Children's Home run by Enhanceable in SurreyOfsted inspection, 17 Sept 2026

Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 1 Registered provider: Enhanceable

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Inspected under the social care common inspection framework

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Information about this children’s home

This is a privately owned children’s home that is registered to care for up to 4 children who have learning disabilities. There were 4 children living in the home at the time of the inspection.

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Information about this children’s home

The manager has been registered with Ofsted since September 2024.

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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 requires improvement to be good

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good

The children’s home provides effective services that meet the requirements for good.

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good

Overall judgement at last inspection: good

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good

Enforcement action since last inspection: none Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 2

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Inspection date Inspection type Inspection judgement

02/07/2025 Full Good Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 3

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Summary of findings

Managers and staff are committed to providing stability and building trusted, secure relationships with children through a nurturing, child-centred approach. Staff understand children’s individual risks and take appropriate action to promote their wellbeing, including access to community activities. Staff understand and respond effectively to children’s individual health needs and disabilities, and they support children to manage their behaviours and emotions safely. Families and external agencies are positive about the support provided. However, some staff are not fully familiar with children’s education plans and targets. Also, some staff are unclear about escalation processes when managing behaviours. There are shortfalls in staffing levels, and these have impacted on the professional development of senior support workers acting as deputies. The registered manager has rightly prioritised children’s needs, but this has reduced her

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Summary of findings

capacity to fulfil all her wider managerial responsibilities.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff are committed to providing stability for the children living at the home. Children develop trusted and secure relationships with staff. Staff have a nurturing and child- focused approach. They treat children with dignity and respect and promote their individuality, rights and wellbeing through compassionate care that is sensitive to each child’s age and stage of development, disability, identified routines and family history.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff understand and respond effectively to children’s individual health needs and disabilities. They support children to develop healthy lifestyles, including promoting nutritious meals and good dental and personal hygiene. Staff support children to safely manage their needs and emotions associated with their stage of development. Children have access to a range of health services, including local primary healthcare, and specialist services when required. The registered manager develops effective relationships with health professionals to ensure that children’s health needs are well understood and consistently met. For example, staff receive specialist training and advice from relevant professionals to support children with complex health needs, including on their dietary requirements, feeding needs and identified health targets. Parents are kept informed of children’s health needs, progress and appointments. As a result, children

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

receive coordinated and responsive healthcare that promotes their overall wellbeing.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Irrespective of any disability they may have, children benefit from a range of positive experiences, recreational opportunities and activities in the community, which otherwise would be difficult to access. Staff balance children’s preferred activities with opportunities to introduce new experiences and develop independence skills. Staff regularly praise and encourage the children, recognising their achievements and progress. All children have made progress in developing their independence skills since moving to the home. Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 4 Staff have a good understanding of children’s individual communication needs, and they adapt their approach accordingly. Staff know the children well and recognise both verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. This enables children, including those with communication difficulties and those who are non-speaking, to participate actively in

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

decisions about their day-to-day lives and express their views, wishes and feelings. For example, staff use a range of individualised communication methods, including visual aids, objects of reference, gestures, signing and assistive communication tools, to promote meaningful participation. As a result, children feel listened to and are able to influence decisions that affect their lives in meaningful ways, such as choosing their favourite foods and preferred activities. When it is not possible to act on children’s wishes, staff provide sensitive explanations that are tailored to children’s level of understanding and communication needs.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Staff promote children’s identity needs and help them to maintain meaningful relationships with people who are important to them. The registered manager works proactively with parents to support safe and meaningful family time arrangements. When appropriate, parents and extended family members are welcomed into the home to visit the children. Staff also provide practical support to enable children to spend time with their families at their home or in the community. The registered manager promotes continuity of care by working closely with parents and sharing information about children’s routines, boundaries and care needs. This helps children to experience consistent care and supports the development of positive family relationships.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

Children attend school and make good progress from their individual starting points. Staff support children to attend school. When children attend on a part-time basis, the registered manager advocates effectively for an increase in their timetables at the earliest opportunity. Communication between the home and schools is effective. Daily information-sharing enables staff in both settings to provide children with consistent emotional and practical support. This is particularly beneficial for non-verbal children and children with complex emotional needs. For one child, this approach has helped to encourage attendance at health appointments. Schools and social workers speak positively about the manager’s effective multi-agency working and their ability to promote children’s educational progress and consistent care.

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Overall experiences and progress of children and young people: good

However, not all staff, including some senior staff members, are familiar with children’s education plans and targets. As a result, support for children is not always delivered consistently and opportunities to help children achieve their educational objectives may be missed. For children who attend school on a part-time basis, it is not evident that activities provided by staff complement and build on learning undertaken at school. This limits the manager’s ability to demonstrate that children are receiving the support they need to achieve their full educational potential.

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

Staff are able to keep children safe, and children indicate that they feel safe at the home. Staff understand the individual risks and vulnerabilities for children and take appropriate action to promote their safety and wellbeing. Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 5 Staff have a good understanding of the reasons for children’s behaviours and are generally able to manage complex behaviours effectively. Staff are familiar with the home’s de-escalation strategies and use these consistently to reduce incidents. Physical intervention is used proportionately and appropriately, and only as a last resort when necessary to safeguard children and others from harm.

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

Risk assessments and support plans contain clear and detailed guidance for staff. These documents include information about how children communicate, examples of communication in different situations, behavioural indicators, known triggers and signs that may precede incidents. They also provide practical guidance on how staff should respond to behaviours, reduce risks during and following incidents, and when concerns should be escalated to the registered manager or emergency services. Plans are child focused and include simple visual aids to help children understand how staff will support them. However, some staff remain unclear about specific escalation processes when managing behaviours, particularly when police involvement may be required.

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

The registered manager maintains a clear overview of patterns and trends in children’s behaviours. There is effective multi-agency collaboration and the identification of immediate and medium-term strategies to help sustain placements if necessary. However, for one child, the longer-term plan remains unclear. For another child, although the need for alternative de-escalation strategies was identified in the summer, these have not yet been developed.

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

Records and supporting tools are child friendly and tailored to individual needs, such as simple visual aids to help the child understand staff support strategies. Feelings scales provide guidance for staff regarding language to use when helping children explore and discuss their feelings. This is reflected in the direct work with children.

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

The have been a high number of consequences used since the last inspection to help children reflect on their behaviour. There is clear guidance for staff to consider how to apply consequences. Explanations by staff and child-friendly visual resources support children’s understanding of this approach.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The home is run by an experienced and suitably qualified registered manager, who has a positive relationship with the children, knows their needs and risks well and is a strong advocate for children. She is supported by 2 senior support workers who have additional supervisory and deputy responsibilities.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Two children have moved into the home since the last inspection. They were welcomed sensitively and their moves were planned effectively. However, the manger’s decision to move new children into the home was not proportionate to the staffing resources available. The provider relied heavily on staff members’ experience and resilience to support all 4 children. This resulted in staff working long hours and being placed under increased pressure, particularly during the summer holidays. Consequently, staff were Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 6 primarily focused on meeting children’s day-to-day needs, which limited the time available to fully familiarise themselves with children’s updated plans. This did not affect the ability of staff to safeguard the children, but it did lead to an over-reliance on the registered manager for guidance.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

New staff were recruited to cover the needs of all 4 children living at the home, but there were still 4 staff vacancies at the time of the inspection. This is significant, given the children’s complex needs and the level of one-to-one support required. Staff cover is provided from other homes in the organisation and the senior support workers continue to undertake a substantial amount of direct care and operational tasks.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The senior support workers demonstrate a good understanding of the children’s day-to- day care needs, and they have developed positive relationships with the children. They are able to provide advice and guidance to staff in this respect. However, the professional development of the senior support workers is at an early stage, and they are not currently equipped to oversee the service in the registered manager’s absence. Consequently, the registered manager is unable to delegate key managerial responsibilities to senior support workers in line with their intended roles.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The registered manager continues to provide extensive direct support to children, including attending appointments and delivering intensive one-to-one support. The combination of staff vacancies and limited management capacity in the senior team places additional pressure on the registered manager. Although the registered manager takes on additional responsibilities to ensure children’s needs are met, competing demands affect her ability to consistently maintain timely and effective management oversight of the service, such as staff appraisals. These competing priorities also contributed to delays in completing some tasks for children, including obtaining parental consent for summer activities and reviewing one child’s behaviour support plan in line with their identified changing needs.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

The registered manager is aware of the strengths and weaknesses of the home. A plan has been implemented for the responsible individual and the management team to meet monthly to address the shortfalls and challenges in the home. However, the impact of this work is not yet evident.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

Staff training and supervision are up to date. Staff speak fondly of the children and describe the registered manager as an inspirational leader. Staff provided positive feedback about the level of support they receive from the registered manager and the promotion of reflective practice in the home through individual supervision and team meetings.

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The effectiveness of leaders and managers: requires improvement to be good

There is effective multi-agency working, and schools, social workers and children’s families provided positive feedback about the provider’s overall ability to meet the children’s needs and manage their behaviours. The provider demonstrates learning from complaints made by children and parents, as well as feedback from external agencies. This supports improvements in staff practice and enhances children’s overall experience of living at the home. Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 7

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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 Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and the ‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’. The registered person(s) must comply within the given timescales.

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Requirement Due date

The education standard is that children make measurable progress towards achieving their educational potential and are helped to do so.

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Requirement Due date

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

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Requirement Due date

help each child to achieve the child’s education and training targets, as recorded in the child’s relevant plans. (Regulation 8 (1) (2)(a)(i)) 1 April 2027

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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 children’s home that—

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Requirement Due date

helps children aspire to fulfil their potential; and

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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

ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child;

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Requirement Due date

ensure that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child. (Regulation 13 (1)(a)(b) (2)(c)(d))

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Requirement Due date

This includes staff members who hold deputy and supervisory roles. 1 April 2027 Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 8

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Recommendations

 Those with a leadership and management role, including staff members in a deputy or supervisory role, should be accessible to staff and able to fulfil their leadership and management responsibilities. The registered manager should have sufficient capacity to ensure that the quality standards are met for each child in the home. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 52, paragraph 10.7)  The registered person should plan staffing levels to ensure that they meet the needs of children and can respond flexibly to unexpected events or opportunities. Staffing structures should promote continuity of care from the child’s perspective. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.15)  The registered person should ensure that everyone working at the home understands their roles and responsibilities, including consistently implementing children’s plans

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Recommendations

related to their behaviour management strategies and education targets. There should be clear lines of accountability and clear arrangements in place to maintain effective leadership when the registered manager is absent, off duty or on leave. (‘Guide to the Children’s Homes Regulations, including the quality standards’, page 54, paragraph 10.20)

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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: 2811437 9

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Children’s home details

Registered provider address: Enhanceable, 13 Geneva Road, Kingston upon Thames, Surrey KT1 2TW

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Children’s home details

Registered manager: Krystina Holland-Merton

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Inspector

Claudia Poienar, Social Care Inspector Inspection report for children's home: 2811437 10 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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