Raising standards in supported accommodation

In this episode, Mark Leech (Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement) talks to Matthew Brazier (Project Director, Supported Accommodation) and Rachel Holden (Senior HMI, Supported Accommodation) about the development of our plans for regulating and inspecting supported accommodation.

Alongside the podcast, you can learn about the following related topics on our YouTube channel:

• Notice of inspection for supported accommodation
• What makes effective supported accommodation?
• Supported accommodation inspection outcomes

We have also published guidance detailing what providers need to know about registering with Ofsted and running or closing a supported accommodation service.

Transcript

Mark Leech 

Hello and welcome to another bite sized episode of Ofsted Talks. My name is Mark Leech [Acting Director, Strategy and Engagement]. Today we're going to be talking about supported accommodation. This is accommodation for 16 - 17-year-olds who are in care or who have just left care, and who may need a place to live where they're supported by responsible adults. Despite the need for support and guidance at this stage in their lives we know for many young people this is an uncertain time, and they've sometimes been placed in poor quality accommodation, which is why the Department of Education has asked Ofsted to start regulating the sector and make sure standards are high enough, to help young people feel safe and supported as they make the transition into adult life. Earlier, I spoke to Matthew Brazier, our Project Director for Supported Accommodation and to Rachel Holden, our Senior His Majesty's Inspector for Supported Accommodation about our plans for regulating this sector. We talked about what we think good supported accommodation looks like, what young people have had to say about their needs, and why this new area of our work is so important. So Matthew, hi, I think we should start by talking about the children who are placed in supported accommodation just to get a sense of who we're talking about.

Matthew Brazier 

Yeah, of course Mark. We think there's around 7,000 children in care or care leavers aged 16 to 17 in supported accommodation, that's what the data from last year tells us. And they'll have a range of different backgrounds, the needs can really vary, it's really important not to see them as an homogenous group. And when we inspect, we'll be focusing on how providers understand and meet those different needs. But generally speaking, they'll be children who are in care and care leavers who are able to manage an increasing amount of autonomy, or independence in their lives, while they still get the kind of help and protection that all children should expect. And as I say, there's around 7000, we think, which is a not insignificant number, it's pretty similar to the number of children in children's homes. So you can tell from that comparison that it is a large number of children but all with with different needs.

Mark Leech
That's really helpful. Thank you. Rachel, in terms of the accommodation itself, obviously, supported accommodation is rather different to children's homes. It's a pretty varied sector. So what sort of thing are we looking at?

Rachel Holden 

You're right there Mark, it is very varied. And the regulations split it into four different categories. So the first category is like when you have a spare room in your house, so it's a family home. It's called supported lodgings and they're host families who're hosting a young person. And they share all your other living facilities that you have in your house, your kitchen, and they become part of a family really. So there's that type, then there's more like self contained flats. So like a bedsit or a studio, that type of accommodation. And then there's shared houses. So you might have three or four young people living and sharing the same house, but having, obviously their individual bedrooms. And then there's accommodation, which is a little bit more like a house of multiple occupancies. So it could be that you're living with other people that are maybe age 22-23. They come from a different background than you, they haven't been in care or care leavers. And that's the fourth category that I was speaking about. So even though we split them up within those categories, there's quite a lot of variation, and quite a lot of variation between the housing throughout the country as well. So we've seen a lot of difference in the sector. So I'll just point out the difference between supported accommodation and children's homes. So for children's homes, they're looked after by staffing within the home, they're cared for, they're parented - if you like - by staff in the home, whereas supported accommodation, [they] are supported, and they're supported on their journey to independence. So they may not have staff there 24/7. They may not have staff to handle the time, but actually they know who to contact in an emergency they are supported to proceed into college or an apprenticeship. So there there's lots of different models out there of supported accommodation.

Mark Leech

So given that it is such a varied sector, then, I suppose our role is going to be a bit different in terms of the sorts of inspections that we can do. We're going into, as you say, Rachel, really different types of places. Matthew, what are we going to be looking for when we start to inspect from April next year, April '24.

Matthew Brazier

Well, we started consulting on a number of things in July, for the way we'll inspect from April and one of those proposals was about the main things that we should expect for children in a strong supported accommodation service. So some of the examples of the criteria that we'd be looking for is that children should feel safe and settled where they live. There should be strong support for their emotional, their physical health, and good help with their education, training and employment. We'd want leaders and managers to have high ambitions, high expectations for children. And fundamentally, the accommodation itself should be of good quality, but it should also meet children's individual needs. So we've set out those criteria that were very broad criteria that will help us develop the final evaluation criteria. And we've based those proposals on lots of discussions that we've had, in the last year or so with commissioners, providers, children's advocacy groups - their views have been really helpful to help us develop those proposals - but most importantly, we've worked really hard to speak to the care-experienced community - care-experienced people who were young and old - we wanted to learn from their lived experience and make sure that the things that we look at when we inspect are going to be the things that are most important to them.

Mark Leech

Yeah that's a really important group isn't it? So what have we heard in particular from young people, or as you say, from people who've been through the care system themselves?

Matthew Brazier

Yeah, some of the things that are coming out loudly and clearly from them is about feeling safe, fundamentally. They agree that the support should match their individual needs. So wherever they live, that support is tailored to them as individuals, but a common theme was about how they should be allowed to move towards increased independence at a pace that suits them. And it's important to remember these are children and that we shouldn't expect them to be fully independent at the age of 16, or 17. This is about a path towards adulthood and a path towards independence. So the pace that they move out towards that independence is going to vary and the support they get should reflect that. We are quite clear that supported accommodation should not mean an absence of care. And children were particularly clear that they want the opportunity to have the growing independence as they get older. But they also want safety nets, they want to have financial security - so they're not really worried about the financial or money issues unnecessarily. They want the support of adults who care for them and who they can trust. But they also want to be able to enjoy the kinds of things that all children and all young people should expect and deserve. So their insight has been really, really helpful. We think we've got to a point where the proposals that we'll make for what we look at on inspection will reflect a consensus. It'll strongly reflect children's views, it will take into account the views of professionals and other interested parties. But we've also looked at research - the available research on supported accommodation - and that's been helpful, too. So we think we'll have an evidence-based inspection framework that will focus on the right things and hopefully be looking at things that, most importantly, children feel that they're the most relevant things for them to make progress and have good experiences.

Mark Leech

I mean that sounds that sounds really positive and a big step forward. Because currently this is a bit of a grey area, isn't it, supported accommodation - it's not currently registered, it's not currently inspected. So we need obviously the people who are running this accommodation - the providers of this accommodation - to register with us. What happens if they don't register with us? So how do we stop there being this kind of grey area? And what happens if we're going into some of these providers and finding that they're just not up to scratch?
 
Rachel Holden

Yeah that's a great question. So as we said earlier, this is a new area, and we need providers to register with us by the 28th of October and have that application accepted. After that they will be acting unlawfully, and local authorities won't then be able to place children who are 16-17, who are in care or care leavers with them. So it's really important that providers do get that application in. And when we go out, and if we were to find serious and widespread weaknesses in the provision that they are providing, we have a raft of powers available to us. That could be an issue in a compliance notice on a certain area of service that they need to improve on. Or it could be that we suspend the service straightaway because there are really serious safeguarding issues for children and we think that they might be at an immediate risk of harm. So we would be looking for those children to move out. But on the whole, as we do with children's homes, we work with providers because we realise that children - if they're living there, they're settled a lot of the time - we give providers opportunities to put the issues right. Always bearing in mind that the safeguarding of children comes first and foremost.

Mark Leech

It's always a tough balancing act, isn't it, in the areas that we regulate? And people don't always know with Ofsted, we have these two functions. We're an inspectorate - obviously most famously we're the schools inspectorate, but we don't actually regulate schools - we don't have the power to open schools or close schools; that's the Department for Education. But in social care, we do have some of those those harder-edge powers. But as you say, it's often about working with providers to make sure they're meeting the standards because we don't want to disrupt the lives of young people unnecessarily. But we have to always maintain that focus on safety. So thanks for that. I think that clears up a bit on how we're going to work in this new sector. So what are the next steps for us now?

Rachel Holden

So the next steps for us now are to issue the inspection framework, which will be coming out early next year. And we are already gearing up to do the pilots of that inspection framework. We'll be going to around nine providers of all different types - and I spoke earlier about the different categories of registration that we have. So we'll be doing a wide range of small, large, supported lodgings, houses of multiple occupancy type provision. And we'll be testing out what's really working obviously for children and young people first and foremost. We'll be liaising with the providers to make sure we're doing the best that we can for them. And we'll be speaking to the inspectors who do those pilots. So by the time we come to start the inspection year in April, next year, we'll be fully up to speed and getting out there and making a start on the inspections.

Mark Leech

Fantastic. So it's also a new area of work as well for you two, who've obviously worked for a long time with Ofsted in social care more generally. What drew you to supported accommodation?

Matthew Brazier

Well, Mark, my experience as an inspector, and then in policy at Ofsted, and in a previous life in a local authority, I think it means that I know the positive difference that the right kind of help in the right place can make for children, and that - you know - what impact really good provision can have. And I suppose I was drawn to this particularly because I'm convinced that regulation is necessary. I think it can make significant changes and improvements to children's lives. And I think this has been unregulated for such a long time, and there are so many children in this area, I think it's fair to say that there's a consensus across the sector, that regulation is really necessary, notwithstanding the challenges that lie ahead for lots of different parts of the sector. But I think we really can make a difference. I think we can get to a place in April, where we have a framework that focuses on the things that matter. And it's something that everyone can sign up to, and hopefully [it] will shine a light, celebrate good practice, hold poor providers to account, but also drive policy and further improvements as well more widely.

Mark Leech

That's great, thank you. And Rachel, how about you?

Rachel Holden

So I've been working for Ofsted now for about 10 years, and I started my career in regulation. So I used to regulate children's homes, independent fostering agencies, etc. And I saw the real difference that we can make through regulation to the quality of service for children and young people. And [I] also heard those positive stories that young people spoke with passion about their carers, and what a difference that they had made to them. So after I followed my career through Ofsted, I still take a great deal of interest in regulatory work. So when this opportunity came up to manage the central team, I put my hat in the ring, and it's been a great opportunity to offer providers and children consistency of our approach to our registration, and also be able, as Matthew said, to engage with the sector and to engage with them, to answer that question 'what does good look like?' But I suppose on a more personal note, I've got three girls of various different ages now that keep me really busy. And the oldest two are 16+, and I've seen what support they need at that age. And they need a lot of adult input, guidance, discussions - you name it - so I think it's a really important time in a young person or a child's life to make sure that we're actually there for children and that we guide them and support them to become responsible individuals and adults. So yeah, it's been a bit of both really, so a bit of a work journey and also a personal one, but I like to say I'm really enjoying it.

Mark Leech

That's great. Thanks, Rachel. That's really helpful and I think summarises the importance of this area of work for young people just coming to the end of their care experience and going out into the world. So, thank you so much for your time and Matthew for yours as well. Thanks very much for listening. I hope you found it interesting. Do tune in again to the next Ofsted Talks wherever you get your podcasts.

 

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