National Fostering Agency London South

Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 1 National Fostering Agency London South The National Fostering Agency Ltd Knolly's House, 6th Floor, 17 Addiscombe Road, Croydon, CR0 6SR Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this independent fostering agency

National Fostering Agency London South is an independent fostering agency. The fostering agency registered with Ofsted in August 2022. The current manager registered in September 2026. The manager is suitably skilled and experienced.

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Information about this independent fostering agency

The fostering agency provides a wide range of fostering placements for children from birth to 18 years. This includes emergency, short-term, medium-term and long term placements. It also provides parent and child placements and supports 'staying put' arrangements.

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Information about this independent fostering agency

At the time of the inspection, the fostering agency was providing care to 111 children.

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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 independent fostering agency provides highly effective services that consistently exceed the standards of good. The actions of the independent fostering agency contribute to significantly improved outcomes and positive experiences for children and young people.

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outstanding

Overall judgement at last inspection: good Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 2 Enforcement action since last inspection: none

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Summary of findings

Children make significant progress from their starting points in all aspects of their development. Children experience high levels of stability, warmth and empathy through the excellent care provided by their foster carers.

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Summary of findings

Children feel safe in their foster homes. Foster carers, managers, and staff understand children's vulnerabilities and create safety plans for children that are unique to them and help to reduce the risk of harm.

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Summary of findings

Leaders and managers are visible, accessible and know the fostering service well. Leaders and managers are reflective, seeking to improve practice and the service offered to children and the foster carers who look after them. This creates an environment in which innovative practice can flourish. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 3

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outstanding

Children living in foster homes in this agency experience high levels of stability, empathy, nurturing, and love. Children feel part of the family they live with and are cared for by adults who are committed to ensuring their experiences make a positive difference to children's lives. Leaders, managers and staffs' actions are consistently child focussed, aiming to help children overcome past trauma, develop aspirations and the confidence to achieve their goals. In this environment, children make considerable progress from their starting points based on highly individualised care.

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outstanding

Planning for children coming to live with foster carers was described by one social worker as 'robust.' A commissioner described a similar process where they, 'spent a lot of time exploring the match. Unfortunately, the foster carer didn't want to proceed, but at least I felt confident that we had explored things in detail.' Consequently, children benefit from detailed and careful consideration of their needs and the ability of foster carers to meet them. Children's guides are child friendly documents that explain what children need to know about foster care. These are available in a range of different languages.

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outstanding

Educational support is well organised and highly effective in ensuring children are not overlooked and that they achieve academically. Interventions are proactive rather than reactive, with the service becoming automatically involved, when there may be a negative impact on the child's educational achievements. This level of involvement from the service is significant with measurable outcomes for children.

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outstanding

Children's achievements are recognised and celebrated by foster carers, staff, and managers. Successes and achievements are communicated through the fostering agency newsletter. An annual children's awards event is held to celebrate not only children's achievements, but their resilience, perseverance, and progress. Awards cover educational success, personal development, positive relationships, community involvement, and overcoming adversity.

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outstanding

A strength of the fostering agency is the commitment to ensuring children have opportunities to enjoy social and leisure activities in addition to those they have with their foster carers. Picnics, trips to theme parks, and pantomimes involve foster children, foster carers, and their own family members. Foster carers ensure that children can celebrate and enjoy events linked to their own identity, cultural and religious backgrounds. This is most evident where foster carers do not share the same cultural backgrounds of the children they are caring for but demonstrate a positive curiosity in finding out more, so that children feel comfortable.

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outstanding

Many of the ideas for events and activities are communicated by children through a range of consultation methods, such as online questionnaires, the foster care review process, and a youth forum. Consulting with children to ascertain their wishes, Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 4 feelings, and experiences is an important task for leaders and managers in ensuring that the service is meeting children's needs.

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outstanding

Leaders, managers, staff, and foster carers work hard to ensure that children remain in foster care for as long as they need to. Staying put arrangements are supported by leaders and managers, which provides an opportunity for children to maintain the relationships they have developed, whilst preparing for adulthood. Where fostering arrangements have ended earlier than planned, managers and staff are determined to ensure these are positive endings. Each premature ending is subject to reflective review, enabling learning to be embedded into practice and informing ongoing improvements to matching, support planning and therapeutic intervention.

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outstanding

Children say that they feel safe with their foster carers. One child said they felt, 'safe 100%. When asked what foster carers did to make them feel safe, they responded, Over the five years (I have been with them) I have never not felt unsafe or uncomfortable.' Another child said they felt safe because their foster carer gives them 'hugs and kisses.'

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outstanding

Children have trusting and meaningful relationships with their foster carers whom many have known for years and feel able to share their concerns and worries. Fostering social workers see children separately in their homes to gain their views and feelings. Support workers undertake specific tasks with children, and this provides other opportunities for children to feel that when they have a worry or concern, they will be listened to and action taken.

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outstanding

Children's vulnerabilities are understood by the adults who care for them and those that work with them. Detailed matching records outline these vulnerabilities, and what foster carers and fostering staff can do to reduce the risk of harm to children. This early identification of risk, means that appropriate services are linked to the child and foster carer as part of a package, promoting stability and addressing areas of concern promptly.

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outstanding

Central to the monitoring of concerns regarding children is the weekly risk management meetings held in the agency. Managers discuss cases of concern identified, rate the level of concern and agree next actions, which may involve multi- agency planning. Children remain on the agenda until risk is agreed to be manageable or no longer a concern.

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outstanding

Safer recruitment procedures are followed to ensure all foster carers and staff are safe to work with children. During this inspection, a gap in the recording of verification of original disclosure and barring service checks for staff was identified. This has no direct impact on the safety of children, but this was not fully in line with good employment practice and the fostering agency's own safer recruitment policy. Leaders and managers reviewed their procedures and practice accordingly. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 5 Early recognition and action when concerns are known is a strength of staff, foster carers, and managers. Risk is shared within the management team, and they can obtain specialist advice and consultation when dealing with complex safeguarding cases, such as serious child sexual exploitation. There is strong evidence to support

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outstanding

the assertion that the safeguarding and welfare of children is paramount for staff, foster carers, and managers in this fostering agency

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The leadership and management team are a highly effective group, the focal point being the registered manager. The manager takes pride in knowing all the foster carers and children by name in the agency and is described as going 'above and beyond' in their role. There is strong evidence of the influence of the manager in driving practice, promoting innovation and excellence, and leading by example to improve the care offered to children, and the support to foster carers and staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers have effective processes in place to monitor the activity of the fostering agency and ensure that regulatory, compliance and agency expectations are met. This inspection identified inconsistencies in the quality and content of foster carer logs, which did not meet the expectations of the agency. However, progress in reaching the standard was evident from logs seen which demonstrate that leaders and managers are working to address this.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

A strength of leaders and managers is the emphasis on reflective practice within the agency. Feedback from staff, foster carers, children, and professionals are evaluated to understand what works and what can be done differently. Combined with regular reviews of practice and learning from incidents, leaders and managers create opportunities to improve the service provided to children and foster carers. This has for example, resulted in the development of a unique residential farm programme for children and a foster care support model to offer greater stability for children, particularly those with complex needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Staff say that they receive excellent support from leaders and managers, describing 'a caring and supportive culture.' Supervision of staff is regular and structured with clear decision ‑ making around safeguarding matters and further action planning with measurable timescales. Appraisals are timely and meaningful with clear evidence of upskilling staff to progress their careers within the organisation. Staff training offered is wide ranging. Staff are engaged in regular clinical reflective sessions to enhance their practice. Staff enjoy team building events supported by managers outside of work. A new office space has added to peer support. Leaders and managers care for, nurture and value staff.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Foster carers receive regular and meaningful supervision that enables them to reflect on the impact of fostering on them and how best to meet children's needs. A small group of foster carers represent other carers, raising issues with managers at regular meetings. Training is extensive incorporating a range of online and face to face learning opportunities. However, not all foster carers have completed mandatory Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 6 training in foundations to therapeutic parenting. Foster carers are highly complementary of the level of support they receive. One foster carer wrote, 'Overall, I feel very well supported by the agency. They promote good communication, provide guidance whenever it is needed, and recognise the importance of working together to achieve the best outcomes for the children in our care.'

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

The fostering panel provides an effective quality assurance role in the approval and continued approval of foster carers. Recent changes in the way panel is run, has been viewed by the panel chair and agency decision maker as positive. Both know the agency well. The independent reviewing officer for foster carers speaks highly of the service, staff team, and foster carers, and how they contribute to positive outcomes for children, who are making consistently good progress.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: outstanding

Leaders and managers collaborate with local authority partners and develop relationships with others within the professional network, to ensure that children's plans are achieved. These relationships are both supportive, but also involve appropriate challenge, when leaders and managers feel children's, needs are not being addressed effectively. One commissioner wrote, 'Overall, National Fostering Agency London South (NFA) are one of the agencies that I have faith in. They're not trying to fill vacancies but want to ensure that their carers can meet the needs of the children they are put forward for. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 7

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that information about the child is recorded clearly and in a way which will be helpful to the child when they access their files now or in the future. This relates specifically to foster care logs in respect of children's daily lives. ('Fostering services: national minimum standards', 26.6)

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that where foster carers' personal development plans set out how they will be supported to undertake ongoing training and development that is appropriate to their development needs and experience, this is supported by the agency. This relates specifically to the foundations to therapeutic parenting programme. ('Fostering services: national minimum standards', 20.5)

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Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that the fostering service can demonstrate, including from written records, that it consistently follows good recruitment practice, and all applicable current statutory requirements and guidance, in foster carer selection and staff and panel member recruitment. This relates to recording arrangements for the verification of original DBS certificates and the full outcome of subsequent update service checks, ('Fostering services: national minimum standards', 19.2)

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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 Fostering Services (England) Regulations 2011 and the national minimum standards. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 8

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Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider: The National Fostering Agency Ltd

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Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider address: Atria, Spa Road, Bolton BL1 4AG

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Inspectors

Colin Bent, Social Care Inspector Richard Wyper, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for independent fostering agency: National Fostering Agency London South 9 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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