The Fostering Company

Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 1 The Fostering Company The Fostering Company North East Ltd First Floor, Silverbirch House, Mylord Crescent, Camperdown Industrial Estate, Killingworth NE12 5UJ Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

p.1

Information about this independent fostering agency

This agency has been registered with Ofsted since April 2013.

p.1

Information about this independent fostering agency

The agency offers a range of foster placements, including respite, permanent, long-term, short-term and parent and child arrangements. At the time of this inspection, the agency has 22 fostering households providing care for 20 children and young people.

p.1

Information about this independent fostering agency

The interim service manager is in the process of applying to register with Ofsted.

p.1

Overall experiences and progress of

children and young people, taking into account

p.1

good

How well children and young people are helped and protected good

p.1

good

The effectiveness of leaders and managers requires improvement to be good

p.1

good

The independent fostering agency provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

p.1

good

Date of last inspection: 4 September 2023

p.1

good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

p.1

good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 2

p.1

Summary of findings

Children experience stable homes with experienced foster carers. Although there are some unplanned endings for children, foster carers and agency staff are central to supporting children to move.

p.2

Summary of findings

The agency makes good use of its resources to ensure that foster carers and children receive a good level of support. This includes clinical consultation, children’s participation, support groups for foster carers and family support.

p.2

Summary of findings

The agency has been through a period of change, and this resulted in recruitment to a senior management and service manager role. The service manager is in the process of applying to register with Ofsted. A staff vacancy is being actively recruited to, though the delay is outside of the agency’s control, staff are feeling additional workload pressures.

p.2

Summary of findings

Leaders and managers are aware of the agency’s strengths and areas for development. Despite this, areas for improvement are slow, and although the service manager has a plan for development, this is yet to be embedded into the day-to-day delivery of the service.

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children experience stable and loving homes with foster carers who commit to them. One social worker said, ‘[Name of child] has made phenomenal progress in their health, learning and social needs, since they lived with their foster carers.’ When children move out of their placements, foster carers, and agency staff support children through this process.

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Foster carers are committed to the children they care for. As a result of this, children experience acceptance and make progress in all areas of their lives. Foster carers and agency staff build strong working relationships with a wide network of professionals that support children’s development.

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Foster carers are proactive in ensuring that children’s health and learning needs are met. This includes foster carers taking children to access dentist and health appointments and specialist support services, when needed. Most children are engaged in some form of learning and are encouraged and supported to explore learning and skills training.

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children experience family life and are part of family celebrations and holidays at home and abroad. They are encouraged to explore their own interests such as swimming and guides. This helps children to develop social links and peer relationships. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 3 Most foster carers agree that they are well supported by agency staff. Foster carers said that they enjoy and benefit from the agency being small. One foster carer described the agency as ‘amazing.’ When a foster carer has concerns about the agency practice and responses, managers are aware of this and accept where practice can improve.

p.2

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Foster carers are confident that social workers know them and the children they care for well, this helps them feel confident in the advice and support they receive. Out of office hours the agency staff provides support. Foster carers are concerned about change and there being a social work vacancy. Although no impact has been seen in the practical support that they receive, there is an impact on the completion and quality of children’s and foster carers’ records.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Foster carers ensure that children stay in touch with people who are important to them. This includes helping children stay in touch with their siblings when they live apart from each other. Foster carers also maintain connections with children who move out of their care. This committed practice ensures that children retain a sense of history and self.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s views are captured for their foster carer reviews. In addition, the family support worker will meet with children to ensure that these views are sought by someone who knows them but is independent from their foster carer.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children’s participation is a strength of this service and the family support worker is central to its success on a local level. Nationally, there are many opportunities for children to be engaged and involved in the service delivery. This ensures that children have a sense of belonging to the service and are invested in making decisions. A family support worker provides valuable support to foster carers and works with children on a one-to-one or group basis. Feedback about the family support worker’s support, indicates this is a valued resource.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

When possible, children receive well-planned introductions to their fostering family. However, when agency staff are considering which carers may best meet a child’s needs, this thought process is not always well evidenced. This is particularly the case for emergency placements. Therefore, there is a lack of rationale for why the agency has considered a fostering family suitable to meet a child’s needs.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

There continue to be delays in ensuring that foster carers have all the necessary information to enable them to provide care in line with children’s needs and care plans. Although a process for escalation of this has been implemented since the last inspection, this is not consistently applied resulting in gaps in records for some foster carers and children.

p.3

Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Recruitment of foster carers to the agency continues to be a challenge. The agency has a marketing scheme in place to ensure that there is a regular programme of advertising to encourage prospective foster carers to come forward. When assessments are completed, these are detailed and provide a clear understanding of the prospective foster carer’s capacity to care for children. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 4 Not all foster carers complete regular records of the child’s day-to-day experiences. The importance of these records has not been a priority for foster carers and the service. This also prevents agency staff from being able to monitor children’s progress within their homes with their foster carers.

p.3

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

Children are helped to feel safe in living with their foster carers and see themselves as part of the family. Foster carers understand the needs of the children and how to keep them safe. They respond as good parents would be expected to.

p.4

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

Foster carers understand trauma-informed practice and parent therapeutically. There is a clinical team available to provide consultation regarding children and their foster family’s current needs. This provides valuable oversight from a therapeutic position, including assessing and providing understanding of children’s needs.

p.4

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

The agency responds to allegations and concerns relating to the care children receive. The agency has had one referral to the Independent Review Mechanism and ensures that the right processes are followed. Standards of care are actioned when there are concerns relating to a foster carer. These do not always take place quickly and there are plans to develop staff awareness when procedures need to commence.

p.4

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

The service manager and agency staff understand safeguarding processes. However, there continues to be shortfalls in the recording of incidents and the sharing of information to enable the service manager to have full understanding of what is happening in children’s lives.

p.4

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

Children and foster carer plans vary in quality. Some children have detailed plans relating to risks, and how their foster carers should respond to help the child. However, not all plans are detailed, or include guidance for foster carers to ensure that they know what steps the agency expects them to take. This is a further example of children’s and foster carer records not being fully completed and updated.

p.4

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

Safer recruitment practices are compliant with regulatory expectations. This includes the arrangements for panel recruitment.

p.4

good

The characteristics of good leadership and management are not in place. The agency has experienced changes in leadership and management and is developing plans in response to areas of weakness identified. A permanent service manager is now in post and has applied to register with Ofsted. Plans to ensure that the manager has the relevant qualification in leadership and management are being developed. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 5 The service manager is committed to developing and strengthening the service, social work practice, and compliance with fostering standards. At the time of this inspection, systems for improvement are still to be embedded. This means that there are elements of inconsistent practice.

p.4

good

Monitoring systems used by managers are not effective. Although there are systems in place to audit foster carers and children’s information, the actions to follow up shortfalls in practice are not always completed without delay. This leads to ongoing missing information from children’s and foster carers’ files.

p.5

good

Foster carers regularly receive a supervisory visit. The records of supervision are poorly maintained and are often uploaded for foster carers to read outside of timescales set by the agency. This means that not all foster carers have access to contemporaneous records, including any actions they need to complete.

p.5

good

The agency has an established panel with an experienced agency decision maker and panel chair. Systems are in place to ensure that panel members receive all information in advance of meetings to consider. Panel minutes are detailed and outline the decision-making process. Panel membership is established but could be enhanced by recruiting panel members with a diverse background. Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 6

p.5

Recommendations

 The registered person should ensure that the manager regularly monitors all records kept by the service to ensure compliance with the service’s policies, to identify any concerns about specific incidents and to identify patterns and trends. Immediate action is taken to address any issues raised by this monitoring. (‘Fostering service: national minimum standards’, 25.2)  The registered person should ensure that the management of the service ensures all staff’s work and all fostering activity is consistent with the 2011 Regulations and NMS and with the service’s policies and procedures. (‘Fostering service: national minimum standards’, 25.3)  The registered person should ensure that the fostering service has and implements a written policy that clarifies the purpose, format and content of information to be kept on the fostering service’s files, on the child’s files and on case files relating to foster carers. (‘Fostering service: national minimum

p.6

Recommendations

standards’, 26.1)  The registered person should ensure that each approved foster carer is supervised by a named, appropriately qualified social worker who has meetings with the foster carer, including at least one unannounced visit a year. Meetings have a clear purpose and provide the opportunity to supervise the foster carer’s work, ensure the foster carer is meeting the child’s needs, taking into account the child’s wishes and feelings, and offer support and a framework to assess the carer’s performance and develop their competencies and skills. The frequency of meetings for short break foster carers should be proportionate to the amount of care provided. Foster carers’ files include records of supervisory meetings. (‘Fostering services: national minimum standards’, 21.8)  The registered person should ensure that children are carefully matched to a foster placement. Foster carers have full information about the child (as set out in

p.6

Recommendations

standard 3.9). (‘Fostering services: national minimum standards’, 11.2)

p.6

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: The Fostering Company 7

p.6

Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider: The Fostering Company North East Ltd

p.7

Independent fostering agency details

Registered provider address: 47 Bedwin Street, Salisbury SP1 3UT

p.7

Responsible individual:

Email address: info@thefosteringcompanyneltd.co.uk

p.7

Inspector

Joanne Wallis, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for independent fostering agency: The Fostering Company 8 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.

p.7

Inspector

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk . You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.8

Inspector

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.8

Inspector

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.8