Children's Home run by Affinity Childrens Care Ltd in Walsall

Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 1 Registered provider: Affinity Children’s Care Ltd

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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 2 children who have had adverse childhood experiences that have led to associated trauma and complex behaviours.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been in post since June 2025 and was registered with Ofsted in April 2026. They are suitably experienced and qualified. The registered manager was not present for the inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of this inspection, one child was living in the home and contributed to the inspection.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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inadequate

How well children and young people are helped and protected inadequate

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inadequate

The effectiveness of leaders and managers inadequate

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inadequate

There are serious and/or widespread failures that mean children and young people are not protected or their welfare is not promoted or safeguarded

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inadequate

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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inadequate

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

06/01/2026 Full Good 17/09/2024 Full Good Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 3

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Summary of findings

One child continues to live in the home. They have made progress since the last inspection in many aspects of their life and continue to have strong and trusting relationships with staff.

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Summary of findings

However, there has been an increase in missing-from-home episodes that have resulted in the child experiencing significant harm. Staff have not consistently followed care plans and missing-from-care protocols, which has contributed to the escalation of incidents. Incidents have increased in frequency since the last inspection.

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Summary of findings

Since the last the registered manager and responsible individual have both had frequent periods of absence. This has impacted staff support and oversight of incidents to develop practice and responses to safeguarding concerns.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Serious failures in how missing from home episodes have been responded to by staff, combined with a lack of senior managerial oversight of significant incidents has resulted in serious harm to one child and has contributed to the inadequate judgement in relation to help and protection and leadership and management.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The child speaks fondly of the staff team and enjoys living in the home. They have formed strong relationships with a number of staff and feel able to share their worries and concerns with these members of the team.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Education continues to be well supported, with the child making continued progress. They are preparing to complete key stage 4 in the next few months and shared their excitement for their prom. The child has no clear plan for post-16 learning but the home is working with the local authority and current education provider to find a suitable provision for the next academic year.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The child is supported to attend routine and specialist health appointments. The manager works closely with the in-house therapist and external clinicians to create care plans which are individualised to the child’s needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

The child’s time with family is well supported and the staff have formed good relationships with those people who are important to the child. Partnership working with one family member has supported the child during times of high levels of anxiety as the staff team and family work together to safeguard the child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: inadequate

Time with family has also moved to an unsupervised arrangement to support and maintain vital relationships when the child returns to their hometown. Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 4

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

Missing-from-home incidents have increased since the last inspection. There are shortfalls in staff’s responses when the child leaves the home. This resulted in an incident when the child was seriously assaulted, resulting in a child protection enquiry being initiated.

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

When incidents have occurred, the deputy manager has had oversight but an absence of senior leaders in the home has meant opportunities for lessons to be learned to develop staff practice have been missed.

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

Staff have lacked confidence to consider wider strategies to mitigate the risk of missing- from-home incidents, despite having information that the child is meeting people of high risk and who are known to the police. Further incidents of going missing have also involved children from the neighbouring home colluding openly to leave the home to steal alcohol. Children have been able to leave the home together despite opportunities to prevent them doing so. As a result, children were later found in the local area intoxicated and vulnerable.

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

Staff always follow children when they leave home, however, there is a clear pattern that once children walk towards certain areas in the community staff will not be able to locate them. This has become a regular pattern and a way in which children lose staff. Additionally, there was one occasion when the required staffing ratio was not adhered to during an incident when the child was trying to go missing, and other incidents when staff did not follow the child on to a train.

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

Incidents of self-harm are sensitively managed by the staff team, but room searches are not always routinely completed. There have been occasions when searches were not done in a timely manner, at the request of the child.

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

There are significant concerns around the risk of self-harm for the child in the home. A lack of professional curiosity in considering room searches after the child returned home from being missing also failed to consider the possibility of the child concealing items.

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

While there have been concerns around the child going missing and self-harm, weekly safety meetings are held, attended by a multidisciplinary team. These are protective factors in the child’s wellbeing and have recently been increased in frequency to acknowledge the current safeguarding risks. Missing-from-home incidents had reduced in the month before the inspection.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Since the last inspection, the home has experienced periods of instability in the leadership team. The registered manager and responsible individual have not been consistently available to the staff team. Senior leaders have visited the home each week and staff report feeling supported, however, day-to-day tasks and managerial oversight have been impacted by the absence of the manager and responsible individual. Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 5 As a result, shortfalls in practice have resulted in children not being kept safe. There is a lack of critical reflection, so there has been no development in staff practice, resulting in the child experiencing significant harm while missing from home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The deputy manager was overseeing the home at the time of this inspection and had been doing so intermittently for the past few months. In the week before the inspection, he had been given further responsibilities, taking over the oversight of a second home the manager is registered for, due to the departure of the other deputy. Additionally, staff shortfalls across the 2 homes have also meant there have been times when the interim manager has also had to work on shift while supporting the team, limiting the capacity of the deputy to manage the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The frequency of staff supervision has improved since the last inspection, carried out by the deputy manager. However, since joining the home in December 2025, the deputy has only had one supervision, in March. At the time of inspection, the session had not yet been recorded and issued to the deputy. There has been a shortfall in support for the deputy manager, with limited opportunities for supervision and no additional oversight of highly significant incidents in the home by senior leaders, to support learning for the deputy and the staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Monitoring systems have not been routinely kept up to date due to the current challenges in the home. A number of documents remain in note form, including supervision documents, team meeting and team around the child minutes. Key information to support staff practice has therefore not been readily available at a time when there has been an increase in incidents and significant safeguarding concerns.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

Notifiable incidents have not been routinely reported in a timely manner, despite the independent visitor recommending it was the manager’s responsibility to notify Ofsted of the initiation of the child protection investigation.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: inadequate

The core staff team remains largely unchanged. Staff enjoy working in the home. They have strong and meaningful relationships with the child and feel supported by the registered manager and the deputy. External professionals provided positive feedback about the progress the child has made since living in the home. Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 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

use monitoring and review systems to make continuous improvements which helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and promotes their welfare.

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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

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. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(f)(h)) 7 June 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

help each child to understand how to keep safe; 7 June 2026 Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 7 have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

manage relationships between children to prevent them from harming each other;

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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; and

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Requirement Due date

are familiar with, and act in accordance with, the home’s child protection policies. (Regulation 12 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(vi)(vii))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

undertake appropriate continuing professional development;

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Requirement Due date

receive practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. (Regulation 33 (4)(b))

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Requirement Due date

This specifically relates to the supervision of the deputy manager. 21 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

a child protection enquiry involving a child —

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Requirement Due date

concludes (in which case, the notification must include the outcome of the child protection enquiry); or

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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)(a)(b)(c)(d)(i)) 1 June 2026

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Requirement Due date

*These requirements are subject to a compliance notice. Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 8

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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: 2690163 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Affinity Children’s Care Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Azzurri House, Walsall Road, Aldridge, Walsall WS9 0RB

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Inspector

Joanne Hawkins, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: 2690163 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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