Children's Guide

The Home must produce a Children's Guide. The Children's Guide must be made available to all children when their placement in the Home is agreed (or on arrival at the Home if the placement is made in an emergency) and must be age-appropriate, provided in an accessible format and explained to each child to make sure they understand it.

The Children's Guide should help children to understand:

• What the day-to-day routines of the Home are ('what happens in the Home');
• The Statement of Purpose of the Home (the care they can expect to receive while living there);
• How to make a complaint in line with the Home's Complaints procedure;
• How they can access advocacy support or independent advocacy if eligible; and
• How to contact the Office of the Children's Commissioner.

As part of reviewing and revising where appropriate the Statement of Purpose, the registered person should review and update the Children's Guide as necessary, and make sure children are given an explanation of any changes.

Please see the Local Resources area of the library for individual guides to children’s homes.

Management advice 

1. The children’s guide to be kept in central teams drive and be accessible for all staff;
2. When the document is updated, this will need to be provided to young people and there is evidence that this has been discussed with young people;
3. The children’s guide when updated must also be saved to the reg.44 folder.