Children's Home run by 4d Care Ltd in Norfolk

Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 1 Registered provider: 4d Care Limited Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This home is privately owned and provides care for up to three children who experience social and emotional difficulties. At the time of the inspection, three children were living at the home.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in November 2023 and holds a relevant management qualification.

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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 requires improvement to be 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: 1271979 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

19/03/2025 Full Good 16/01/2024 Full Good 30/01/2023 Full Good 14/12/2021 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are committed to providing stability for children, even when this is challenging. This helps children to build positive and trusting relationships with staff and make progress in all areas of their lives. No children have moved out of the home since the last inspection.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child has moved into the home since the last inspection. The manager worked with the child’s family and social worker to support a positive moving-in process. Before the child moved in, appropriate assessments took place to ensure that staff could meet his needs. The child who moved in has settled well, and his family told the inspector their child ‘seems happier now’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

One child has lived in the home for almost six years. The child was able to reflect on his time in the home and the positive progress he has made. This includes completing a basic training course to ride a moped. Leaders have also provided the child with his own moped and continue to support him to learn the skills to ride it safely. The manager works alongside the child’s social worker to develop appropriate plans to balance keeping the child safe with testing out increased independence. This continues to be a work in progress.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children receive highly bespoke education packages. These are a mixture of academic sessions within the school environment, tutoring at home and hands-on vocational training that plays into children’s interests and strengths. This ensures that children are making progress in line with their own abilities and vulnerabilities. Children’s attendance is generally good.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff encourage children to participate in a range of activities in the local community. This helps children learn specific skills and supports them to interact in a more diverse social setting. One child proudly showed the inspector their army cadet uniform. Another child who aspires to be a paramedic has been supported to join St John Ambulance Cadets. Helping children to take part in a range of activities helps them to build their identity.

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

Children said that they have good relationships with staff and that they like living in the home. Warm, nurturing and positive relationships between children and staff were observed during the inspection. Children’s social workers said that staff go ‘above and beyond’ to support children and keep them safe.

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

Staff turnover is very low, leading to a consistent team of adults caring for children. This has supported children to develop good relationships with staff. Staff work hard to understand children’s experiences and how these can impact their behaviour. This means physical intervention is not used often. When it is used, this is recorded appropriately. Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 4 The manager has conversations with staff and children afterwards. However, the discussions do not consider what could be done differently next time.

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

When allegations are made, leaders ensure that children are appropriately safeguarded. Leaders work collaboratively with other relevant professionals to make multi-agency decisions about how to keep children safe but maintain a proportionate response.

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

Staff have a good understanding of risks associated with technology. These risks are well managed, ensuring that children can use technology in a safe way.

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

Children do not usually go missing from the home. However, when they do, staff respond swiftly and in line with children’s plans. They search local areas and places children are known to frequent. If children cannot be found, they inform all relevant people, including the police, to ensure children are safe. When children return, staff provide appropriate nurture and support. On return, the child’s local authority visits them, and the manager ensures the information from the conversations is captured. However, the information is not always used to improve care.

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

Conversations with children are not captured well or consistently. This limits the manager’s ability to understand how staff are supporting children to increase safety, address concerns or help children to make sense of their life experiences. It also limits the manager’s ability to review what say children have in their day-to-day lives and how their views are considered.

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

Consequences are not always recorded consistently. This means some consequences do not have management oversight, and this prevents the manager from being able to consider whether consequences are effective. Consequences that are recorded are not restorative in nature or linked to helping the child learn or consider a different way of managing the situation. Children have incentives, but these are not always achievable. Once the monthly incentive has been lost, there can be limited ways to earn it back. This leaves children with nothing to work towards.

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

There are locks on the living room and kitchen doors. The kitchen door is locked when staff cannot supervise children in the kitchen. This is to manage the specific vulnerabilities of one child. There is no clear risk assessment in place to consider the impact on the other children in the home or to understand what would need to happen for the door to no longer be locked. The living room door is locked at certain times of the day and during the night. There is no plan and no risk assessment for this. Consideration has not been given to the least restrictive options available.

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

The manager’s system of oversight of children’s documents is ineffective. Plans to improve the system have been delayed, and this has led to a continued lack of oversight. This has resulted in several missed opportunities to address staff practice and notice when staff are not implementing appropriate actions. Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 5 The reports from the independent person do not offer the level of scrutiny required to make assessments on children’s safety and well-being. This does not support the manager to identify and address shortfalls. Leaders do not consistently provide their own analysis of reports, making it difficult to know if there is oversight.

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

Children’s plans do not capture all their vulnerabilities. Some information, including children’s names, was incorrect. There are very limited strategies detailed in plans to support staff to care for children when they are distressed. This often results in inconsistent staff responses to children. The lack of management oversight means that the manager has not addressed these issues.

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

The manager has failed to provide the regulator with the quality of care review to cover the period from October 2024 to March 2025.

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

The system to ensure that staff have the right skills and experience is ineffective. During the inspection, it was not possible to establish whether all staff, including the waking night staff, had an in-date first-aid qualification. The manager was aware of this, and it was addressed with staff in supervision. However, the manager has not ensured staff have taken relevant action.

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

Supervision of staff and the manager takes place regularly. Sessions are reflective and supportive. Supervision outlines clear actions for staff to take; however, these actions are not always reviewed. This means that when staff have not completed them, this is not addressed. Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 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 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 (1) requires the registered person to—

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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

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

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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)(b)(c)(f)(g)(i)(ii)(h))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that the manager and responsible individual have effective systems in place to allow them ensure staff are 1 December 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 7 providing care to children that aligns with management expectations and that staff have completed or repeated the organisation’s mandatory training in line with organisational expectations.

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Requirement Due date

Additionally, ensure the manager and responsible individual have effective oversight of the independent person’s report, children’s documents, plans and assessments and consequences, and ensure that this oversight is recorded.

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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

help each child to understand how to keep safe;

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Requirement Due date

that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed, furnished and maintained so as to protect each child from avoidable hazards to the child’s health. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(d))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, ensure that children’s plans and risk assessments contain information that aligns to their current needs and risks and outlines strategies staff should use to effectively manage the identified risks.

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Requirement Due date

Additionally, ensure that work completed with children to increase their safety and help them understand concerns is recorded appropriately. 1 December 2025

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Requirement Due date

at all times, at least one person on duty at the home has a suitable first aid qualification. (Regulation 31 (2)(a)) 27 October 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 8 The registered person must complete a review of the quality of care provided for children ("a quality of care review") at least once every 6 months.

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Requirement Due date

In order to complete a quality of care review the registered person must establish and maintain a system for monitoring, reviewing and evaluating—

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Requirement Due date

the quality of care provided for children;

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Requirement Due date

the feedback and opinions of children about the children’s home, its facilities and the quality of care they receive in it; and

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Requirement Due date

any actions that the registered person considers necessary in order to improve or maintain the quality of care provided for children.

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of care review, the registered person must produce a written report about the quality of care review and the actions which the registered person intends to take as a result of the quality of care review ("the quality of care review report").

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Requirement Due date

supply to HMCI a copy of the quality of care review report within 28 days of the date on which the quality of care review is completed; and

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Requirement Due date

make a copy of the quality of care review report available on request to a placing authority, if the placing authority is not the parent of a child accommodated in the home.

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Requirement Due date

The system referred to in paragraph (2) must provide for ascertaining and considering the opinions of children, their parents, placing authorities and staff. (Regulation 45 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c) (3) (4)(a)(b) (5)) 1 December 2025

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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— 1 December 2025 Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 9 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))

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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: 1271979 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 8a New Road, Mepal, ELY, Cambridgeshire CB6 2AP

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Inspector

Joanna Beal, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 1271979 11 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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