Barnardo's Scotland Fostering - Glasgow Fostering Service Academy Park Building 10000 Gower Street Glasgow G51 1PR Telephone: 0141 419 4700 Type of inspection: Announced (short notice) Inspection completed on: 7 September 2017 Service provided by: Barnardo's 'known as' Barnardo's Scotland Service provider number: SP2003003405 Care service number: CS2004082106
About the service Barnardo's Scotland Fostering - Glasgow provides a service for children and young people who are assessed as needing this. The service recruits, trains and supports caring families to look after children and young people who cannot live within their own families. The service is based in Academy Park in Glasgow and is overseen by an operational manager. Four team managers support the daily tasks of the senior social workers. What people told us Carers informed us that their workers were skilled, knowledgeable and supported them well to be able to do their job to the best of their abilities. Carers told us that communication from the service had been poor and that this had an impact on their morale. They told us that this had been helped by a positive sense of camaraderie between carers. Self assessment The service was not required to submit a self assessment document to us during this inspection year. From this inspection we graded this service as: Quality of care and support Quality of staffing Quality of management and leadership 4 - Good not assessed 3 - Adequate What the service does well The service demonstrated adequate outcomes in relation to this inspection. Overall, we found that staff were confident about being able to provide the necessary practical and emotional support to foster carers, children and young people. Foster carers were very well-trained and reported that they had access to a comprehensive training program, which supported them to understand and meet children's needs from this perspective. Where they needed further training to support their role they felt confident to ask for it. Safer caring training formed a central part of all programs and was regularly reviewed within foster carers' monthly supervision sessions and annual reviews. These review forums were timeous and structured well to ensure the quality of the service provided. Safer caring was further considered within looked after children's processes and we found that the staff team were quick to challenge standards of care that were not felt to be of good enough quality for children and young people to thrive. We found assessments for potential foster carers to be evaluative and well written. They provided a clear appraisal of the strengths of the prospective foster carers along with a detailed analysis of their life experience and how this may benefit children matched with them. Relevant checks were carried out to give assurance that applicants were suitable to foster children. On approval, foster carers worked towards evidence based practice page 2 of 7
through competencies and portfolio work,regular monthly supervision, annual appraisals and panel reviews, quality assured these inputs. Regular reviews of children's care plans ensured that they remained central to decision-making processes and their needs were being identified. Cases we tracked evidenced some very good outcomes for children in terms of their attendance at school and academic outcomes. Overall multi-agency approaches helped to ensure that foster carers were accessing all suitable healthcare provision for children, and also confirmed that children had attended important medical appointments. We found team managers and staff to be motivated and committed in their daily roles and they are well-trained and experienced in all areas of fostering. Foster carers spoke highly of the team that supported them and we were told consistently about the high level of commitment to supporting foster carers, children and young people. They were all registered with the Scottish Social Services Council (SSSC). Staff were supported to meet the training and development requirements of the SSSC and they received regular and focused supervision from team managers, which they reported to be very beneficial. It is to the credit and commitment of the team managers and front line staff team that the areas for development identified had not had a significant impact on the service delivery. What the service could do better It should be noted that, at the time of inspection, two new senior managers had been newly appointed into post. Both managers were still in their induction phase of their new roles. We encouraged the managers to use the inspection as benchmark from which to begin to move the service forward. We found weaknesses throughout the organisational structures. Some of these had been discussed at the last inspection and we were unable to evidence that any improvement had been made. In these instances, we have made recommendations and one requirement to the service. During the last inspection, we recommended to the service that the complaints policy be reviewed, as the document was confusing and not being used favourably. We found that this had not been completed and as such we are now requiring the service to address this. (Please see requirement 1). We found that small changes had been made to how staff were recording information on the IT system. However, we again found that the IT system did not support the Scottish looked after children processes, or aid the staff team in their recording processes. Staff were still recording information under different headings and this caused problems when trying to access information within the system. Staff reported that this impacted on their ability to do their job as well as they wished and, subsequently, on their morale. Furthermore, we found that the system inhibited the ability to audit the information clearly and therefore there was not a clear quality assurance process. We are now making this a recommendation. (Please see recommendation 1). Two of the policies for the fostering service had been reviewed and reflected best practice across Scotland. These were well written, clear and directive for staff. However, the staff were unaware of them and unaware of where to find them. The IT system for staff, B-HIVE, was confusing, difficult for staff to negotiate where to find policy and procedures and needed to be reconsidered and restructured to support staff in their work. Furthermore, we found that staff were still unclear about which forms to use in which circumstances and provided us with various page 3 of 7
versions of paperwork for the same purpose. Staff were unsure and unclear about what the fostering panel expected in terms of paperwork and this was clearly due to a lack of organisation guidance on the matter. Staff reported that the lack of clear organisational direction in these areas was frustrating and impacting further on their morale. As such, we have made a recommendation that the system is reviewed, to provide leadership and clear guidance to staff about company policy, procedures and paperwork expectations. Again, we reminded the provider that this should be reviewed within the context of Scottish practice and with the Scottish governments best practice guidance at the centre of this. (Please see recommendation 2). New panel members had recently joined the Barnardo's fostering panel, including a new chairperson. The service should develop an induction and training pack for new panel members and ensure that company policies and procedures are included in this. This is to ensure that the panel have clarity in relation to both organisation processes, but also in relation to what the organisation expects from them. We were reassured that the new panel chair told us that the service had been very supportive and helpful during the transition into the post. We reminded the service that best practice would ensure that the panel advisor be an independent person, in that they should not be a person who supervises senior social workers. Carers reported to us that their experiences at panel had not always been as respectful and supportive as they had expected. We did not look at panel processes during this inspection, but this will be considered in more detail at the next inspection. Inspection evidence showed a lack of organisational leadership for staff and team managers, since the last inspection. Staff and carers reported that they did not always feel valued in their roles. All parties reported a concerning lack of communication from the organisation. Where staff or carers had sought this out, they reported a lack of skill and clarity in how this has been conveyed. Staff noted that their team meetings had not been given priority and this, alongside a lack of guidance in operational practice, had a notable impact on their morale. Overall, both staff and carers reported that this had impacted on their confidence in the management of the service. However, more recently the new manager had re-established a pattern of meetings, until this could be reviewed. A whole staff review had been undertaken. However, we were unable to see the outcomes of this. When we asked staff about this, we found that they had not received any feedback in relation to this. We asked the new manager of the service to look into this. The service had considerable work to be done, in relation to their internal structures. Despite the Care Inspectorate's recommendations to the service during the last inspection, we found little or no evidence that the service had progressed. At the time of inspection, the service received a complaint that was upheld in relation to lack of improvement in one of these areas. As such, we feel that a service review should be undertaken and a development plan submitted to the Care Inspectorate within six months' time. The development plan should address how the provider intends to take forward the identified areas for development. Requirements Number of requirements: 1 1. The provider must review the internal complaints policy and ensure that it is written to reflect a clear, competent and impartial process. Furthermore, the service must review the terminology used throughout the page 4 of 7
document. This is to ensure that Barnardo's Scotland Fostering - Glasgow is working within the Scottish legislation and policy context. An example of this is the use of the term CP1 within the complaints process. In Scotland this term is widely recognised as being an initial child protection investigation and the service used this term to represent an aspect of their complaints procedure. This may lead to confusion and is not in keeping with the Scottish government's vision for GIRFEC (getting it right for every child). This is to comply with 2011 No. 210 The Social Care and Social Work Improvement Scotland (Requirements for Care Services) Regulations 2011 section 4 and takes into account National Care Standards (foster care and family placement services) Standard 12. Timescale for this to be completed: Within two months of the publication of this report. Recommendations Number of recommendations: 2 1. There is a review of the use of the IT system to ensure that it is clearer and that the headings reflect the Scottish systems, inclusive of children's meetings such as LAC reviews and Children's Hearings. Staff should be trained in what should be recorded and where to ensure that there is consistency about where information should be recorded and where it can be found when required. 2. The service should review their recoding systems in relation to how service information is gathered, to ensure that all staff are clear about what is expected of them. Staff policies and procedures should be reviewed, to give clear direction and guidance and to ensure that staff are clear about where they can find them. Barnardo's Scotland should ensure that all terminology used in documents within Scotland reflects Scottish legislation, policy and best practice. Complaints Please see Care Inspectorate website (www.careinspectorate.com) for details of complaints about the service which have been upheld. Inspection and grading history Date Type Gradings 30 Nov 2015 Announced (short notice) Care and support Management and leadership 4 - Good page 5 of 7
Date Type Gradings 26 May 2014 Announced Care and support Management and leadership 14 May 2013 Announced Care and support Management and leadership 2 Jul 2012 Announced Care and support Management and leadership 30 Nov 2010 Announced Care and support Management and leadership 27 Nov 2009 Announced Care and support Management and leadership 3 Mar 2009 Announced Care and support 4 - Good Management and leadership page 6 of 7
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 www.careinspectorate.com Contact us Care Inspectorate Compass House 11 Riverside Drive Dundee DD1 4NY enquiries@careinspectorate.com 0345 600 9527 Find us on Facebook Twitter: @careinspect 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. page 7 of 7