Ofsted rate Teasel Close Children’s Home, Crawley, inadequate

Teasel Close Children’s Home, in Crawley, was visited by government inspectors who found a series of shocking ‘widespread failures’  with the care, experience and educational progress of the children described as poor, and their welfare ‘not promoted or safeguarded’.

The report said children had smoked cannabis in the home and garden, openly used vapes around the house and that there was a lack of respect between children and staff.

One child spent most of their days missing, only returning in the early hours.

Extracts from the report:

• The educational progress of all children is poor. One child has attended school on a few occasions this year but spends most of their days missing from home, not returning until the early hours of the morning. The staff do not engage the other children in any educational activities during the day as the children will often refuse to engage.
• The children smoke cannabis, and on some occasions, they have done this in the home or garden. Children openly use vapes around the home. The staff have not built sufficiently strong relationships with children. They do not ensure consistent boundaries, and there is a lack of respect between children and staff. Staff have only carried out minimal work with children to explain the risks of smoking or illegal drug use or the potential impact on children’s health.
• Risk plans for children are not updated following serious incidents to support staff to mitigate risks from reoccurring. For example, staff discovered a knife was missing from the kitchen safe that had been left open by staff. This was found in a child’s bedroom. While arrangements have been made to ensure the knives are securely stored, the child’s risk plans have not been reviewed to give guidance to staff and highlight this risk for the child. In another example, children used an aerosol and lighter to make a flamethrower. Again, risk assessments do not reflect these incidents, and staff do not have any strategies about how to reduce this risk.
• The staff do not implement effective boundaries or promote positive behaviour. This has led to several incidents where significant damage has been caused to the home, and police are often called. Consequently, children are at risk of becoming criminalised. Children regularly go missing from the home. One child is missing from home most days, and there are additional concerns that this child is being criminally exploited. The staff contact children when they go missing from home and carry out welfare checks during this time. However, this is ineffective, it continues to be a high risk for some children and incidents have not been reduced.
• Safer recruitment processes fail to ensure that staff are suitably vetted. For example, the reasons for applicants leaving previous employment with children and vulnerable adults are not always verified, and records have not been kept demonstrating that disclosure and barring service checks have been completed.
• The registered manager has failed to take effective action to report allegations made by a child to the local authority designated officer or Ofsted. Furthermore, a child protection enquiry was instigated, and Ofsted was not notified of this. Learning has been identified with support from the new responsible individual, and retrospective notifications have been made. There are shortfalls in the development of staff. Some staff training has lapsed, and refresher training courses for some staff are overdue. Staff lack the skills and experience to support children in areas such as substance misuse and self-harm.

The home was inspected in May and a report has now been published. The Ofsted inspectors have given it a new rating of ‘inadequate’ .

Only a handful of children are staying at the home, which was rated ‘outstanding’ in 2021.

Following its last inspection in 2023, when it was rated ‘good’, the home’s manager and responsible individual left and a new senior management team was put in place.

The report said the team had implemented an action plan to support improvements.

READ MORE: West Sussex Council to pay dad £100 a month after education complaint

A county council spokesman said: “We accept Ofsted’s findings. The service has already implemented a comprehensive action plan, and having reviewed this, Ofsted decided not to take any enforcement action due to their confidence in the action plan and the pace of its implementation.

“However, we also feel that it is important for the report’s content to be understood within the context of the challenges that we, like all local authorities, face nationally with provision of support for our children in care, and restrictions on local authorities in terms of our duties and responsibilities compared with private care providers.

“West Sussex County Council manages six children’s homes and supports or cares for up to 45 children and young people in these homes at any one time. This number has grown by approximately 30% since 2019, making the provision of care increasingly challenging.

“Like all local authorities we are operating in a constrained placement market with different duties and responsibilities to private care providers. This can result in additional challenges, especially when providing support and care for our children with the greatest levels of complexity and need, for whom other providers often refuse to care for.

“We are investing over £1m into the Teasel Close site in the near future as part of a wider £10m investment across our children’s residential estate. Refurbishments at Teasel Close are the final part of this programme.

“Alongside the challenges, there are also many positive recent examples of our children making progress while living at Teasel Close as well as the steps we’ve taken to address the issues such as the creation of a new service development plan to look at where support for our children can be enhanced.

“We have spoken to our children at the home to talk through the findings of the report with them, help them understand the context and apologise for where we should have done better for them.

“Since this inspection Ofsted have re-visited the home where we have been able to evidence the pace of change and the improvements already achieved.

“We look forward to welcoming Ofsted back to the home for our next full inspection later this year, where we will be able to further evidence sustained improvements.

“We continue to be committed to putting our children and young people first and ensuring that our homes keep them safe from vulnerable situations and help them achieve their full potential.”