Children's Home run by Gateshead Council in Gateshead

Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 1 Registered provider: Gateshead Council

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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 local authority. It provides care for up to 6 children who may experience social and emotional difficulties.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, 4 children were living in the home. The inspector spoke with one of the children.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager registered with Ofsted in November 2024.

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Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

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outstanding

How well children and young people are helped and protected outstanding

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outstanding

The effectiveness of leaders and managers outstanding

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outstanding

The children’s home provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the children’s home contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people who need help, protection and care.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: outstanding

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outstanding

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

15/06/2026 Full Outstanding 21/05/2025 Full Good 30/07/2024 Full Good 13/06/2023 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 3

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Summary of findings

Children receive highly nurturing care, based on loving and trusting relationships that staff build with them. Staff have an in-depth understanding of children’s needs. This allows staff to provide care that helps children to make significant progress in different areas of their lives.

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Summary of findings

Staff are managing complex and high levels of risk for children. Managers are highly creative and diligent in supporting staff to manage these risks. Managers and staff work extremely closely with multi-agency partners to share information and ensure that the care provided to children can keep them safe.

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Summary of findings

The manager provides exceptional leadership to the staff team. High levels of support equip staff to deliver outstanding levels of care to children. Furthermore, the manager provides leadership and support in the wider sector. Her work supports not only the children in this home to receive better care but also those living elsewhere.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s moves to and from the home are exceptionally well planned. Children visit the home before they move in and managers seek their views and act on them. This shows children from the very beginning of their time in the home that their views are valued and respected. When children move on, staff continue to provide a high level of support after their moves. This means that the trusting relationships staff have with children are used to help them settle into their new homes.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children’s confidence, independence and self-esteem flourish as a result of the care provided. The home has a semi-independence flat that is used to help teach children the life skills that they need. One young person who has moved on from the home has been successful in becoming a ‘Young Ambassador’ and is now supporting children in care in the local area. The guidance the young person now provides to children, both in and outside of the home, is testament to the support that they received, and how this helped them grow in confidence, in the time they lived in the home.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff are highly resilient, stick with children and show them that they won’t give up on them. This includes through sometimes highly challenging situations and shows children that they are valued and cared for. One child, who struggled when initially moving to the home, has benefited from staff giving them clear, consistent and caring responses, and is now beginning to trust in staff. The support from staff helps children to understand that staff are there to help and support them.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children make significant progress in their education. All children access education provisions suitable for their individual needs and have high levels of attendance. Staff Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 4 work closely with education professionals to identify and overcome any barriers to children’s education. Children have been able to reengage in and increase the time they spend in education, and this is helping them to achieve more and be better prepared for their futures.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff are highly dedicated to helping children to build and maintain family relationships. They understand the importance of these relationships for children. Staff have worked alongside one child and their parent to help them both become more confident in areas such as cooking and budgeting. Staff also took the child and 2 of their family members on a holiday. The parent said that the support provided is ‘helping us build memories together which we couldn’t previously do’.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Staff support children to be healthy. Managers have been clear in escalating concerns in relation to a potential health issue for one child. They have advocated on behalf of the child to ensure that their health challenges are fully understood and met, resulting in the child now receiving the support that they need.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children and staff benefit from a high level of therapeutic support. The organisation’s therapeutic team works extremely closely with staff to help develop their understanding of children’s lived experiences and how these impact on them. The therapeutic team provides guidance and support at all stages of children’s journeys. This includes helping staff to initially think about children’s needs when they move to the home and providing input into plans to support children’s moves to more independent living. This contributes to children receiving highly individualised care and making significant progress in different areas of their lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: outstanding

Children live in a welcoming and homely environment. Children are helped to personalise their own room and communal spaces. Staff also work with the therapeutic team to understand how the environment may be impacting on children’s sensory needs. As a result, changes have been made to the environment, to make it more suitable for individual children.

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

Staff have an in-depth understanding of risks that children face. They work closely with external safeguarding professionals to respond dynamically to risks and safeguard children. Children are at the heart of and included in safety planning. Staff show them compassion and empathy and give them time to share how they are feeling. This helps children to feel included and valued, and more likely to engage in plans designed to keep them safe.

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

Staff and managers work tirelessly to address significant community-based risks for children. They work hand-in-hand with external professionals to share information and develop strategies to keep children safe. Staff are highly curious about risks for children, and the strong relationships that they build with them mean that children regularly share information about risks that they face. Managers are not risk averse in their support for Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 5 children and give full consideration as to how strategies to protect them also affect their day-to-day lives. Strategies to support children have resulted in community-based risks for children decreasing over time.

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

Staff are highly proactive in their responses to concerns relating to substance misuse for children. Staff undertake regular direct work with children to help them understand the risks associated with drug misuse. When new risks began emerging in this area, the manager worked closely with a substance misuse team and police to gain a greater understanding of these risks. This has included setting up a steering group with other homes and external professionals. This provides a forum to share local knowledge and information, helping to keep children in the home and elsewhere safe. A substance misuse worker also undertakes regular drop-ins to the home, providing children with the opportunity to build a relationship and engage with them on an informal level.

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

There is highly effective, research-informed practice that helps children to develop emotional resilience and manage challenging situations. Staff are positive in their approach to behaviour management using praise and positive rewards for children. They work hard to provide consistent and appropriate boundaries. The highly trusting relationships that staff have with children help them to support children to reflect on their own behaviours. For some children who have not previously had consistent boundaries, staff help them understand why they respond to other children as they do. This helps children increase their ability to manage their emotions.

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

Staff are proactive in their responses to children being missing from home. They search for children and ensure that information is shared with safeguarding partners. When children return, staff welcome them home and talk to them about where they have been, showing curiosity about their welfare. Information gained is shared with relevant agencies including police. The manager has built an excellent relationship with police, and this close working relationship has led to a better understanding of risks to children and more effective strategies to manage these. As a result, children have become increasingly safe over time.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The registered manager is highly effective in her role and provides inspirational leadership for the staff team. She has created an environment where staff receive exceptional levels of support, which equips them to provide children with outstanding care. Staff are extremely positive about the support they receive from managers. They value the direct support they receive through supervision sessions and time spent in team meetings discussing children’s needs and reflecting on practice. Staff also benefit from the in-depth support that they receive from the therapeutic team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers work to ensure that children receive all the services that they need to flourish. They are tenacious in their advocacy for children and highly child focused. Children’s needs and voices are at the centre of the manager’s practice, and their views are central Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 6 to their care planning. Staff say this leads to a culture where they are also more focused on the children as individuals and how best to meet their needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff receive the help they need to gain all the knowledge and skills that they need for their role. Managers ensure that there is a culture of continuous learning and professional development and incorporate relevant research into children’s care. When children’s needs change, managers are quick to put additional staff training in place and have used their close links with external professionals to ensure that this is of a high quality. This has helped staff in gaining knowledge about new risks relating to substance misuse and how to support children who have experienced grief and loss. As a result, staff provide exceptionally high levels of support to children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager’s knowledge and expertise are recognised in the wider sector. She has delivered training to social workers in relation to children’s transitions into and on from the home. This included examples of positive moves for children in this home and incorporated children’s views in this area. The manager also runs a professional development group for registered managers in both this organisation and others. This work contributes to practice improvement in a wider area than just this home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Managers have excellent relationships with external professionals. A wide variety of professionals are unanimously positive about how staff and managers work with them and how children are supported. Communication is highly consistent and leads to a culture where everyone involved in children’s care is working together effectively. When needed, the manager takes action to hold other professionals to account and ensure that children receive the services they need. This leads to improved outcomes for children, with professionals saying that the care provided to children has led to significant progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager ensures that staff are highly ambitious for what children can achieve. The support provided to staff helps them be highly resilient. This means that children receive consistent care, no matter what challenges arise, from staff who care deeply about them. Managers and staff are highly reflective, and this contributes to a culture of continuous improvement, leading to sustained progress for children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The manager completes 6-monthly reviews of the quality of care provided to children. However, how children’s views are considered as part of this review is not clear. Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 7

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Recommendation

 The registered person should undertake a review of the quality of the care provided by the home in line with Regulation 45. In particular, this review should consider the feedback and opinions of children about the care they receive. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 64, paragraph 15.2)

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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: 2570947 8

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Gateshead Metropolitan Borough Council, Civic Centre, Regent Street, Gateshead NE8 1HH

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Inspector

Joe Matkar-Cox, Regulatory Inspection Manager Inspection report for children’s home: 2570947 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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