Children's Home run by Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy in Norfolk

Inspection report children's home: SC065792 1 SC065792 Registered provider: Institute of Integrated Systemic Therapy

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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 provides care for up to 8 children who experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children's home

The manager registered with Ofsted in December 2025.

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Information about this children's home

Seven children were living at the home at the time of this inspection.

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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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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: inadequate

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report children's home: SC065792 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

03/03/2026 Full Inadequate 06/08/2024 Full Outstanding 10/05/2023 Full Good 18/01/2023 Full Good Inspection report children's home: SC065792 3

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Summary of findings

A significant shortfall at the last inspection regarding a specific safeguarding matter, led to an inadequate judgement. Despite this, children received good care. Since then, leaders and managers have demonstrated suitable change to the safeguarding processes and staff training to assure children’s safety. These changes combined with the good experiences children have at the home have improved the overall judgement to good.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Since the last inspection one child has moved out. All children were seen and 4 children were spoken with. Children have good experiences and benefit from better safeguarding arrangements.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children spend time with staff enjoying activities. They have a variety of new activities which align with their individual interests. All 7 children had personalised activity plans in the school holidays. This helps children to have new and enriching experiences that builds their confidence and self-esteem.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have good relationships with staff who know children well. Staff talk about children's individual needs and feelings and help children to understand their thoughts and feelings in more positive ways.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to attend relevant health appointments. The staff encourage children to explore their anxieties and worries with appropriate mental health professionals. All children are offered therapeutic support from a dedicated therapeutic practitioner at the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have staff and other adults to talk to about their wellbeing. Staff provide children with dedicated time to talk about their feelings. Children lead on a group they have name when they explore their feelings supported by a lead staff practitioner. Children are helped to reflect on important topics about their emotions individually and as a group. This helps them to explore ways to resolve these. These sessions are carefully thought out by the staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are supported to understand their past lives through sensitive exploration of life-story work. Staff have helped children to visit different places where they have grown up to help them make sense of changes throughout their childhoods.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Several children are not in full-time education, although some children are receiving alternative education support. There is inconsistent engagement, therefore not all children are making progress in learning. Leaders and managers do offer some challenge to education services. However, they are not consistently monitoring children's Inspection report children's home: SC065792 4 engagement to identify shortfalls. This is not helping leaders and managers support progress and routines for all children in education.

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

At the last inspection, a serious shortfall was identified following a safeguarding incident. Leaders and managers have taken suitable steps to address these shortfalls and improve safeguarding practice. Leaders and managers have introduced new systems to record and share information about incidents and scrutinise records and incidents to assure that children are safeguarded.

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

Since the last inspection, there have been several incidents. These are being managed effectively and appropriately escalated to senior managers for support. A social worker said that they are much happier with the improved safeguarding responses for their children.

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

Children rarely go missing from the home. On occasions, when children leave the home, they often do not travel far and staff immediately go and search for them. Children often return home quickly. On one occasion, when a child went missing locally, staff responded quickly to report the child missing to the local police, notified relevant professionals and worked with the police to help return the child home. This helps to keep children safer.

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

Children sometimes self-harm. Staff talk to children about their feelings, and they clearly record, any medical support and intervention children receive following any incidents. For more serious incidents there are new protocols in place for staff to seek support from senior leaders. The children's care plans accurately reflect the urgent actions staff should take during serious incidents. Staff have followed these new protocols, and in turn children are safer.

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

At the last inspection, leaders and managers failed to notify Ofsted of a serious incident. Since that time, leaders and managers have ensured that relevant safeguarding information is shared with all necessary professionals.

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

At the last inspection, shortfalls were identified in staff practice and recording of physical interventions. Since that time, there have been no further occurrences of children being held by staff. The manager has undertaken a review of previous interventions and is using new tools to monitor and track behavioural incidents.

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

Safer recruitment checks of staff are generally suitable, however for one new member of staff there was not enough review of their full employment history to allow all necessary checks. This does not help leaders and managers to assure themselves of staff's suitability to work with children. Inspection report children's home: SC065792 5

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The home is managed by a permanent registered manager. They are supported by several confident deputy managers who support children's experiences including family relationships and therapeutic support.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Since the last inspection, senior leadership have addressed safeguarding practice about how an incident was managed. Several changes have been made to support clearer safeguarding protocols for staff. The staff have been supported to make sense of these changes through additional training.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Leaders and managers continue to hold high aspirations for children. They have reflected on the shortfalls and made necessary changes to meet the previous requirements and recommendations. Leaders and managers have significantly improved how they track and monitor incidents and children's experiences combined with clear management monitoring of children's records.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are offered regular supervision sessions to help support their understanding of their practice and children's needs. Since the last inspection, senior leaders have provided frequent updates through team meetings and conversations to help staff keep pace with any changes. Staff said that they have been helped to understand the changes needed.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff are informed by the home's model of therapeutic care and receive specific training in this model through a university accredited course. Several staff are supported on to further study for additional qualifications.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff have received relevant training to help them better manage a specific risk in the home. This helps to assure managers that staff have the skills to keep children safe. Despite several improvements in staff training some staff have not had training on some children's specific presenting needs. This does not help staff to understand children's behaviour. Despite this gap in training, children still receive good care. Inspection report children's home: SC065792 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 registered person must recruit staff using recruitment procedures that are designed to ensure children's safety.

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Requirement Due date

employ an individual to work at the children's home; or

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Requirement Due date

if an individual is employed by a person other than the registered person to work at the home in a position in which the individual may have regular contact with children, allow that individual to work at the home, if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3).

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Requirement Due date

full and satisfactory information is available in relation to the individual in respect of each of the matters in Schedule 2. (Regulation 32 (1) (2)(a)(b) (3)(d)) 31 July 2026

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that staff can access appropriate facilities and resources to support their training needs and should understand the key role they play in the training and development of staff in the home. In particular, the registered person should ensure that staff have additional appropriate training to meet the specific health and development needs of individual children in their care. ('Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards', page 53, paragraph 10.11)  The registered person should act as an effective advocate, as a good parent would do, for or on behalf of a child who may be experiencing difficulties with education or training matters. This includes, but is not limited to, attainment, admissions, attendance or behaviour. ('Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations, including the quality standards', page 28, paragraph 5.12) Inspection report children's home: SC065792 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 children's home: SC065792 8

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Children's home details

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

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Inspector

Rebecca Hannell, Social Care Inspector Inspection report children's home: SC065792 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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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