Children's home run by Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy in Southwark

Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 1 SC025700 Registered provider: Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

The home is run by a private provider and offers care for up to 11 children who experience social and emotional difficulties. At the time of this inspection, 9 children were living at the home.

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Information about this children’s home

The home is on a site that is shared by a school provision run by a different organisation. The inspectors only inspected the social care provision on this site.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in April 2008.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

01/10/2024 Full Outstanding 05/09/2023 Full Good 01/11/2022 Full Good 16/11/2021 Full Outstanding Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The experience of living at this home enhances children’s life chances through the love, care and support that are offered to them. There were 9 children living at the home at the time of this inspection. Since the last inspection, 5 children have moved in, and 4 children have moved on, all in planned ways. All 9 children were given the opportunity to share their views. All children were seen and 5 were spoken with.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Two children were supported to return to their families due to the exceptional support and therapeutic input they received. The transition plans for these children were extremely well thought out, offering tailored support to each family. This included supporting parents to find housing and access services in the community.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children have the opportunity to take part in a wide range of experiences across the year. These have included a Christmas feast with an animated film theme where the home was decorated and transformed by staff. There are visits from external providers, such as petting zoos, science workshops, a gaming van and puppet making classes. Children are actively encouraged to attend clubs in their community, such as dance, football or Scouts, and to be part of the annual summer fete to raise money for charity. These varied experiences help children to build their own interests and start to create their own identities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Every summer, staff and children host the summer fete, which is open to any child who has lived at the home. Children, and sometimes adults, return to attend these fetes after many years since living at the home. This helps to build a sense of belonging and community that lasts beyond their time living at the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children experience wonderful shared trips and activities. They go camping every summer. All children also went on holiday abroad with the whole staff team. Most children had never been on a plane before. Staff arranged a tour of the local airport a week before the trip to help the children plan for the holiday and reduce some of their anxieties about travel. Staff prepared leaflets for all the children explaining the holiday plans. This careful planning and sensitive consideration of children’s needs made the trip extremely successful and created lifelong memories for the children, which are meaningfully captured by staff in photos and videos.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

The home environment is unmistakably designed for children. One room has been successfully transformed to create an immersive sensory room to give children a quiet alternative space. There are multiple social spaces for children to spend time with staff, including a dedicated stage in one living room and soft-play furniture in another. Children have personalised bedrooms, including the use of a visiting graffiti artist to personalise their bedroom walls. In addition, children have access to large play apparatus and trampolines outside. Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 4 There is a stable and committed staff team who offer children consistent and well- planned care. Staff role model positive behaviour and relationships, helping children to recover from early trauma and to develop these skills for the future. Children form strong attachments with their lead staff member. All behavioural support is carefully

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

supervised by clinically trained staff at the home, helping staff and children to understand any behaviours or emotions they experience. One parent said the support provided has helped their child to make ‘unbelievable progress’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

All of the children attend school. Some of the children are at the school on site, and the other children go to schools in the local area. Each child’s individual needs are assessed, and their package of education is tailored to meet their needs. Staff support children’s education by praising them for learning. Children are proud of their educational achievements and their reward certificates, and staff celebrate all their achievements.

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

Children have excellent relationships with staff. Children’s needs are well understood, and they receive an individualised approach based on these. Staff practice is underpinned by a variety of theoretical models and understanding. This helps them to provide well-informed care for children while also balancing the emotional impact to themselves. A social worker said, ‘Staff are amazing and are really empathetic to [name of child]’s challenges.’

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

The home has 3 specialist family workers who work with the children and families to help children to develop and maintain relationships with the people who are important to them. The family workers provide both practical and emotional support to parents. For one family, a family worker helped them to move into new accommodation before the child was able to move home. They also connected them to relevant support agencies within the community. The family workers keep in touch with children once they move on. This additional work with families helps to build stronger connections for children and improve outcomes for them in the future.

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

Children are offered the opportunity to complete life-story work with trained staff. This helps them to build a greater understanding of themselves and their early childhood experiences. This work is supported by additional therapy sessions for children by specialist practitioners in the home. The therapeutic approach in the home is embedded into staff practice and this is evident in the way staff talk about children’s therapeutic needs day to day.

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

Children do not go missing from the home. They are closely supported with a high staffing ratio, meaning staff are on hand to help children in difficult or challenging moments. Staff are vigilant about where children are in the home and this helps to keep children safe.

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

Staff have a renewed focus on children’s wellbeing and overall health. A nutritionist visited the home to lead workshops on healthy eating. As a result, children have curated Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 5 their own healthy eating food menu, which they regularly use to cook. Staff and children now consider mealtimes and snacks more carefully, and children’s approaches to food have improved. This has had a positive effect on children’s overall health.

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

Staff sometimes need to hold children to help to keep them safe. These holds are necessary and proportionate and are the least restrictive option. Staff speak to children after these events, and the manager speaks to staff and children to help to make sense of children’s experiences. On several occasions as part of these holds, children have said staff have hurt them. This information is reviewed by the manager and shared quickly with the children’s social workers, who are happy with the actions the home has taken. The independent visitor also monitors and reviews the incidents. However, there is a lack of internal guidance for managers on when the threshold for a referral to the local authority designated officer should be made. Although managers track interventions and use this information to inform analysis, the absence of clear guidance increases the potential for information-sharing to be compromised.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager has been at the home for many years, is suitably experienced and holds a relevant qualification. This longevity has provided consistency and stability for staff and children since 2008. Children have positive relationships with the manager, and he is central to the home. A parent said the manager is ‘absolutely fantastic’. In addition, the manager is supported by dedicated deputy managers who have expertise in different areas of children’s care planning. This helps to provide the overall excellent service to children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers ensure that children’s moves into and out of the home are meticulously planned. Senior staff attend meetings with local authorities and parents to gather relevant information about children. Staff and children at the home are given the opportunity to talk about any changes before they happen. This helps everyone to feel involved in decision-making. There are detailed records about all decisions made to support children’s moves, and children’s needs are kept at the centre of the process. The exceptional support of staff has enabled 2 children to return home and 2 children to move on to foster care. A social worker said, of another child, that their progress has been ‘really good… so good in fact they are ready for foster care now’.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers continue to have high aspirations for children. Children’s care plans and needs are thoroughly reviewed to support their progress and development. There is a top-down approach where the ethos of the home is promoted by the leadership, and all of the staff work together towards the therapeutic aims of the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff said they have high-quality supervision and have lots of time for practice reflection through different meetings. They are supported to reflect on their practice by trained therapy practitioners. This in turn helps them to explore children’s experiences and better understand the support children need. Children’s needs are consistently placed at the centre of any team discussions. Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 6 Leaders and managers use highly effective monitoring systems to track children’s behaviour, experiences and overall progress. Leaders and managers meet frequently with the staff team to review any incidents for children and to discuss learning from any events. This helps staff to make sense of children’s experiences and how they are supporting children to progress. Effective monitoring, including tracking both quantitative and qualitative data, has helped enable leaders to support children to make significant

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The staff training offer is exceptional. All staff are trained in a therapeutic model through a university-accredited course. Staff are supported to study additional postgraduate courses to continually develop their learning. Some staff go on to train and qualify as therapists. This commitment to enhancing staff’s skills and performance helps to improve the experiences for children. Learning does not only focus on staff. Children are also supported to learn new skills. Leaders and managers champion learning for all. In the last year, all children participated in a first-aid training course for children, as well as visits from a nutritionist who led workshops on healthy eating. Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 7

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure leaders, managers and staff 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, there must be a plan agreed between the home and their placing authority and any other relevant professionals that includes details of the steps the home will take to manage any assessed risks on an individual basis. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.5)

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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: SC025700 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 91-95 Southwark Bridge Road, London SE1 0AX

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Inspectors

Rebecca Hannell, Social Care Inspector Mary Costello, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC025700 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 looked after children, safeguarding and child protection.

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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