Practice
Recording in children’s homes: writing records a young person could read
Pelp Care · · 7 min read
Records in children’s homes do a lot of work. They help staff understand what happened on the last shift, they support decisions about a young person’s care and they form part of the evidence Ofsted looks at during inspection. They also do something less obvious: they become part of a child’s story.
Many people who grew up in care later ask to see their records. What staff write today may be read years from now by the young person it describes. This guide covers practical habits that make records more useful for the team and more respectful to the child.
Write as if the young person will read it
A helpful test before saving any entry is to ask how it would feel to read it about yourself. Records should be honest, including about difficult days, but they should never be careless, mocking or written in a way that defines a child by their behaviour.
Use the young person’s name rather than labels. Describe what happened and how they seemed, and include their own words and views where you can. Record positives as carefully as concerns: achievements, good moments and things they enjoyed matter to the story too.
Describe behaviour, not character
Phrases such as “kicked off”, “attention seeking” or “manipulative” say more about the writer than about what happened. They are also not useful to the next member of staff.
Instead, describe what you observed, what led up to it, how you and colleagues responded and how the young person was afterwards. That gives managers and other professionals something they can actually work with.
- What happened, in order, and roughly when
- What seemed to trigger or come before it
- What staff did, and how the young person responded
- How the situation ended and how the young person was afterwards
- Anything that needs to be followed up or shared
Capture the young person’s voice
Inspectors and social workers want to understand the child’s experience of living in the home, not only the adults’ view of it. Recording what a young person says about their day, their plans, their worries and their wishes helps show that their views are heard and acted on.
Where a young person disagrees with something recorded about them, it is good practice to note their view alongside the record.
Connect records to plans
Daily logs are most useful when they link to the young person’s placement plan, risk assessments and goals. If a plan says a young person is working on attending school, the daily record should make it easy to see whether that is happening and what is helping or getting in the way.
When information sits in separate folders or systems, patterns are harder to see. A manager preparing for a review or an independent visitor’s report should not have to read every entry from scratch to understand how things are going.
Incidents, missing episodes and safeguarding
Significant events need prompt, accurate recording and the right notifications, following your home’s procedures and statutory guidance. The daily log should reference these records clearly, without repeating sensitive detail in places where it does not belong.
Be especially careful with information about other young people. Each child’s record should be about them; details about others should be kept to what is necessary and handled according to your policies.
How technology can help
Good recording takes time, and shifts in children’s homes are busy. Digital tools can help by making it quicker to record in plain language, linking entries to plans and incidents and helping managers see changes across days and weeks.
Pelp is being designed for both adult and children’s social care, with recording that stays in the professional’s own words and is checked by them before it is saved. Whatever system you use, the principles in this guide remain the same.