Children's Home run by Bridgeway House Children’s Services Ltd in Sandwell

Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 1 Registered provider: Bridgeway House Children’s Services 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 was registered with Ofsted on 28 May 2025 to provide care for up to 2 children who may experience emotional and social difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager is suitably qualified and has been in post since August 2025.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, one child was living in the home. They spoke with the inspector.

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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: requires improvement to be good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

06/01/2026 Full Requires improvement to be good Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 3

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Summary of findings

Staff know the child well, listen to them and promote their welfare. Staff offer care that is individualised and the child is making sustained and positive progress. Safeguarding arrangements are understood. Improvements to practice recently implemented by managers and leaders are not yet fully embedded.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The home has recently undergone a period of refurbishment and is a warm and welcoming space for children. There is plenty of social space available to children in the large living room and a well-maintained rear garden. The child’s bedroom has been personalised to reflect their tastes and interests and provides them with an individualised space. Staff regularly talk to the child about activities and plans for their free time, ensuring that they feel included in decision-making.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff place great importance on the value of education and have supported the child to return to full-time education after not being in education for a period of over 6 months. Staff ensure that the child is prepared for learning at the start of every school day and support them with extra-curricular learning at home. The child is making considerable progress because of the support that staff ensure is put in place for them. Staff are proud of the child’s achievements and celebrate their successes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff support the child to understand and manage their money in an age-appropriate way. Some of the staff know the child well and are developing positive relationships with them. The child is now more able to talk to staff when they are worried about something and seek out emotional reassurance appropriately. Staff respond in a nurturing and compassionate way. The child states that this is important to them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure children are supported to understand the importance of attending health appointments for their physical and mental wellbeing. The child has access to a bespoke therapeutic service. Staff also receive weekly therapeutic support from an external therapist who provides individualised guidance and advice. This has helped the staff to understand how they need to adapt their approach to caring for the child to ensure the child’s emotional wellbeing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

The child is supported to maintain positive relationships with the people who are important to them. Staff recognise the possible impact that a second child coming to live in the home may have. The child has been offered regular support and the opportunity to talk about how this makes them feel. The child says they feel valued that they have been included in these discussions.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff ensure that plans and risk assessments for the child are in place so that all staff know how to support them. However, these are not always reviewed by all the staff in a Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 4 timely manner, meaning they are not fully aware of the most up-to-date support strategies or risks for the child. This means that staff do not always know how to respond to a child when they become upset. Staff do not always consider how they can support a child to understand and celebrate their ethnic and cultural heritage. This can mean that children do not have their individual needs understood by the staff.

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

The staff team is now stable, enabling the child to begin to build trusting and supportive relationships with the adults who care for them. This means that staff are becoming more confident in supporting the child. Staff know how to talk to the child about any worries or concerns that they may have to help them manage their emotions safely.

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

Since the last inspection, there have been no incidents of the child going missing or of self-harm. When children go missing, staff understand their safeguarding responsibilities and know how to take prompt and effective action to ensure that they safely return to the home. This is not a concern in relation to the child currently living in the home. Staff are trained to manage medication safely.

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

Safer recruitment processes are in place. This supports leaders and managers to determine the suitability of staff to work with children. Staff know how to keep children safe and can recognise risk for children. Managers and staff responded in a timely manner when the child living in the home made an allegation, sharing information appropriately.

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

Managers ensure that restorative practices are used so that staff and children can improve and repair relationships after any incidents. Consequences are proportionate, consistent and individualised, helping the child to learn from these experiences.

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

Staff are trained to safely manage physical restraint when children may put themselves or others at risk of harm. Staff are confident in using this training effectively. Managers have appropriate and prompt oversight of all such incidents. There have been 3 incidents of physical restraint of the child since the last inspection, which is a significant reduction. Staff say that they feel better able to manage conflict through discussion and de-escalation techniques, due to the training and therapeutic support they receive. However, staff do not always speak with the child to help them reflect on the impact of their behaviours on others or to help them develop the skills to resolve conflicts without harm to others.

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

Measures are in place to appropriately monitor children’s access to the internet in the home and staff have appropriate training to help them understand the potential risks of the internet and social media. However, staff do not always talk to the child about these risks, to help them to develop their knowledge of how to keep themselves safe.

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

Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 5 Since the last inspection, there have been multiple changes to the staff team and a recent change in senior manager. This has created some instability for children, with agency staff being used, meaning children have been cared for by staff who do not know them. All the employed staff are in their probation period and recruitment is ongoing. Leaders and managers have made the decision not to admit another child to the home until they are fully staffed. Recently, agency staff have not been used to cover vacancies in the home.

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

Leaders and managers have taken some action to address the shortfalls identified at the last inspection. The changes to the senior management team have brought improvements to the oversight of the care provided to children. Senior managers have recently introduced weekly team meetings to provide a reflective space for staff to consolidate their learning and managers’ expectations of care. Managers are also implementing changes to ensure that staff receive regular, good-quality and reflective supervision. Staff have said that they have benefited from these recent changes. Staff morale is improving since these changes have been put in place. However, these new measures were only recently introduced and are not fully embedded in practice. This means that the impact on the quality of care children receive is not yet fully known.

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

The training and development programme for staff has been recently revised. Specialist therapeutic support has also been implemented to help staff to better understand the impact of trauma on the child living in the home. Professionals acknowledge the positive impact that staff who know the child well are having on them and say staff share information in a timely and appropriate manner.

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

Although senior managers have recently reviewed the systems in place to assure their oversight of the home and the processes in place to monitor the quality of care children receive, these are not yet fully embedded to offer assured and consistent oversight. Regulatory reporting requirements in respect of regulation 45 and the statement of purpose have not been met by senior managers since the home was registered. Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 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 positive relationships standard is that children are helped to develop, and to benefit from, relationships based on—

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Requirement Due date

an understanding about acceptable behaviour; and

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Requirement Due date

positive responses to other children and adults.

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

meet each child’s behavioural and emotional needs, as set out in the child’s relevant plans;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop socially aware behaviour;

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Requirement Due date

encourage each child to take responsibility for the child’s behaviour, in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

help each child to develop and practise skills to resolve conflicts positively and without harm to anyone;

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Requirement Due date

communicate to each child expectations about the child’s behaviour and ensure that the child understands those expectations in accordance with the child’s age and understanding;

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Requirement Due date

understand how children’s previous experiences and present emotions can be communicated through behaviour and have the competence and skills to interpret these and develop positive relationships with children; 1 July 2026 Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 7 de-escalate confrontations with or between children, or potentially violent behaviour by children.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 11(1)(a)(b)(c)(2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(iv)(v)(ix)(xi)) The registered person must compile in relation to the children’s home a statement (“the statement of purpose”) which covers the matters listed in Schedule 1.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must provide a copy of the statement of purpose to HMCI and make a copy of it available upon request to—

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Requirement Due date

a child, or a child for whom accommodation in the home is being considered;

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Requirement Due date

a parent of a child, or a parent of a child for whom accommodation in the home is being considered;

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Requirement Due date

and in the case of a qualifying school, the Secretary of State)

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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.

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Requirement Due date

(Regulation 16 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(3)(a)(b)) 1 July 2026

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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 1 July 2026 Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 8 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. (Regulation 45 (1) (2)(a)(b)(c) (3) (4)(a)(b))

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that children’s reasonable preferences in relation to day-to-day arrangements are met, with consideration given to safeguarding, particularly in relation to the use of technology. Where a child’s preferences are unreasonable or cannot be met for safeguarding reasons, staff should discuss this with the child to help them understand why. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 17, paragraph 3.21)  The registered person should ensure that each child’s day-to-day health and wellbeing needs are met and that staff understand the health and education plans in place for each child living in the home. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 33, paragraph 7.3)  The registered person should ensure that if a child makes a choice that would place them or another person at significant risk of harm, staff should assist them to

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Recommendations

understand the risks and manage their risk-taking behaviour to keep themselves and others safe. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 42, paragraph 9.7)

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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 Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 9 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: 2816515 10

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Bridgeway House Children’s Services Ltd

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: c/o APM Accountants, 283 High Street, Smethwick B66 3NJ

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Inspector

Helen Dickens, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: 2816515 11 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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