Inspection: practice matters

Lisa Pascoe

Deputy Director,

Social care policy

Today

A focus on practice and the progress and experiences of children.

Sharing good practice and what matters.

What is current in inspection - joint targeted area inspections

What might the future look like?

What matters to Ofsted: myths and challenges.

What matters most in social care inspection?

What children and young people think should set the template for our areas of interest.

What people do, how they do it and when they do it.

How this helps children make progress, have good experiences, feel safer and have a sense of stability in their lives.

What children and young people feel is important

3,271 children and young people told us what they thought was good about their children’s home or foster carers and what could be better.

The five most common themes that emerged were:

feeling safe and looked after

having staff who put them first

feeling like part of a foster family

having fun things to do and good food to eat

independence, responsibility and having a say.

Children’s social care questionnaires 2015: what children told us

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Most children and young people told us they feel safe inside their home9

Fostering(1,727 responses)

92% 99% 0%

All the time All/most the time

Never

The figure was lower for those in children’s homes…

Children’s home(1,471 responses)

All the time All/most the time

Never

66% 90% 1%

Children’s social care questionnaires 2015: what children told us

What children and young people enjoy

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My foster carers take me on holidays and other places…we have lots of fun. (7–11-year-old)

I get to do activities I like and I get to spend time with my friends. We have nice food and I get to help with the cooking. (12–15-year-old)

Going out, holidays, doing lots of things never been able to do before. (7–11-year-old)

I get to bake and go and invite friends when the day is free… They have a dog and a cat which I can play with. Having my own room and feel safe. (12–15-year-old)

I now have a healthy diet and I have lots of different types of food. (7–11-year-old)

Children’s social care questionnaires 2015: what children told us

I am older than the other girls and I can stay out later if I have something special to do. (16–17-year-old)

What gives children and young people a sense of responsibility and independence

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The staff team are very supportive and help you out with anything you need a hand with e.g. advice, planning things, advocating. (16–17-year-old)My opinions count, staff

involve me in making decisions. I feel valued and respected. (16–17-year-old)

I learn a lot of things I haven't learnt before like to make my bed, clean my room, learn to be a man, and learn to have respect for adults and peers. (12–15-year-old)

Children and young people tell us they want staff that:

spend time with them, for example at one to one sessions or in activities

are caring, supportive and respectful

listen and talk to them about their feelings and any problems or worries they have

understand why they behave in a certain way and help them to deal with their behaviour or anger.

They also say it’s important to have enough staff in the home, including enough male or female staff.

Practice

Social workers/practitioners that build and maintain trusting relationships. How? - fewer changes in social worker; robust and clear transition arrangements; structural changes that support workers staying with the same family; creating a ‘good’ place to work.

Children’s wishes and feelings matter in their individual circumstances and strategically.

Risk is understood and addressed e.g. return home interviews.

Stability, planning and timely decisions.

Support and challenge in the system.

Practice in residential care

The three pillars of children’s homes inspections:

Care planning: what do children experience on a daily basis? How does it help keep them safe? Make progress? Have good experiences? And what do staff do if strategies aren’t working?

Who is this home for and is practice evidence based? Does this home know who it can help? Does it have a shared ethos/way of working? Does it structure itself to meet its aims and objectives?

Leadership

People

Targeted recruitment, careful assessment and effective support for foster carers.

Residential staff that are trained, valued and supported.

A stable workforce - learning and development, career progression, support.

Workers, managers and leaders that know what ‘good’ looks like - a common aim and a shared purpose.

Leadership, governance and oversight

Clear priorities and a line of sight to practice - workers, managers and leaders that know what ‘good’ looks like -a common aim and a shared purpose.

Clear governance arrangements between partners and bodies that support shared priorities.

The leadership team has an accurate grip of it’s strengths and areas for improvement. They take swift and robust action to improve any services which are found to be lacking.

Inspection: now

Joint targeted area inspections (JTAI)

With HMI Constabulary, CQC, HMI Probation.

Current focus on the protection of children and young people.

Not a universal programme. The inspectorates are resourced to do a maximum of one per month.

Each JTAI has a ‘deep dive’ into a particular cohort of children and/or issue.

First five (plus pilot) ‘deep dive’ into children at risk of sexual exploitation and/or missing.

How can this help the sector?

Individual report for each area resulting in a narrative judgement plus a summary report of our findings in respect of the ‘deep dive.’ A means of sharing good practice and aspects of practice areas may want to consider.

Next ‘deep dive’ will start in September.

Topics currently under discussion: children in receipt of early help; children living with domestic violence; children living with the ‘toxic trio’; the experience of older children; sexual abuse within families; child neglect; girls at risk of female genital mutilation; radicalisation; peer on peer abuse; children looked after and the criminal justice system; care leavers and the criminal justice system.

Inspection: what’s next?

Future of inspection

Continued focus on practice.

Risk-based and proportionate.

Rigorous focus on progress and experiences across all of our inspection frameworks.

Bringing commonality into our expectations on inspection wherever we can e.g. children living away from home.

The role of self-evaluation and leadership.

Responsive to the changing landscape – delegation, direction of the SoS, innovation, regional adoption agencies and potential new structure of local government more widely.

Future of inspection- local authorities

Menu of options to include: universal; joint; targeted; and thematic inspection.

Not a universal inspection of the whole system – following robust baseline of the single inspection framework programme.

Short, sharp and focused - usually inspection limited to a single week’s fieldwork.

Time to plan and explore scope, frequency, judgements, reporting etc.

The ‘menu’ will include a focus on the protection of children and children looked after.

12 week consultation later this year

Children’s social care questionnaires 2015: what children told us

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Lisa.Pascoe@ofsted.gov.uk