The Adolescent And Children's Trust. Fostering Service. Care service number: CS Slateford House Lanark Road Edinburgh EH14 1TL

Transcription

1 The Adolescent & Children's Trust Fostering Service Slateford House Lanark Road Edinburgh EH14 1TL Telephone: Type of inspection: Announced (short notice) Inspection completed on: 6 October 2017 Service provided by: The Adolescent And Children's Trust Service provider number: SP Care service number: CS

2 About the service This service has been registered since The Adolescent & Children's Trust (TACT) is registered to provide a fostering and family placement service. TACT is a not-for-profit fostering agency providing a service for children and young people aged from 0-18 years and their families. The agency recruits and supports carer families to provide a fostering service to a range of children throughout Scotland. The service is based in Edinburgh and places a great emphasis on its close working with placing Local Authorities. The service is managed by an area manager, supported by two deputy area managers under whom are senior supervising social workers (SSSW), a duty worker and backed by administrative staff. The service is also supported by departments within the national organisation based in England. The stated vision and values of the service are: Our vision - Better lives for our children and young people. Our Values: Aspirational - by helping others to grow, we grow ourselves; Passionate - We are determined to keep improving what we do. We will ambitiously pursue the best outcomes for everyone we work with and strive for excellence in all we do; Customer Focused - we shall listen and respond to the people we work with, children and young people, their birth families, carers, our staff, our supporters and Local Authorities; Fair and Equitable - we will be open and transparent, communicating what we do and why we do it, based on equality and respect for all; Beyond Profit - reinvesting our resources into services for our carers and improving outcomes for chiildren and young people. What people told us We met four young people during the inspection and spoke with seven foster carers. The feedback we received was largely positive. Although we heard about an unsatisfactory experience of an ending for one young person the overwhelming evidence was that children and young people were receiving a high quality of care. Self assessment No self assessment was required from the service this year. From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support Quality of staffing Quality of management and leadership 5 - Very Good 4 - Good not assessed for The Adolescent & Children's Trust page 2 of 6

3 What the service does well We found good evidence that outcomes for children and young people continue to be good. We heard of this service providing a majority of long term stable placements, with a large majority of these being secured through permanence plans. When we looked at specific children and young people we found good details of improved outcomes in a number of areas: engagement and attainment at school, becoming more active, improved relationships with peers at school and in the local community, a sense of belonging. We also found consistent evidence of children and young people living in homes where they feel safe and nurtured. We found that the following strengths were important for the service to achieve these outcomes. Quality of carers - all of the staff we spoke with were effusive in their praise of the carers they support and this was also reflected in feedback provided by social workers. In addition to this we were impressed and at times inspired by the discussion we had with some carers and in particular their commitment to the children living with them or those who had subsequently moved on. The knowledge carers had of the young people and their drive to ensure that plans for meeting their needs were effectively implemented were evident from the discussions we had and the records we looked at. Support for carers - the overwhelming evidence gave us a picture of good support for carers. We were satisfied that the structures of support we would expect to see were in place. We also found that this extended to specific support to ensure that the majority matching was done in a rigorous way. Feedback from the foster carers we spoke with was overwhelmingly positive and they spoke specifically of the relationships they had with SSWs. We were satisfied that significant changes in the service had not adversely affected the level of support provided to carers. Quality of staff - as well as the level of commitment of the staff to their carers we were also impressed by their knowledge and the efforts they have made to ensure they keep up to date. Staff have a sense that they can be influential within the service and despite the challenges to the team in the last 18 months we found that staff were still taking on leadership roles and this has helped the service to take forward some developments. What the service could do better We did find some evidence of children and young people having increased moves and plans for permanence which were not successful. In a couple of these examples we were concerned about the matching of children with carers, support given to carers during the transition and an element of challenge where this was necessary. Recording around matching has improved somewhat in the last couple of years but in these cases recording could have been better. Responding to concerns raised by carers could also have been better. Finally a formal process of learning from the breakdown was also not in evidence. We identified the following areas for improvement in this inspection Matching - we found some evidence that matching was inconsistent and some examples where the rigour applied to most placements was not evident in the discussions we had with carers or the records we had access to. Equally learning from times where placements have ended in an unplanned way was not consistent. We would ask the provider to consider how it maximises what can be achieved with regards to matching, especially in emergency situations. Equally while we did find some evidence of formal reflection following placement breakdown this was not consistent and the service should review practice in this area. Recommendation 1 for The Adolescent & Children's Trust page 3 of 6

4 Team morale and functioning - Thankfully the impact of service changes has had little impact on carers. However, it has at times had a negative effect on team morale. We accepted that this had improved more recently. We found that since the last inspection formal support processes for staff were not consistently delivered. Only recently has this improved and the quality reflective of what we would describe as good enough. We heard that a recent development day went well and the appointment of the interim manager was also described as having a positive impact by most staff. The permanent appointment of a new manager was viewed positively by the staff we spoke with. There is still some work to do on improving functioning within the team and improving support processes. This should be seen as a priority for those in leadership roles in the team. Recommendation 2 Service development planning - we welcomed the recently developed service development plan and agreed with the areas identified for improvement and further development. We will be keen to look at how the plan has been implemented and will look at this at the next inspection. We would also ask the provider to ensure that staff, carers, young people and others with an interest in the service have an opportunity to be involved in reviewing the plan. Recommendation 3 Requirements Number of requirements: 0 Recommendations Number of recommendations: 3 1. In order that children and young people experience stable and predictable care, the service should ensure that they review practice in relation to learning from unplanned endings. National Care Standards, Management and, Standard 13(7) 2. To ensure that team issues do not begin to have a negative impact on the support carers receive and outcomes for young people the provider must ensure that supervision of staff and monitoring of practice continues to improve. National Care Standards, Management and, Standard 13 (3, 4 and 9) 3. To promote the participation and involvement of those using the service the provider must ensure that children, young people, foster carers and others with an interest in the service are involved in reviewing the service and agreeing plans for improvement. National Care Standards, Management and, Standard 13(7) Complaints There have been no complaints upheld since the last inspection. Details of any older upheld complaints are published at for The Adolescent & Children's Trust page 4 of 6

5 Inspection and grading history Date Type Gradings 9 Oct 2015 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 4 - Good 28 Aug 2014 Unannounced Care and support Management and leadership 4 - Good 29 Nov 2013 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 22 Nov 2012 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 9 Sep 2011 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 15 Oct 2010 Announced Care and support 4 - Good 4 - Good Management and leadership 31 Jul 2009 Announced Care and support 3 - Adequate 4 - Good Management and leadership 3 - Adequate for The Adolescent & Children's Trust page 5 of 6

6 To find out more This inspection report is published by the Care Inspectorate. You can download this report and others from our website. Care services in Scotland cannot operate unless they are registered with the Care Inspectorate. We inspect, award grades and help services to improve. We also investigate complaints about care services and can take action when things aren't good enough. Please get in touch with us if you would like more information or have any concerns about a care service. You can also read more about our work online at Contact us Care Inspectorate Compass House 11 Riverside Drive Dundee DD1 4NY enquiries@careinspectorate.com Find us on Facebook Other languages and formats This report is available in other languages and formats on request. Tha am foillseachadh seo ri fhaighinn ann an cruthannan is cànain eile ma nithear iarrtas. for The Adolescent & Children's Trust page 6 of 6