Events

Children who experience disrupted attachments, trauma, or care transitions often struggle with fragmented identities and unanswered questions about their past. Life story work helps fill those gaps, offering a structured and therapeutic space for young people to process their experiences. Done well, it can promote healing, strengthen relationships, and support placement stability. This training helps practitioners avoid tokenistic approaches by focusing on readiness, participation, and creative, child-centred methods that honour each individual’s story.

Is your service prepared for its next Ofsted inspection? This focused and highly practical session is designed to give leaders and practitioners the clarity, tools, and confidence they need to approach inspection with assurance. Led by Rachel Holden, former Senior HMI at Ofsted, the course offers a rare opportunity to hear directly from someone who has led inspections across a range of children’s services.

Transitions between placements, services or stages of care can be some of the most destabilising moments in a young person’s journey. This development session explores how leaders can ensure that transitions are managed with planning, stability and relational continuity, reducing the risk of disruption and emotional harm.

Ensuring a safe and competent workforce is a fundamental responsibility for providers of children’s homes, supported accommodation, and fostering services. This training will guide you through best practices in recruitment, screening, and vetting, helping you reduce risks and enhance safeguarding within your organization.

Notifications are a legal obligation and a core indicator of a service’s transparency, responsiveness, and safeguarding culture. This training empowers managers and providers to treat notifications as part of their broader safeguarding framework and quality assurance cycle. A robust understanding of notification duties helps ensure that serious incidents are not only reported but also used as learning opportunities to strengthen care.

Matching young people to the right supported accommodation placement is one of the most important decisions services make. Poorly matched placements can quickly lead to instability, safeguarding concerns and breakdowns in support. This development session explores how leaders can strengthen their matching processes by considering risk, independence readiness, compatibility and the wider needs of young people preparing for adulthood.

Drawing directly from inspection methodology, regulatory expectations and real-world practice, this training supports professionals to move beyond compliance anxiety and towards confident, evidence-informed preparation that reflects authentic, child-centred practice.

In social care environments, poorly handled staff issues can have far-reaching consequences, for the individuals involved, for clients, and for the organisation. Disciplinary and grievance procedures are not just about compliance; they are key to building a transparent, accountable, and values-led workplace. This session provides practical insight into conducting fair processes that are aligned with employment law, organisational policy, and regulatory expectations.

Traditional safeguarding approaches often focus on risks within the family/home, but young people are increasingly vulnerable to harm in wider social contexts, schools, peer groups, and online spaces. Contextual Safeguarding expands the lens of protection, helping professionals identify, assess, and respond to risks in the environments where young people spend their time.

A well-written report is more than a task, it’s a protective mechanism. Whether recording a keywork session, an incident, or daily case notes, the quality of writing directly affects the understanding, decisions, and outcomes for young people. This course helps staff recognise common pitfalls, adopt evidence-based structures and align their recording practice with safeguarding principles, legal requirements and regulatory expectations.

Managing allegations against staff, carers, or others involved in the care of children is one of the most sensitive and complex responsibilities in social care. Ensuring that concerns are handled legally, fairly, and in line with safeguarding principles is critical to protecting children while also supporting staff. This seminar provides essential guidance for professionals navigating these challenges, equipping them with the knowledge and confidence to respond effectively.

Quality reviews are a powerful tool for reflection, accountability, and growth. When completed with rigour and purpose, Reg 45 (Children’s Homes) and Reg 32 (Supported Accommodation) reports can demonstrate the impact of your service, identify areas for development, and provide clear evidence of how leadership is driving improvement. This session helps leaders move beyond compliance to create reviews that tell the story of their service, and shape its future.