and partake in fun activities at a pace that is comfortable for them. Memory books are kept that evidence children having fun in the community such as going to the park, going for forest walks, and trying swimming for the first time. Children are engaged in education. There has been good collaborative work with schools to ensure continuity for children's learning.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

When children move to live at the home the manager carefully considers how children will safely live together. This planning process does not yet assess staff skills in meeting the complex needs of children.

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

Children at the home have settled well. They have not been involved in any serious incidents or gone missing. Risks particular to children are well understood and included in their assessments and behaviour support plans. These are clear for staff and offer pragmatic strategies to keep children safe. They help staff to recognise, prevent and respond to risk. When new presenting risks are identified, these are additionally assessed and planned for by the manager. Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 4 Children have been held but these interventions are of low level and do not last for long. These are utilised to prevent children coming to harm. There are robust recordings that describe clearly the antecedents to incidents and a rationale for the hold being utilised by staff. Good management oversight supports staff during debriefs to reflect on what could be done differently in the future. Efforts are always made to establish how holds

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

have been experienced by children. Children are supported to identify how they may be feeling, usually using pictorial communication aids.

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

Children sometimes engage in behaviours that can cause them harm. These are well understood by staff as a way for children to communicate their feelings or to offer themselves sensory input. Staff understand how to distract children from these behaviours and support them to feel calm. However, recordings for these behaviours are of inconsistent quality and do not always include oversight from the manager.

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

Fire safety is prioritised by the staff and required actions from a recent fire risk assessment were quickly addressed. Children are regularly engaged in fire drills and allow staff to support them to exit the home. Staff recognise the need for the children to be familiar with procedures should an emergency occur, and practices therefore occur regularly.

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

Staff support children with their personal care needs and understand their required actions with this regard. Risk assessments are in place and identify how staff can encourage children with their independence and ensure their dignity throughout. Risk assessments are not however personalised to children about the specific tasks undertaken or how these are experienced by children.

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

One child living at the home has epilepsy. There is a safety plan in place which details the impact of this diagnosis and how staff can support the child should this ever be required. However, this plan lacks needed detail for staff to understand their expected actions clearly. Management have quickly sought review of this plan with a medical professional during the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Children benefit from a consistent staff team who know them well. Much of the staff team already have the required qualification and others are making good progress towards this. This ensures that children are cared for by staff that have an appropriate level of skills and knowledge about their role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff receive a good breadth of training. This includes bespoke training which informs staff how to best care for children and their individual needs. There are appropriate systems in place to monitor staff's completion of required training. The manager should ensure that she has oversight of how staff are imbedding their learning into practice.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are well supported by regular team meetings. Discussions focus on staff practice and are reflective about the care offered to children. These are a space where staff and the manager can collaborate and learn together. Staff feel their voices are listened to by Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 5 the manager, they speak with compassion about children and as a result enjoy working at the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Professionals spoken to shared that children are making progress whilst living at the home. The manager has developed positive and collaborative working relationships with professionals and parents and communicates effectively. Consequently, children have a team around them that work well together.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

There is an effective system for monitoring and auditing the home. The manager completes a monthly report which is thorough, reflective and identifies actions to be completed. Her oversight is not however clearly or consistently recorded on some documents. However, the responsible individual supports the manager well and is helping to identify areas of improvement. Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 6

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Recommendations

 The registered person should only accept placements for children where they are satisfied that the home can respond effectively to the child's assessed needs as recorded in the child's relevant plans and where they have fully considered the impact that the placement will have on the existing group of children. (Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations including the quality standards page 56, paragraph 11.4)

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Recommendations

 Staff should continually and actively assess the risks to each child and the arrangements in place to protect them. Where there are safeguarding concerns for a child, their placement plan, agreed between the home and the placing authority, must include details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risk on a day- to-day basis. (Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations including the quality standards page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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Recommendations

 The specific responsibilities of the home towards supporting the health and wellbeing of each child should be agreed with the placing authority and recorded in the child's placement plan. It is the joint responsibility of the registered person and the placing authority that this is agreed at the time of placement. (Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations including the quality standards page 34, paragraph 7.7)

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff are familiar with the home’s policies on record-keeping, and understand the importance of careful, objective, and clear recording. Staff should record information on individual children in a non-stigmatising way that distinguishes between fact, opinion and third-party information. Information about the child must always be recorded in a way that will be helpful to the child. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards,’ page 62, paragraph 14.4)

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Recommendations

 Those with a leadership and/or management role should be visible and accessible to staff and able to deliver their leadership and/or management responsibilities. Any registered manager employed in the home should have sufficient capacity to ensure that the Quality Standards are met for each child in the home. (Guide to the Children’s Home Regulations including the quality standards page 52, paragraph 10.7)

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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: 2770693 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Bridge2future, Surestore, Ninth Avenue, Burton-On- Trent, England DE14 3JZ

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Inspector

Louise Copping, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2770693 8 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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