Foster Care Agencies, Children’s Homes & ISA Providers – resources for practitioners

Independent Care Home Providers
The Children’s Homes Regulation 2015 introduced duties for managers of children’s homes and prospective providers of new children’s homes.

Regulation 31: Fitness of premises requires the registered person to make sure that the premises are appropriately and suitably located, so that children are effectively safeguarded and are able to access all the services to meet their needs.

New duties placed on providers require them to:

• carry out a risk assessment of the area before the opening of the home and then at regular intervals
• put in place appropriate safeguards where risks had been identified before a home opens (or where new risks appear over time); and
• collaborate with the police and LSCB at all stages of this process, not just in putting the safeguards in place but also trying to identify the risks in the first place.

The guide Children’s homes regulations amendments 2014  provides advice for children’s homes providers on these duties.

Relevant steps in completing a location assessment will involve the collection of publicly available local data:

• for the latest insight on the Manchester area visit the MCC website at www.manchester.gov.uk
• for the latest crime statistics visit the Police UK website at www.police.uk  – this site provides the level of crime in a vicinity and the response to it, violence and sexual offences, drug related crime, antisocial behaviour, property crime and gang activity
• map of levels of deprivation – the index of deprivation includes information on crime, barriers to employment, education, skills and training and housing and homelessness and can be found on the government website at www.gov.uk
• information on school performance can be found on the Department for Education website at www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk

Regulation 14: Missing Children states that homes must have a missing child policy in place. This must have regard to relevant local authority or police protocols on Missing Children. It is the responsibility of managers and providers to ensure that their policy is in line with Local Safeguarding Children Board/ Partnership guidance.

• For information on local policy visit our Missing children resource.

Training
For further details about safeguarding training visit our learning hub.

Other relevant links
The Independent Children’s Homes Association (ICHA) is the voice of independent providers of child care services and resources for children and young people. They are a Not for Profit association representing professionals who have chosen to work in the independent sector.

• For more information visit their website at www.icha.org.uk

Information for children & young people about living in a children’s home
Local information to share with children and young people can be found on the Manchester City Council website at  www.manchester.gov.uk/living_in_a_children_s_home