Children's Home run by Isle of Wight Council in Isle of Wight

Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 1 SC395944

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Registered provider: Isle of Wight 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 owned and operated by the local authority. It is registered to provide care for up to 10 children with learning disabilities and social and emotional difficulties. It provides both short breaks and long-stay placements.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since September 2023.

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Information about this children’s home

At the time of the inspection, seven children were living in the home and two children were staying for short breaks.

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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

Date of last inspection: 9 December 2025

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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: SC395944 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

09/12/2025 Full Requires improvement to be good 11/11/2024 Full Good 19/03/2024 Full Good 01/03/2023 Full Good Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 3

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Summary of findings

Children receive quality care and achieve positive outcomes. Children benefit from warm, trusting relationships with a skilled and enthusiastic staff team, whose members know them well and support their progress. The home provides a welcoming, child-centred environment, with strong education links helping children make academic progress. Children enjoy a wide range of activities, personalised communication support and targeted help to develop independence and life skills.

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Summary of findings

Safeguarding arrangements are strong, with effective risk management, safe medication practices and proportionate use of restraint. Leadership is highly regarded, staff feel well supported, and feedback from families and professionals is extremely positive.

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Summary of findings

Areas for improvement include ensuring that restrictions are consistently applied and clearly documented and reviewed, providing supervision consistently, and keeping children’s care plans fully up to date.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have trusting and affectionate relationships with staff. Staff know children well and help them to make progress in many areas of their lives. Children enjoy spending time with an enthusiastic staff team, whose members are passionate about the care they provide and the impact that they have on children’s lives.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children live in a bright and welcoming home. Children’s bedrooms are colourful, personalised and reflect their identities and interests, while the bedrooms in the short breaks home are highly adaptable so that the needs of a wide range of children can be accommodated.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Education is an important part of children’s lives. All children attend the same local school, and staff have built strong links with teaching staff. They share updates about children’s experiences at home and work closely together to provide a consistent approach and work on shared goals across the home and school. As a result, all children are making progress academically.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children have access to a range of enriching and fun experiences. There are many opportunities to play, with soft play areas, new interactive sensory rooms, arts and crafts areas and accessible outdoor play equipment. Children use local community centres for swimming and visit playparks, animal parks, local music festivals and theme parks.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children are helped to develop useful life skills. Staff speak with families and other professionals to identify meaningful goals, and managers track children’s progress. This means that additional help can be provided when needed. As a result, one child now requires significantly less support with their personal care, while others need less help at Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 4 mealtimes. Children’s achievements are displayed in the home to recognise and share their success with others.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are skilled at helping children to communicate. Most children are non-speaking and have a range of individual communication aids. Staff use each child’s preferred method to share news and so that they are more able to share their views and preferences. Consequently, children are heavily involved in making decisions about their lives.

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

Staff understand each child’s vulnerabilities and risks. They work closely with family and other professionals, such as child and adolescent mental health services and nurses, to review children’s support needs regularly, and managers implement a proactive approach to supporting children’s mental wellbeing. For example, one child, who experienced a bereavement, received input from a therapeutic service, while managers created a protocol for staff to follow if they had concerns about the child. As a result, staff are confident in how they should keep children safe, and they are able to respond promptly to changes in children’s behaviour.

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

Physical restraints are used proportionately and only when necessary to keep children and others safe. Managers review incidents to identify opportunities for learning, and they share these with staff to improve practice. For example, managers identified that several incidents related to how close staff were standing to children. In response, managers shared learning with staff, provided additional protective equipment and refreshed training. This has resulted in a recent reduction in the use of physical restraint. Children are offered opportunities to share their views about their experiences of restraint in ways which are accessible to them.

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

Children do not go missing. One child was identified as being at risk of going missing prior to moving in. Managers implemented a clear support plan for staff to follow, which was understood before they arrived. When the child did leave the home without permission, staff followed the plan closely and they were able to return the child to the home quickly. This approach helps keep children safe.

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

There are strong systems in place for ensuring that medication is managed safely. Staff complete regular training and their competency in administering medication is assessed by managers. This minimises the risk of mistakes, which could impact on children’s health.

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

Managers collaborate with placing authorities and other professionals to agree the measures required to keep children and others safe. For one child, this includes the use of temporary restrictions to their ability to access certain areas of the home when distressed or for safeguarding reasons. However, guidance for staff about using these restrictions are not clear and the child’s plans do not detail how these measures have been assessed or explain how managers will review the need for the ongoing use of the measures. As a result, restrictions are being imposed inconsistently by staff and not always in line with agreed plans. Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 5

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The registered manager is an excellent role model for staff and has high standards for the quality of care delivered in the home. The manager uses a range of monitoring systems, which give them a good understanding of the progress children are making and the strengths and weaknesses of the home. They have an ambitious vision for the future development of the home and are working with senior leaders and the connected charity to bring this vision to life.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Managers have created an aspirational environment, where staff can deliver high-quality care to children. Staff are complimentary about the support that they receive from managers. Staff say they are confident in their roles and that they have the training and skills they need to support the children they look after.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

At times, when responding to emergency situations, some short breaks for children have been impacted. Managers respond promptly and transparently to complaints from parents. This helps others to understand the circumstances involved. Managers look to organise staffing creatively to offer additional capacity so that they can minimise the impact of missed breaks on children and families.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

The training offer provided to staff has improved. Staff have completed additional training to improve their skills and knowledge so that they can better support all of the children the home is able to accommodate. Managers are now also delivering training that improves how staff use equipment to move children, ensuring greater dignity. A new programme of trauma-informed training for staff has also commenced, though it is not yet fully embedded across the wider staff team.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Feedback from professionals and families is complimentary. One parent described the support their child receives as being ‘life changing’. Other parents say their children enjoy and look forward on going to short breaks. Professionals who work with the home say that managers work with them well and that staff provide ‘a high level of advocacy and support’ for children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Staff receive high-quality formal supervision from leaders, and they benefit from the opportunity to review their performance. However, this is not held consistently in line with organisational expectations, and some staff have gone extended periods without supervision. Staff say that when they need to raise matters, managers are accessible, which minimises the impact of the lack of opportunities for formal discussion.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: good

Children’s care plans are detailed and informative documents that reflect staff's thorough understanding of each child's support needs. However, children’s plans do not always contain up-to-date information, which is important to children’s care. For example, one child’s plan referred to a significant relationship with a person no longer in their life and listed this person as their primary carer. This means that children may not always receive a consistent response from less familiar staff. Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 6

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that in circumstances when a child’s movement around the home is being restricted due to identified risks, any such measure of restriction must be proportionate and in place for no longer than is necessary to manage the immediate risk. There should be clear guidance for staff about how measures are implemented and a clear plan for how the manager plans to review and reduce the use of the measures. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 48, paragraph 9.52)  The registered person should ensure that children’s case records detailed in Regulations 35-39 are kept up to date while they remain in the home. In particular, the manager must ensure that all records, including risk assessments and support plans, are updated with relevant information that is consistent and guides staff to deliver effective and consistent care and support for children. (‘Guide to the

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Recommendation

Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 14.3)  The registered person must have systems in place so that all staff receive regular supervision of their practice in line with organisational expectations from an appropriately qualified and experienced professional, which allows them to reflect on their practice and the needs of the children assigned to their care. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 61, paragraph 13.2)

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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: SC395944 7

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Children’s home details

Registered provider: Isle of Wight Council

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: County Hall, High Street, Newport, Isle of Wight PO30 1UD

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Inspectors

Glen Strowbridge, Social Care Inspector Tracy Beard, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children’s home: SC395944 8 regulates and inspects to 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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