In England, some care homes are declining to take in children with complex needs due to concerns about their Ofsted inspection ratings. This is causing vulnerable young people in the social care system to face long waits for a stable home.
According to an Ofsted report, nine out of 10 councils often struggle to find homes for children with complex needs, leading to unregistered placements as an alternative to registered care homes.
The demand for care home placements is exceeding supply, with rising numbers of children in care and many care homes having only a small number of places. New settings are often opening hundreds of miles from where they are most needed.
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In addition to this, some care settings are unwilling to accept children and teenagers with complex needs due to concerns about their Ofsted inspection ratings, leading to accusations of “cherrypicking,” which care providers deny.
John Pearce, president of the Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS), stated that some providers are unwilling to take children with any level of complexity or are increasingly serving immediate or inappropriate notice periods due to fear of the impact on their Ofsted rating.
This results in children and young people with high levels of need being placed miles away from their friends, families, and communities, which is not in their best interests and has a knock-on effect on the availability of homes and local authority budgets.
Individual councils have raised concerns about this practice, with reports referring to “an unhelpfully rigid approach” from Ofsted and a reluctance of registered children’s homes to care for children with complex needs due to fear of a negative impact on their Ofsted rating.
Dr. Mark Kerr, interim chief executive of the Children’s Homes Association (CHA), expressed concerns that accepting children with complex needs would lead to a high number of incidents that have to be notified to Ofsted.
For more information, you can read the full article from The Guardian.