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| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Safe Use of the Internet, Social Media and Photographs | This chapter has been refreshed. |
| Female Genital Mutilation | A new section has been added on Other Harmful Practices. The Health and Care Act 2022 has made it illegal to carry out, offer or aid and abet virginity testing or hymenoplasty in any part of the UK. It is also illegal for UK nationals and residents to do these things outside the UK. Information has also been added on Breast Flattening which is an offence as set out in CPS So-Called Honour-Based Abuse Legal Guidance. |
| Leadership and Management | Section 2.2, Appointment of Manager has been updated in line with updated Ofsted Guidance - Social Care Common Inspection Framework: Children's Homes. |
| Staffing and Safer Recruitment | New sections have been added in to Section 2, Safe Recruitment and Employment Checks, on Prospective Staff Spending Time in the Home and Carrying Out Interviews, in line with updated Ofsted guidance. A link has been added to information on DBS Digital Identity Verification Guidance. |
| Next Update: September 2024 |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Providing Personalised Care | This chapter has been updated. |
| Safe Use of the Internet, Social Media and Photographs | This chapter has been updated. |
| Advocacy, Independent Visitors and Independent Reviewing Officers | This chapter has been updated. |
| Education | This chapter has been updated. |
| Leisure and Activities | This chapter has been updated. |
| Health Care Assessments and Plans | Information in relation to allergies has been added into Section 2, Health Care Plans. |
| Health and Wellbeing, Health Notifications and Access to Services | This chapter has been updated. |
| Provision and Preparation of Meals | Information in relation to allergies has been added into Section 1, Responsibility and Risk Assessments. |
| Positive Relationships and Behaviour Management | This chapter has been updated. |
| Searching Children/Bedrooms | This chapter has been updated. |
| Safeguarding Children and Young People and Referring Safeguarding Concerns | This chapter has been updated. |
| Allegations Against Staff | This chapter has been amended in line with revised Keeping Children Safe in Education. A new Section 2, The Difference Between an Allegation of Harm and a Concern has also been added. |
| Surveillance and Monitoring | This chapter has been updated. |
| Staff Qualifications | This chapter has been updated. |
| Staff Supervision and Appraisal | This chapter has been updated. |
| Care and Placement Planning | This chapter has been updated. |
| Looked After Reviews and Disruption Meetings | This chapter has been updated. |
| Case Recording | This chapter has been updated. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Equality and Diversity | This chapter has been added. |
| Consultation and Participation | This chapter has been added. |
| Health and Safety | This chapter has been added. |
| Supporting Children and Young People with Disabilities | This chapter has been added. |
| Female Genital Mutilation | This chapter has been added. |
| Leadership and Management | This chapter has been added. |
| Recording and Reporting of Accidents | This chapter has been added. |
| Staffing and Safer Recruitment | This chapter has been added, in line with revised statutory guidance Keeping Children Safe in Education. Information has been added to note that Keeping Children Safe in Education provides that copies of a curriculum vitae should only be accepted alongside an application form as a curriculum vitae on its own may not provide adequate information. Information in relation to online searches has been also added. |
| Risk Assessment and Planning | This chapter has been added. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Contact with Parents / Carers / Siblings and Others | Section 3, Supervised Contact has been updated to reflect a finding by the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman that the supervisor's observations of the contact must be clearly recorded in the child's record and shared with the parents within 3 months of the visit. |
| Self Harm and Suicidal Behaviour | This chapter has been amended to include a link to Self-harm: Assessment, Management and Preventing Recurrence NICE Guidance in the Further Information section. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Education | This chapter has been amended throughout to reflect Keeping Children Safe in Education Statutory Guidance and the outcome of Ofsted’s thematic report, Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges. |
| Restrictive Physical Intervention and Restraint | This chapter has been refreshed in line with local guidance. |
| Countering Bullying and Peer Abuse | This chapter has been amended to reflect Keeping Children Safe in Education Statutory Guidance, the outcome of Ofsted’s thematic report, Review of sexual abuse in schools and colleges and the Domestic Abuse Act 2021. |
| Allegations Against Staff | KCSIE highlights the importance of sharing and responding to any concerns, about the behaviour of an adult who works with children, no matter how small. This chapter has been revised to also consider low level concerns, with a new section added in relation to the differences between an ‘allegation’ and a concern. |
| Placements and Admissions | This chapter has been amended to note the importance of a child’s belonging’s being transferred in appropriate luggage and to add a link to the NYAS ‘My Things Matter’ Report – support and respect care-experienced children and their belongings when they move. |
| Moving to Another Placement | This chapter has been amended to add a link to the NYAS ‘My Things Matter’ Report – support and respect care-experienced children and their belongings when they move. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Use of Restraint and Physical Interventions | A link has been added to the recent Ofsted guidance: Positive Environments Where Children Can Flourish. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Information Sharing | This chapter has been updated to reflect revised guidance on information contained in the statutory guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children. |
| Staying in Touch - Safe Use of the Internet, Social Media and Taking Photographs | Links to the NSPCC Report Remove Tool and the UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS) Digital Passport have been added to this chapter. |
| Staff Qualifications and Employment Checks | A note has been added regarding the checks which employers must carry out to ensure that any person applying to work in the home has the right to work in the UK. See Safe Recruitment and Employment Checks. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Child Criminal Exploitation and County Lines | This new guidance provides information on Child Criminal Exploitation, including county lines. It describes the signs and indicators that children are being exploited, and offers guidance for staff in Children's Homes on how they can respond to keep children safe from harm linked to criminal exploitation |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Recognising Abuse and Neglect | This chapter has been updated to reflect changes from the revised Working Together to Safeguard Children. |
| Allegations Against Staff | A fourth bullet point has been added into Section 1, Introduction to reflect the revised guidance Working Together to Safeguard Children. The new bullet point means this procedure now also covers situations where an individual has behaved or may have behaved in a way that indicates they may not be suitable to work with children. This is to capture concerns around transferable risk; for example where a person who works in the home is involved in a domestic abuse incident and this may have implications for their suitability to work with children. |
| Notifications of Serious Events | This procedure has been updated to reflect the latest Ofsted guidance for social care providers on the types of incident which they consider to be serious, and which therefore will require notification to the regulatory authority. New sections have been added on the quality of notifications and learning from notifications. |
| Staff Qualifications and Employment Checks | This guidance has been reviewed and updated as required. Section 3, Safe Recruitment and Employment Checks is new. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Surveillance and Monitoring | This chapter has been added to the manual. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Allegations Against Staff and Volunteers | This guidance has been reviewed and extensively updated. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Notifications of Serious Events | This procedure, which sets out which agencies and individuals should be notified when a serious event occurs in relation to a child living in a Children’s Home, has been updated to reflect revised guidance issued by Ofsted in August 2019. The revised guidance sought to clarify what is meant by a ‘serious event’ with the aim of reducing the overall number of notifications made to Ofsted, and in particular reducing the number of repeat notifications made as a result of submitting additional / updated information. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Information Sharing | This guidance has been reviewed and updated throughout to reflect Working Together to Safeguard Children and the revised DfE Information Sharing Advice for Practitioners Providing Safeguarding Services to Children, Young People, Parents and Carers. |
| Notification of Serious Events | This procedure has been reviewed throughout and extensively updated as required to reflect the latest advice from Ofsted in relation to the notification of serious events. |
| Moving to Another Placement | This guidance has been reviewed throughout and updated as required. Section 2, Arrangements for the Transfer or Discharge has been updated to include a note on the actions placing authorities are required to undertake if a young person is moving from the home into an unregulated placement. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Residential Child Care – Key Principles | Section 3, Achieving the Key Principles has been updated to reflect the General Data Protection Regulations and Data Protection Act 2018, and explains that children in residential care should be helped to understand the types of personal information which is kept in their case records, what it is used for, who it will be shared with and how long it will be kept for. The child’s right to access their case record should also be explained to them. |
| Education | This chapter has been updated to reflect amendments introduced by the Children and Social Work Act 2017 relating to the status of ‘Previously Looked After Children’. A Previously Looked After Child is one who is no longer looked after in England and Wales because they are the subject of an Adoption, Special Guardianship or Child Arrangements Order which includes arrangements relating to with whom the child is to live, or when the child is to live with any person, or has been adopted from ‘state care’ outside England and Wales. A new Section 5, Safeguarding in School has also been added. |
| Care and Placement Plans Guidance | This guidance has been reviewed throughout and updated as required. Information in relation to Pathway Plans has been updated to reflect that, as a result of provisions contained in the Children and Social Work Act (2017), care leavers can request support from local authorities up to the age of 25 years. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Business Continuity Plan - Situation Occurring | This new procedure explains the process for recording details of incidents which occur in the home. It links to the Situation Occurring Template which should be completed following every incident and used to make a record of actions and decision making in response to incident. The template also contains a checklist for staff to ensure they have completed all necessary notifications and an agenda to be used for debriefing when reviewing the incident and its aftermath to see if lessons can be learnt for the future. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Case Recording | Section 16, Records must Usually be Retained After Closure has been updated to include a link to a Children’s Services – Retention of Records table which provides an overview of the retention requirements for different types of Children’s Social Care Records. Any changes required to reflect the introduction of the UK General Data Protection Regulations (UK GDPR) and revised Data Protection Act (2018) have also been made. |
| Contact with Parents / Carers / Siblings and Others | Section 2, Different Types of Contact has been updated to take account of the use of mobile communication to keep in touch with family members and friends. |
| Health Care Assessments and Plans | Section 1, Health Care Assessments has been updated to include information on the circumstances when young people can provide their own consent to Health Care Assessments and medical treatment. |
| Recognising Abuse and Neglect | This guidance has been reviewed and and updated to reflect current Government publications on safeguarding children, including the responsibility which is shared among all professionals to keep children safe and promote their welfare. |
| Referring Safeguarding Concerns | This guidance has been reviewed throughout to reflect current Government publications on safeguarding children, and emphasises that keeping children safe and promoting their welfare is a responsibility of all staff working in the home, not just managers and key workers. |
| Safeguarding Children and Young People from Sexual Exploitation | Section 1, Introduction has been revised throughout to include additional information on the nature of child sexual exploitation and its impact on young people. Section 2, Indicators of Possible Sexual Exploitation has also been updated to reflect the complexity of child sexual exploitation, including situations where young people can be both perpetrators and victims of abuse. |
| Identifying and Supporting Children and Young People Vulnerable to Violent Extremism including Radicalisation | Section 1, Introduction / Definitions has been updated to include additional information for staff on what is meant by the term extremism; an explanation of the processes by which young people can be exposed to the messages of extremist groups has also been added. |
| Allegations Against Staff and Volunteers | This guidance has been updated to clarify the distinct roles and responsibilities of the Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and the homes’ senior manger in relation to the handling of allegations against staff and volunteers. |
| Notification of Serious Events | The title of this document has been revised to provide clarity and better reflect terminology used in the Children’s Homes Regulations and Quality Standards. |
| Preparation for Leaving Care | This guidance has been reviewed and updated throughout to reflect the Children and Social Work Act and recent Department for Education publications on Corporate Parenting Principles and extending Personal Adviser support. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Advocacy and Independent Visitors | This guidance has been updated to add a link to the Children’s Society publication ‘Advocacy Services for Children and Young People – A Guide for Commissioners’. This guide summarises the legislative requirements placed on of local authorities in relation to the provision of advocacy support to Children in Need and Looked After Children. |
| Looked After Reviews | This guidance has been reviewed throughout and updated to include additional detail on the circumstances in which Independent Reviewing Officers (IROs) should look to bring forward a child’s Looked After Review. See Section 2, Frequency of Looked After Reviews for full details. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Providing Personalised Care | This guidance has been updated to include information on the role of residential care workers in supporting young people who are experiencing gender identity issues (see Section 3.2, Gender). |
| Case Recording | A note has been added into Section 16, Records must usually be Retained After Closure, to remind all staff that no children’s social care records should be destroyed while the National Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse is on-going. |
| Social Visits (Including Overnight Stays) | This guidance has been reviewed throughout and updated as required. |
| Safeguarding Children and Young People from Sexual Exploitation | This guidance has been updated to reflect the revised definition of Child Sexual Exploitation published by the Department for Education in February 2017. See Section 1, Introduction for full details. |
| Allegations Against Staff | This guidance has been reviewed throughout and updated as required. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Correspondence, Communication and Social Networking | A link has been added to a recently published practical guide for parents and carers whose children use social media. The guide contains information on the risks young people might face through using social media and offers practical tips on how to minimise these risks. |
| Advocacy and Independent Visitors | This guidance has been reviewed and updated. Section 2, Duties of An Advocate is new. |
| Internet Safety | A link has been added to a recently published practical guide for parents and carers whose children use social media. The guide contains information on the risks young people might face through using social media and offers practical tips on how to minimise these risks. |
| Safeguarding Children from Radicalisation and Extremism | A link has been added to the to Education Against Hate website. The website, developed by HM Government, contains practical advice for parents, teachers and school leaders on protecting children from extremism and radicalisation. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Living in a Children's Home – A Guide for Children and Young People | This guide, written for children and young people living in our children’s home, has been reviewed locally and updated. |
| Looked After Reviews | This chapter has been updated to reflect the publication of the new Children’s Homes Regulations and Quality Standards. To prevent any delay in supporting the child/young person, the new regulations require that a worker from the home also takes notes at the Looked After Review. In addition the Registered Person should be able to evidence what they have done to achieve engagement, including any actions taken to escalate concerns. |
| Preparation for Leaving Care | This chapter has been updated to reflect the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and Quality Standards. In particular in Section 2, Key Responsibilities - Staff in the home must assist in the pathway planning process, and help the young person prepare for transition by developing the self help skills needed for independent living. |
| Restrictive Physical Intervention | This guidance has been revised throughout to reflect the publication of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations (2015) –including the Quality Standards. |
| Searching Children/Bedrooms | This chapter has been updated to reflect the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and Quality Standards. Section 1, Searching has been updated to reflect that bedrooms should not be generally entered without the child’s permission. However, the procedure goes on to describe the circumstances when room searches can take place without permission, for example if there is cause to believe that items such as weapons or illegal drugs are concealed |
| Contact with Parents and Siblings | Section 2, Supervised and Unsupervised Contact has been updated to require that the Placing Authority must be notified within 24 hours if home’s staff have assessed that restriction of contact is necessary in the interests of the child to safeguard them. Section 3, Cancellation of Contact has been updated to reflect that where a decision is made at the weekend/bank holiday to cancel contact, the EDT social worker should be notified of the decision with a follow up to the allocated social worker on the first working day after the weekend/bank holiday |
| Correspondence, Communication and Social Networking | Section 5, Web Enabled or Internet Technology / Social Networking is new and should be read |
| Monitoring Quality | This chapter has been updated to reflect the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 and Quality Standards; it should be read in full. |
| Delegated Authorities and Notifiable Events | This procedure has been updated to reflect the Children’s Homes Regulations (England) 2015, including the Quality Standards and Working Together to Safeguard Children. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Safeguarding Children from Radicalisation and Extremism | This new chapter contains information for staff working in residential homes on the risks faced by children and young people who are exposed to extremist material and / or radicalised. It highlights the key indicators which staff should be alert to, and explains the action which should be taken where there are concerns about the behaviour of any young people in our care. |
| Updated Chapters | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Statements of Purpose | Updated Statements of Purpose for each of the Derby Children's Homes have been added. |
| Emergency Placement and Emergency Placement Planning Meetings | This chapter has been reviewed and updated as required. |
| Missing Children | This guidance for residential staff has been reviewed locally and updated throughout. It should be read in full. |
| Internet Safety | This chapter has been updated to include a link to Advice for Parents and Carers on Cyberbullying (Department for Education, 2014). |
| Monitoring Quality | This chapter has been updated in line with Children's homes regulations amendments 2014: Advice for children's homes providers on new duties under amendments to regulations that came into effect in January and April 2014. Additional information has been added into Section 1, Suitability of Premises and Section 2, Regulation 33 Visits. |
| New Chapters and Features | |
| Chapter Title | Details |
| Petty Cash and Finance | A link has been added to the Derby City Council Petty Cash Floats and Bank Imprest Accounts - Policy and Procedures (adapted policy for Residential Children's Homes). |
