Oak Tree Meadows

Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 1 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Oak Tree Meadows Registered provider: Oak Tree Meadows Ltd

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Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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provider

This supported accommodation service is operated by a private provider in the East Midlands. The provider can accommodate up to 9 individuals in 2 shared or group living homes that are limited to accommodating looked-after children or care leavers.

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provider

At the time of the inspection, 3 children were accommodated.

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provider

The registered service manager role is vacant. The nominated individual registered at the same time as the organisation in December 2025.

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provider

Inspection dates: The inspection was announced on 20 July 2026 and started that day. The inspector was on site from 22 July 2026 to 24 July 2026.

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Outcome

Serious or widespread weaknesses lead to significant concerns about the experiences and progress of children. Leaders and managers must take urgent action to address failings. The next inspection will be within approximately 6 months.

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Summary of findings

The provider’s admissions process does not enable managers to understand children’s risks or needs. As a result, children whose needs exceed supported accommodation are accepted into the service. Children also experience unplanned endings because of poor admission processes.

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Summary of findings

Staff do not receive the necessary training or supervision to support them in their role. Staff lack the skills and knowledge to respond to some children’s needs and risks. Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 2 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Summary of findings

Children’s plans and records are not of good quality. Children do not have their plans updated by staff.

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Summary of findings

Incidents are not being recorded and there is a lack of management oversight, which limits leaders’ ability to understand and respond to the needs of children effectively.

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Summary of findings

Several significant incidents have not been notified to Ofsted.

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Summary of findings

Children’s homes are in good condition and appear homely. Some children enjoy positive relationships with staff.

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Overall experiences and progress of children

Children’s needs and vulnerabilities are not sufficiently understood or considered at the point of referral. This results in children moving to the service who are not ready for supported accommodation. Managers do not have good oversight of referral information about children and do not consider whether the service is able to meet children’s needs effectively. Children’s compatibility to live alongside each other is also not assessed effectively. As a result, children experience instability, including unplanned endings.

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Overall experiences and progress of children

Children have positive and trusting relationships with staff, who are keen to support children in progressing with their independent skills. However, children’s progress towards independence is not consistently reviewed or recorded. This means managers, staff and external professionals do not have a good understanding of children’s progress within the service.

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Overall experiences and progress of children

Children’s plans do not accurately reflect their current risks and needs. Some plans contain out-of-date information about children. As a result, they do not reliably reflect children’s known needs, risks, or the areas where support is needed. Children’s plans are also not informed effectively by partner agencies. One child has had their medication managed by staff for a prolonged period. There is no support plan or risk assessment to help the child develop autonomy in managing their medication or to support their progression towards independence.

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Overall experiences and progress of children

Children’s views are not consistently captured or reflected in recordings or work undertaken. In some children’s records their views were not recorded and in others staff recorded a summary of conversations rather than the child’s direct voice. Children do not have the opportunity to participate in house meetings, which are attended by staff. This limits children’s involvement in the service and limits children’s opportunities to express themselves or raise issues with the service.

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Overall experiences and progress of children

Children’s accommodation is in good condition, homely and bedrooms personalised for children. However, children do not have access to the home as they are not given a key. This does not promote their safety or encourage independence. A child was unable to access their home after returning early in the morning as staff were asleep. Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 3 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff’s recognition of and response to children’s risks are not consistent. Despite ongoing concerns that a child who is banned from the accommodation was hiding in another child’s room, staff did not undertake welfare checks by entering the room over a prolonged period of time. Staff and managers sought assurance from the inspector about how to respond to an incident that was occurring. This does not demonstrate that staff and managers are able to safeguard children on a day-to-day basis effectively.

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff are not knowledgeable about what to do when children go missing from home. A child was not reported as missing to the police in line with safeguarding procedures. Plans for the child stated that the child should be reported missing after 20 minutes due to concerns around exploitation. However, the child was not reported missing to police for 5 hours. This lack of staff responsiveness to children going missing places children at risk of harm.

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff do not routinely complete direct work or targeted sessions with children following serious incidents. This prevents children from receiving the support they need after incidents. Staff are not supporting children to understand how to make safe choices for themselves and keep themselves safe in the community.

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff have not completed necessary training to support them to understand known risks for children. This includes training on self-harm, child sexual or criminal exploitation or drug and alcohol misuse. As such, staff are not supported to develop their skills and manage these risks with children effectively.

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff do not keep accurate records for children. Staff do not record incidents or allegations effectively, and some of these records have been left incomplete. Managers do not have effective oversight of staff recording and are not routinely reviewing incidents involving children. Staff do escalate incidents and events to external agencies working with the child. However, several significant incidents, including when a child alleged they had been raped, have not been reported to Ofsted. Leaders and managers lack knowledge about what is a notifiable incident to Ofsted.

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How well children are helped and protected

Staff and managers do not have effective oversight of children’s risks. Some children do not have risk assessments to support staff to understand how to keep children safe. When staff do complete risk assessments, these are poor quality, do not reflect known or emerging risks and actions for staff to follow are often generic or absent. Staff and managers do not keep these assessments under review, meaning some information is out of date or no longer relevant.

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How well children are helped and protected

Children’s needs and vulnerabilities are not sufficiently understood or considered by the manager before placements are agreed. As a result, children have been admitted to the service whose needs cannot be safely met within supported accommodation. For some children, this has led to placements ending suddenly and Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 4 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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How well children are helped and protected

in an unplanned way. Where a child’s needs are beyond the scope of supported accommodation, leaders and managers do not take timely, formal steps to ensure that the child is moved to somewhere that can meet their needs.

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How well children are helped and protected

Managers do not consider effectively the locality risks for the premises where children live. Assessments completed of two different properties contained identical information. The quality of the report was poor, containing outdated information and was not specific to the area where the homes are located.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Leaders and managers have not ensured that there is sufficient staffing and management oversight within the organisation. Staff who have left the service have expressed feeling dissatisfied with management support. The nominated individual is only available to staff 2 days a week and there is currently no registered manager in the organisation. This impacts on leaders’ ability to have effective oversight and identify and make changes when concerns are raised and, as a result, staff feel unsupported in their role.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

A director for the organisation is responsible for making decisions about admitting children into the service. This is despite them not having day-to-day direct involvement in the running of the organisation. Decisions do not consistently consider whether the service can meet a child’s needs, manage risks sufficiently, or whether they are compatible with children already living in the home.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Leaders and managers do not have sufficient oversight of the service. Monitoring arrangements are not implemented, and quality assurance systems are not effective in identifying or addressing shortfalls promptly within the organisation. As a result, the quality of support children receive is inconsistent, and issues are not routinely picked up early enough to prevent escalation.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Leaders and managers do not implement safer recruitment procedures. For one member of staff who was dismissed from a previous role, managers accepted the staff’s account of this and did not verify the reason for their dismissal. Managers also allowed the member of staff to continue working and no risk assessment was completed. This does not help to ensure that staff are safe to work with children.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Leaders and managers do not have an effective system for recording or managing complaints. When children make a complaint, they are not kept up to date or given an outcome of their complaint. One child made a complaint due to the way the member of staff treated and spoke to them. Following the complaint, the member of staff left the organisation. However, there is no record of how the complaint was handled, and the child was not made aware of the outcome. This lack of accuracy, accountability and transparency limits the effectiveness of children or others raising complaints.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Staff do not receive regular supervision. When supervision occurs, it is not of good quality. Newly appointed staff do not receive the consistent oversight required to Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 5 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

ensure safe and effective practice. Staff receive limited training when they join the role. This limits their ability to understand the role and how to meet the needs of children. The training completed by staff does not align with the workforce development plan and statement of purpose.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers

Managers do not have effective systems for ensuring that there is ongoing monitoring and oversight of the organisation. The workforce plan was created during inspection and did not suitably cover the information needed to ensure effective oversight of the provider’s workforce. Managers did not ensure that the organisation’s statement of purpose is accurate and includes all necessary information required under regulations. Managers have also not ensured that the quality of support has been kept under review, and reports submitted do not sufficiently seek the views of others, including children to help inform and develop the service. Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 6 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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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 Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023 and the ‘Guide to the Supported Accommodation Regulations, including 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 supported accommodation undertaking that puts children first and prioritises their wellbeing and development.

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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

lead and manage the supported accommodation undertaking in a way that is consistent with the ethos, and delivers the outcomes, set out in the undertaking’s statement of purpose;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills appropriate for the work that they are to perform;

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Requirement Due date

implement recruitment practices that ensure staff are suitable to work with children and to keep them safe from harm(1);

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Requirement Due date

ensure that arrangements are in place to manage referrals of children to the supported accommodation undertaking and admissions of children to premises used as supported accommodation, including, where relevant, emergency referrals and admissions.

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Requirement Due date

ensure that arrangements are in place for the supervision, training and development of staff;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that a workforce plan (see regulation 10) for the supported accommodation undertaking is in place. (Regulation 4 (1) (2)(a)(c)(e)(f)(g)(j)) 30 August 2026

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Requirement Due date

* The protection standard is that children are enabled to feel safe and that their needs are met. 30 August 2026 Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 7 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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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

have the skills to identify and act upon signs that a child is at risk of abuse, neglect, exploitation or any other harm, and act to reduce such risk;

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Requirement Due date

work collaboratively with children to help them understand how to keep safe, by offering guidance and support on how to minimise any potential risk of harm;

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Requirement Due date

work collaboratively with other professionals and agencies, and share information where relevant to keep children safe. (Regulation 5 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(f)(ii)(iii)(iv))

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Requirement Due date

* The support standard is that children receive individual and tailored support that meets their needs.

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Requirement Due date

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

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ensure that children are encouraged and enabled to take a lead role in determining the support they receive and to participate in and influence how the supported accommodation operates;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that plans for support are based on initial referral information, are meaningful and are created in full consultation with the child, taking account of relevant plans for the child;

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Requirement Due date

keep the child’s support under review, taking into consideration the plans for support, and relevant plans, to ensure that the child’s needs continue to be met and that the child is kept safe;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that children are supported to understand and manage the impact of any experience of abuse or neglect. 30 August 2026 Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 8 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Requirement Due date

The accommodation standard is that children experience a comfortable and secure living environment.

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

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ensure that the location of the premises used as supported accommodation is suitable for the category or categories of supported accommodation provided, by—

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Requirement Due date

reviewing the appropriateness and suitability of the location of each of the premises used as supported accommodation ("a location assessment"), and in doing so, consulting and taking into account the views of each relevant person;

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Requirement Due date

carrying out a location assessment of each of the premises used as supported accommodation at least once in each calendar year. (Regulation 6 (1) (2)(a)(i)(ii)) 30 August 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile a statement ("the statement of purpose") which covers the following matters in respect of the supported accommodation undertaking—

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Requirement Due date

the category or categories of supported accommodation it offers;

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Requirement Due date

the characteristics of the children for whom it is intended the supported accommodation undertaking will provide accommodation and support, including the age range, number and sex of the children;

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Requirement Due date

the organisational structure, including management structure and staffing arrangements;

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anti-discriminatory practices in respect of children and their families;

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details of who to contact if a person has a complaint and how that person can access the complaints procedure (see regulation 31);

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Requirement Due date

details of how a person involved in the support or protection of a child can access the supported accommodation undertaking’s child protection policies. 30 August 2026 Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 9 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must compile, in relation to the supported accommodation undertaking, a plan ("the workforce plan") which covers the following matters in respect of the recruitment and employment of all staff—

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Requirement Due date

the experience and qualifications of managers and other staff, and any further training required for those managers and staff;

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Requirement Due date

the processes and timescales for staff to complete induction, probation and core training, including in safeguarding and health and safety;

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Requirement Due date

the process for managing and addressing poor performance;

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the process and timescales for supervision and monitoring of staff.

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keep the workforce plan under review and, where appropriate, revise it, and

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make a copy of the workforce plan available on request to the CIECSS. (Regulation 10 (1)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e) (2)(a)(b)) 30 August 2026

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The registered person must maintain records ("case records") in relation to each child accommodated by the supported accommodation undertaking which—

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Requirement Due date

are signed and dated by the author of each entry. (Regulation 24 (1)(b)(c)) 30 August 2026

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must notify the CIECSS and any relevant person without delay if— 30 Augus 2026 Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 10 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Requirement Due date

a child is involved in or subject to, or is suspected of being involved in or subject to, sexual exploitation or child criminal exploitation;

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Requirement Due date

an incident requiring police involvement occurs in relation to a child and the registered person considers that incident to be serious;

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there is an allegation of abuse against the supported accommodation undertaking or a person working for it;

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

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there is an incident involving the use of a measure of restraint of a child;

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there is any other incident relating to a child which the registered person considers to be serious.

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The registered person must ensure that a notification made under this regulation—

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any other individuals or organisations who or which have been notified;

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any actions taken by the registered person as a result of the matter;

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is made or confirmed in writing. (Regulation 27 (3)(a)(b)(c)(d)(e)(f) (4)(a)(i)(ii)(iii)(b))

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must maintain a system for monitoring and improving the quality of support provided by the supported accommodation undertaking by completing a review ("a quality of support review") at least once every six months, which must take into account— 31 January 2027 Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 11 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Requirement Due date

the views of children, including any feedback and complaints received;

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Requirement Due date

feedback from individual children on the impact the supported accommodation has had on the child’s life, especially regarding how well prepared the child felt for transition into supported accommodation and how well prepared the child feels for transition out of supported accommodation;

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Requirement Due date

feedback from each child’s accommodating authority, staff and any relevant persons;

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Requirement Due date

any relevant research and developments in relation to the way in which the needs of children are best met.

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Requirement Due date

After completing a quality of support review, the registered person must produce a written report setting out the actions the registered person intends to take as a result of that quality of support review.

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Requirement Due date

The registered person must provide a copy of the review report to the CIECSS within 28 days beginning with the day on which the report is completed, and make a copy of it available on request to each child’s accommodating authority. (Regulation 32 (1)(a)(b)(c)(d) (2) (3))

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Requirement Due date

*These requirements are subject to a compliance notice.

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Recommendation

 The registered person should ensure that staff understand the health and mental health needs of young people and support them to access services and medication where appropriate and/or necessary, such as working with young people to encourage them to attend appointments or supporting young people to put measures in place for them to manage their own medication responsibly. This should align with the service’s Statement of Purpose. (‘Guide to the Supported Accommodation Regulations, including Quality Standards’, page 36)

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Information about this inspection

Inspectors have looked closely at the experiences and progress of children 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 Supported Accommodation (England) Regulations 2023. Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 12 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Supported accommodation provider details

Registered provider: Oak Tree Meadows Ltd

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Supported accommodation provider details

Registered provider address: 263a Nottingham Road, Nottingham NG7 7DA

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Supported accommodation provider details

Email address: care@oaktreemeadows.co.uk

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Inspector

Shelley Chowdhury, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for supported accommodation provider: Oak Tree Meadows 13 SENSITIVE-OFSTED USE ONLY

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Inspector

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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Inspector

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Inspector

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Inspector

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