Children's Home run by Cre8tiveCare Ltd in Brent

Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 1 Registered provider: Cre8tiveCare Ltd

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Full inspection Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This privately run home provides care for up to three children with social or emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

There were two children living at the home at the time of this inspection. One child was spoken to by inspectors.

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Information about this children’s home

The home registered with Ofsted in October 2023.

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Information about this children’s home

The registered manager post has been vacant since January 2026. An interim manager has an application for registration with Ofsted in progress.

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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: 2727492 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

20/05/2025 Full Good 17/04/2024 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 3

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Summary of findings

Children make meaningful and enduring relationships with staff who care for them. Children make good progress from their starting points.

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Summary of findings

Children’s vulnerabilities are understood and safety plans provide useful strategies to reduce the likelihood of harm. Effective multi-agency working ensures that when children go missing, the safeguarding network can keep in touch with children and respond promptly.

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Summary of findings

The lack of a stable and present leadership and management team has impacted on the effectiveness of oversight and governance of the home. This has led to shortfalls in adhering to regulatory requirements and driving improvement to address practice issues.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children develop positive and enduring relationships with staff in this home. A strength of managers and staff is their determination to ‘stick with children’, offering consistency and appropriate guidance. This has helped children to settle and trust the adults who care for them. As a result, children make good progress from their starting points.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s meetings enable children to express their views about living in the home and make suggestions, for instance to obtain new garden furniture or what should be bought for the weekly shop. Staff provide children with choices in relation to the meals that are prepared in the home, and they encourage, whenever possible, children to prepare their own meals. Staff understand children’s cultural and religious needs. Meals are prepared reflecting children’s backgrounds and children are helped to observe their religious practices and traditions. This promotes children’s sense of belonging and identity.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff work hard to engage children in social and leisure activities, whether this is a trip to the cinema, shopping, playing a board game or going to the gym. Staff understand that children’s past experiences will influence their confidence and ability to step outside their comfort zone. Nevertheless, staff are consistent in encouraging children to participate.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support children to attend school or college or re-engage after a long period out of formal education. One child in the home attends school regularly after a period of limited attendance. When asked what had changed, the child said they saw school as ‘an obligation’ and they needed an education ‘for the future’. Another child has expressed an interest in attending college to pursue a qualification in childcare. Staff help children, over time, to understand the importance of education and the potential benefits in achieving their goals. Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 4 Children’s physical and emotional health needs are attended to by staff. Staff talk to children about the importance of attending routine health checks, such as the opticians and dentist, and maintaining good personal hygiene. Personal health plans help staff to understand and respond to children’s individual health needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff help children to keep in touch with those close to them, when this is seen as safe and in the child’s best interests. One relative stated that the child ‘loved living at the home’ and staff always keep them updated about what is going on for the child.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home is maintained to a good standard. However, the environment could be made more homely and the children’s bedrooms lacked personalisation

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

Staff demonstrate a good understanding in respect of children’s vulnerabilities. One child spoken to said they felt safe living in the home. Another of the home’s strengths is safeguarding and staff attend all significant multi-agency meetings in respect of the children.

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

Risk assessments and safety plans are reviewed and updated regularly and provide clear guidance for staff to follow. Staff have meaningful discussions with children to help them feel safe and supported, and they encourage children to contribute to decisions about their lives.

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

When children go missing, staff follow the agreed plan to reduce risk during this time. The home plays a key role in multi-agency work to reduce risks to children when they go missing from the home. For one child, this collaborative working has resulted in a reduction of episodes of them going missing from the home.

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

An independent reviewing officer for one child wrote, ‘In my view, the staff have been effective in keeping [child] safe. They have established firm and clear boundaries for [the child] and demonstrated their ability to reinforce these alongside them, to ensure their safety. Equally, the service appears to have been able to engage in discussions and planning around reviewing these boundaries to ensure that they remain effective for [the child].’

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

The leadership and management team has changed since the last inspection. The registered manager post is currently vacant. Interim arrangements have provided some stability. However, governance and management oversight systems are not fully effective. Recommendations from the last inspection have not been fully addressed.

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

The lack of a consistent and present leadership and management team has impacted leaders and managers ability to identify strengths and weaknesses and take decisive Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 5 action at times. However, this has not impacted on the progress and experiences of children or how they are safeguarded.

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

Some staff do not have the relevant training and qualifications as dictated by the regulations for those working in children’s residential care. Leaders and managers do not have a workforce development plan in place to provide a framework for addressing staff development, training, qualifications and performance.

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

Not all staff receive regular supervision. Supervision is not reflective or focused on children’s experiences, needs, plans and feedback. Supervision records do not show clear, measurable timescales for staff to complete actions and learning, which creates drift. It was identified at this inspection that at least three members of staff had not had an annual appraisal of their performance. Nevertheless, staff spoken to say they feel supported and enjoy their roles.

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

Team meetings take place regularly, but do not include reflective practice discussions or evidence a drive for practice improvement. Actions are not dated, resulting in a lack of follow through. This is a lost opportunity to enhance staff’s ability to respond effectively to children’s changing needs through continuous examination of what went well and what could have been done differently.

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

Leaders and managers have not submitted Regulation 45 reports to Ofsted since the last inspection. The reports presented at this inspection were incomplete in places and did not evaluate effectively the experiences of children living at the home and the impact the care is having on outcomes and improvements for them.

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

The home has identified the need for a revised system for robust safer recruitment procedures to ensure that only safe, competent and suitable people work with children. Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 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,

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Requirement Due date

if the individual satisfies the requirements in paragraph (3).

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Requirement Due date

the individual has the appropriate experience, qualification and skills for the work that the individual is to perform;

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Requirement Due date

For the purposes of paragraph (3)(b), an individual who works in the home in a care role has the appropriate qualification if, by the relevant date, the individual has attained—

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Requirement Due date

the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England) ("the Level 3 Diploma"); or

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Requirement Due date

a qualification which the registered person considers to be equivalent to the Level 3 Diploma.

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Requirement Due date

in the case of an individual who starts working in a care role in a home after 1st April 2014, the date which falls 2 years after the date on which the individual started working in a care role in a home; or 31 August 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 7 in the case of an individual who was working in a care role in a home on 1st April 2014, 1st April 2016. (Regulation 32 (1) (2)(a)(b) (4)(a)(b) (5)(a)(b))

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Requirement Due date

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) 31 August 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must ensure that all employees—

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Requirement Due date

have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year. (Regulation 33 (4)(c)) 31 August 2026 Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 8

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that there is consistency in the way that supervision of staff is undertaken, which provides a space for staff to reflect on their practice in meeting the needs of children, provides appropriate support and challenge and is an accurate and full account of the meeting. In addition, the use of team meetings as another forum to promote reflective practice should be promoted. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.3)  The registered person should ensure that they are satisfied and can evidence that the recruitment and vetting of agency and permanent staff is carried out in line with good employment practice and schedule 2 of The Children’s homes (England) Regulations 2015. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.1)  The registered person should ensure that there is a workforce development plan in

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Recommendations

place which can fulfil the workforce-related requirements of regulation 16, schedule 1 (paragraphs19 and 20). (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 53, paragraph 10.8)  The registered person should ensure that there is an effective monitoring process in place to evidence that safeguarding notifications to Ofsted have been communicated promptly when one of the situations specified in regulation 40(4)(a)-(d) occurs, or if there is an incident relating to the protection, safeguarding or welfare of a child living in the home which the registered person considers to be serious. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 63, paragraph 14.10)  The registered person should ensure that the children’s home is a homely and welcoming environment, with children’s opinions informing how the home looks. In addition, clear plans and timescales should be in place to achieve this task. (‘Guide to

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Recommendations

the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 15, paragraph 3.9)

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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: 2727492 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: 10 Watermark Way, Foxholes Business Park, Hertford, United Kingdom SG13 7TZ

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Inspectors

Colin Bent, Social Care Inspector Tina Woolley, Social Care inspector Inspection report for children’s home: 2727492 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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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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Inspectors

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