Children's home run by Inspire Children’s Services Limited in St. Helens

Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 1 SC482410 Registered provider: Inspire Childrens Services 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 organisation. It provides care for up to three children who experience social and emotional difficulties and have learning difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, three children were living at the home. The inspector spoke to two of the children.

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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

Date of last inspection: 4 February 2025

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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: SC482410 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

04/02/2025 Full Good 02/08/2022 Full Good 01/02/2022 Full Good 25/02/2020 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 3

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children build trusting relationships with staff who promote their emotional wellbeing and provide children with a sense of security. Children speak positively about the staff and the positive difference that they have made to their lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to develop self-care skills such as cooking, shopping and travelling independently. This helps children to prepare for adulthood.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff recognise when children are in crisis with their mental health and advocate for them to receive specialist support. The child praised the staff team for helping them access mental health support, and the improvement this has made to their emotional wellbeing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to learn and develop. Some children are in school or college and others have a bespoke package of education which, in addition to attending school for part of the week, involves accessing a tutor at home. Staff understand children’s individual learning needs and ensure that they engage in education.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to spend time with their friends and family in line with their agreed care plans. Friendships that are considered to have a positive influence on children are encouraged. Consequently, friends are welcomed into the home. This means that children can safely spend time with people that are important to them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children benefit from living in a warm and spacious home. However, areas of the home are not well maintained. The walls in one child’s bedroom were visibly stained. Some cabinets and the skirting board in the kitchen were damaged.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are registered with local health services. However, when a child refused to attend a dental appointment, staff did not encourage them to reschedule or support them to attend. Children are offered meals they enjoy, but records for one child show that their choices are not consistently nutritionally balanced.

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

Staff have meaningful conversations with children about their behaviour and any associated risks. In addition, children are supported to access courses such as online safety, to ensure that they are educated on important and relevant safety topics.

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

Staff have access to individual risk assessments for each child, enabling them to identify and understand specific risks. These assessments are reviewed regularly to support a consistent and effective safeguarding response. Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 4 Recruitment processes are safe. Thorough vetting of potential employees helps to protect children from unsafe adults working with them.

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

The use of physical interventions is minimal and detailed recordings demonstrate that these are proportionate. However, children and staff do not always receive debriefs, to ensure that there is a process of reflection and learning.

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

There is an inconsistent response to incidents of children going missing from home. Staff do search for children and contact the police when necessary. However, on one occasion, despite the child expressing intent to harm themselves while in the community, staff did not ensure the child was safe or free from immediate risk before returning them to the home. In addition, the registered manager’s review of the incident did not identify this shortfall in safeguarding practice. There is also no evidence that the child received an independent return home interview.

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

Allegations against staff are appropriately investigated, and the social worker and local authority’s designated officer are notified. However, leaders and managers did not notify Ofsted about an allegation made against a staff member. This does not ensure that the regulator has sufficient oversight of staff practice in the home.

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

The previous registered manager left in November 2025. The new manager started in December 2025. She is enthusiastic about her role and has applied to register with Ofsted.

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

There are some gaps in staff supervision. Consequently, this is not taking place in accordance with the home’s statement of purpose. Records do not always include the date of the meeting and do not accurately reflect staff performance. For example, there is reference to a staff member having good knowledge of safeguarding. However, a review of an incident that occurred just before the supervision, highlights shortfalls in the staff member’s response to a significant incident.

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

Leaders and managers have monitoring systems in place, but they are not used effectively. For example, management reviews of safeguarding incidents do not identify shortfalls in staff practice, to ensure that areas of development are addressed.

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

Leaders and managers ensure that children take part in hobbies that they enjoy, such as going to the local youth club. However, despite conflicts with other children at the club and risks associated with the child’s behaviour when there, leaders and managers have not provided alternative activities for the child to attend.

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

The home is in the process of transferring case recordings from paper based to an online system. Because of this, some case records are either missing or difficult to locate. This does not demonstrate continuous effective management oversight of the home. Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 5 The providers statement of purpose has not been sent to Ofsted following changes to the home’s staffing arrangements.

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

The registered manager has not notified Ofsted about an allegation made by a child about a member of the staff team.

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

Team meetings regularly take place and are well attended. Children and their support needs are discussed. Leaders and managers also use this time to speak about practice expectations. This ensures that there is a consistent response to caring for children.

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

Leaders and managers have built effective relationships with external agencies. Professionals are positive about the care and support that staff provide to the children. Professionals said, ‘the care is good’ and ‘communication is consistent.’ Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 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 quality and purpose of care standard is that children receive care from staff who—

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the premises used for the purposes of the home are designed and furnished so as to—

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Requirement Due date

enable each child to participate in the daily life of the home. (Regulation 6 (1)(c) (2)(ii))

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Requirement Due date

In particular, leaders and managers must ensure that internal areas of the home, such as the kitchen and children’s bedrooms are well maintained. 20 May 2026

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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

understand the roles and responsibilities in relation to protecting children that are assigned to them by the registered person;

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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)(v)(vi))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, leaders and managers must ensure that there are effective systems in place to review staff practice following safeguarding incidents. This process should ensure that where 20 May 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 7 shortfalls are identified, action is taken to improve staff practice and reduce the risk of shortfalls reoccurring.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that staff children are supported to take part in an independent return home interview following missing from home incidents.

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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

In particular, the standard in paragraph (1) requires the registered person to—

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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 have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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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)(b) (2)(a)(c)(h))

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Requirement Due date

Specifically, leaders and managers must ensure that staff receive supervision regularly, in accordance with the home’s statement of purpose. Furthermore, they must ensure that the date of supervision is recorded.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that children’s placing authority plans are up to date.

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Requirement Due date

Leaders and managers must ensure that effective monitoring systems are in place to ensure that children’s routine health appointments are not missed. 20 May 2026

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Requirement Due date

keep the statement of purpose under review and, where appropriate, revise it; and

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Requirement Due date

notify HMCI of any revisions and send HMCI a copy of the revised statement within 28 days of the revision. (Regulation 16 (3)(a)(b)) 20 May 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 8 The registered person must ensure that—

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Requirement Due date

within 48 hours of the use of the measure, the registered person, or a person who is authorised by the registered person to do so (“the authorised person”)—

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Requirement Due date

has spoken to the user about the measure; and

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Requirement Due date

has signed the record to confirm it is accurate; and

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Requirement Due date

within 5 days of the use of the measure, the registered person or the authorised person adds to the record confirmation that they have spoken to the child about the measure. (Regulation 35 (3)(b)(i)(ii)(c)) 20 May 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify HMCI and each other relevant person without delay if—

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Requirement Due date

there is an allegation of abuse against the home or a person working there;

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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)(c)(e)) 20 May 2026

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children’s daily meals are nutritionally balanced. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 33, paragraph 7.3)  The registered person should ensure that are children are offered a range of community and home based activities that reflect their individual interests. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 31, paragraph 6.6)

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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: SC482410 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Inspire Childrens Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Unit 3, Craig Court, Standish Street, St Helens, Merseyside WA10 1GJ

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Inspector

Chibuzo Otache, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC482410 10 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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