Our Director, John Collins is in a reflective mood at the moment, mulling over the experience of Nexus’ most recent Ofsted inspection:
“No matter who you are, where you are and what kind of children’s provision you deliver, your overwhelming aim is to do the very best you can and make a positive difference to all people involved in your service; to the children, the foster carers, their families and your staff, so when the Ofsted inspectors called on us just a week or so before Christmas, we seized the opportunity to show-case what we all do to improve lives.”
According to Ofsted, their inspections are “…intended to raise standards and support improvement in the sector”, they do this by focusing on the experiences and progress of the children and young person and they evaluate how the agency contributes to delivering improved outcomes.
Making the right match is vital
“When we’re contacted by local authorities looking to place a child or young person with us, we use all the information they provide and try to match their needs with the skills, location and experience of our available foster carers. We call this ‘matching’ and it’s vitally important we get this right. A mismatched placement can lead to a child being moved on and that’s something we wish to avoid at all costs. The inspectors from Ofsted will look at careful matching and monitoring of the children and young people’s experiences, monitoring their outcomes and supporting their progress.”
Five main functions
The inspection process, which takes place on a three year cycle (more frequently if an agency is assessed as inadequate), looks at the agency’s five main functions:
- Overall effectiveness
- The experience and progress of, and outcomes for, children and young people
- Quality of service provision
- Safeguarding of children and young people
- Leadership and management
Time to reflect
“Previous inspections have graded us as ‘outstanding’, and initial feedback indicates another favourable result, so we look forward to sharing the final report once it’s published. In the meantime, we’re pleased to have had the opportunity to ‘take stock’ of all we do, to reflect on all the wonderful and positive things undertaken by our foster carers and staff to help our young people and all the achievements, however great or small, made by our young people. We’re immensely proud of everyone involved with Nexus.”
We’ll let you know when the full report is available to view. In the meantime, if you would like to know more about Nexus and become part of our fostering team, please get in touch.