Opening a Children’s Home & the Importance of Consultancy

Whilst incredibly rewarding, setting up a children’s home can be a time consuming and costly endeavour. Therefore, we strongly advise getting expert advice right from the outset to ensure the process is as smooth as possible. The Children’s Home Association (CHA) is an excellent starting point for anyone looking to learn more about the process, but if you are seeking support that is more hands-on, then Changing Outcomes are here to help.

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How Do You Set Up a Children’s Home?

Due to the high levels of Regulation and the vast amount of inter-agency work needed to open up a children’s home, careful project management is required to avoid unnecessary delays and mitigate risk. An informal discussion is always advised in the first instance, but our founder Andrew Roberts has produced this step-by-step guide to opening up a children’s home.

Step 1 Contact the children’s services department where you plan to operate to establish whether there is a need for the type of service you wish to open.
Step 2 Provided the feedback from the local authority is positive, the next step is to acquire a suitable property. This is a good time to onboard a consultant, as they will be able to sign off on it from a suitability perspective, advise you on any ongoing works that may need doing, and go through the functionality of each of the rooms.
Step 3 Simultaneously apply for planning permission or a certificate of lawfulness, whilst conducting a location risk assessment. Either of these can prevent you from opening up a children’s home.
Step 4 All systems go. You can register your company with Companies House, get a government I.D, and begin the registration process with Ofsted.
Step 5 Work can commence on all your key registration documents such as your Statement of Purpose, Children’s Guide, Business Plan, and policies, whilst adverts go out for your Responsible Individual and Registered Manager.
Step 6 Onboard a HR company or HR consultant in and around the time of your first hire. This will mean that post interview, if the applicant is successful, they can be offered a conditional offer of employment.
Step 7 As soon as you have your Responsible Individual and/or Registered Manager on board, a meeting should be held so that a detailed plan can be put together for the remainder of the registration process. There is still plenty of work to be done at this stage including the completion of the SC1 and SC2 forms, the rest of your organisation’s policies, getting the house ready, organising training, and recruiting the rest of your staff team (or at least a skeletal one).
Step 8 Once Your application fee has been paid and your application has been submitted to Ofsted, it’s simply a case of waiting for Ofsted to get in touch (please allow up to 16 weeks). To help ensure everything goes as smoothly as possible, everything submitted should be clear and thorough, and any queries/questions Ofsted may have should be attended to at the earliest available opportunity.
Step 9 Lots of the finishing touches can be getting completed whilst waiting for your Ofsted inspector to organise a site visit, such as the mapping of your chosen database with any forms and templates, delegating staff responsibilities, and completing other important documents such as your workforce development plan and buildings risk assessment.

How Can Changing Outcomes Help You?

We offer a viability assessment to all new clients wanting to set up a children’s home. It’s done over the course of two days, as there is lots of information to take in and potential Q&A’s. One of the days will be spent at the property hoping to register as a children’s home, so we can go through the functionality of the rooms and what work may need completing.

If you do not yet have a property, we will utilise this time to provide you with a vivid description of what to look for. The remaining time is spent going through what it takes to get you operational. This includes all aspects required by Ofsted to open up a children’s home including:

Your registration as a company, all relevant application forms, the statement of purpose, planning permission, the location risk assessment, and insurance.

Post the viability assessment, you will be provided with an individually tailored cash flow forecast, health and safety checklist, and a business plan template. Along with your detailed assessment and roadmap, we guarantee that you will be far more knowledgeable and confident about setting up a children’s home than when you started.

Take guidance from our experienced team by contacting us today.

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What Registration Documents are Required for the Process?

When opening up a children’s home there are specific documents that need to be submitted to Ofsted for registration. It’s imperative that these relate to your service and that your proposed Registered Manager and Responsible Individual fully believe in them. Ofsted inspectors frequently report that they come across documents that are not personalised to the home and/or where certain practices/procedures have not been implemented. Our experienced team can write these for you. Take a read below to see what we can provide.

A detailed business plan
A children’s guide
A statement of purpose
A cashflow forecast
A location risk assessment
An equalities policy
A prevention of bullying policy
Handover checklist to support transition from Ofsted Application to Ofsted Registration

A behaviour management policy (including restraint)
Your complaints procedure
Your missing child policy
Your safeguarding policy
Advertising for candidates
Providing application forms, job descriptions, person specifications, scenario work and interview questions
Leading the interviews for your Registered Manager and Responsible Individual, and carrying out all safer recruitment checks

We can also review your existing documentation and provide you with feedback. To have an informal discussion about how to complete these registration documents, be sure to contact us today.