What the Growth of Children's Homes Means for Induction and Early Career Support

This informal CPD article ‘What the Growth of Children's Homes Means for Induction and Early Career Support’ was provided by Omega Life Training, a provider of training programs in the fields of health, social care, and education.

The children's residential care sector in England has expanded quickly. As of 31 March 2025 there were 4,010 children's homes of all types registered, offering 15,700 places. That is a 15 per cent increase, or 520 homes, on the previous year's figure of 3,490 [1]. Growth on that scale is often discussed as a question of placement sufficiency or market structure. It is also, and perhaps more immediately, a workforce question. Every new home requires a staff team, and a significant proportion of the people joining those teams will be new to residential childcare.

The shape of that growth matters. Among children's homes of the main subtype, those registered within the year had a mean of three places, compared with a mean of four across all homes of that subtype, and 84 per cent of children's homes across all types are privately owned [1]. Smaller settings can be excellent for children, offering a more individual and less institutional experience. They do, however, change the conditions in which new staff learn. In a small team, each individual carries more of the culture of the home, and a new starter has fewer experienced colleagues alongside them on any given shift. Learning by observation, which is how a great deal of practice knowledge has traditionally been passed on, becomes less reliable simply because there is less of it available.

Current regulations for new staff

The regulatory baseline for supporting new staff is already clear. The registered person must ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction, that permanent appointment follows the satisfactory completion of a period of probation, that each employee has a job description setting out their responsibilities, and that all employees undertake appropriate continuing professional development, receive practice-related supervision from a person with appropriate experience, and have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year [2]. Alongside this, care staff must attain the Level 3 Diploma for Residential Childcare (England), or an accepted equivalent, within two years of starting work in a care role [3].

Two years is an outer limit rather than a development plan. A member of staff who begins work in a children's home is expected to keep children safe, respond to distress, manage risk and build trusting relationships from their very first shift, long before that qualification is complete. The period between induction and qualification is therefore where most early career risk sits, and it is the period least well served by training that consists only of mandatory modules completed at a desk.

What tends to work in that window is closer to apprenticeship than to classroom learning. New staff benefit from shadowing experienced colleagues and, crucially, from having decisions explained to them afterwards. Understanding why a colleague chose to sit with a young person rather than intervene, or why a particular conversation was delayed until the following morning, teaches professional judgement in a way that a policy document cannot. Structured, regular supervision in the first year gives a new member of staff somewhere to bring the situations they are unsure about, while they are still unsure, rather than months later during an appraisal.

Importance of leadership

Leadership is the deciding factor in whether this happens consistently. The leadership and management standard requires the registered person to enable, inspire and lead a culture that helps children aspire to fulfil their potential and promotes their welfare. In particular, it requires them to ensure that staff have the experience, qualifications and skills to meet the needs of each child, that the home has sufficient staff to provide care for each child, and that the home's workforce provides continuity of care to each child [4]. Continuity is a useful lens for a growing sector. Rapid expansion draws experienced staff into new settings and new roles, and the homes they leave behind must then develop replacements at pace. Induction quality is not a side issue in that cycle; it is what determines whether growth strengthens or dilutes the workforce.

Ofsted's own direction of travel reinforces the point. Setting out changes to the inspection of local authority children's services from April 2026, the inspectorate stated that the professional development of senior leaders is as important as that of their staff, and that local authorities must have a learning offer that meets the needs of all leaders and practitioners [5]. Although that framework applies to local authorities, the principle carries directly into residential provision. A registered manager who is themselves supported to keep learning is far better placed to develop the people around them.

Inspection outcomes suggest this is where the sector's effort should concentrate. Of all children's homes given a full inspection in 2024 to 2025, 81 per cent received a good or outstanding judgement for how well children and young people are helped and protected, while 74 per cent did so for the effectiveness of leaders and managers [1]. Frontline practice, in other words, is generally stronger than the leadership infrastructure holding it in place. In a sector adding hundreds of homes a year, that is the gap most likely to widen.

Final thoughts

Growth in children's residential care is not in itself a problem to be solved. More capacity, well run, means more children placed close to home and in settings suited to their needs. Whether that promise is realised depends less on the number of homes registered than on how well the people working in them are brought into the profession. Services that treat induction and the first two years as a genuine development period, supported by supervision and by leaders who are learning themselves, will build teams capable of delivering safe and consistent care. Those that treat the qualification deadline as the plan will find that compliance and competence are not the same thing. 

We hope this article was helpful. For more information from Omega Life Training, please visit their CPD Member Directory page. Alternatively, you can go to the CPD Industry Hubs for more articles, courses and events relevant to your Continuing Professional Development requirements.

References

[1] Ofsted (2025) 'Main findings: children's social care in England 2025'. Available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/childrens-social-care-in-england-2025/main-findings-childrens-social-care-in-england-2025

[2] Legislation.gov.uk (2015) 'The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, regulation 33: Employment of staff'. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/541/regulation/33

[3] Legislation.gov.uk (2015) 'The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, regulation 32: Fitness of workers'. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/541/regulation/32

[4] Legislation.gov.uk (2015) 'The Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, regulation 13: The leadership and management standard'. Available at: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/541/regulation/13

[5] Ofsted (2026) 'What to know about the April 2026 updates to inspection of local authority children's services'. Available at: https://socialcareinspection.blog.gov.uk/2026/03/20/what-to-know-about-the-april-2026-updates-to-inspection-of-local-authority-childrens-services/