Care software / Children's homes
Children's homes
Software built for how a children's home is actually inspected.
Placement records, Regulation 44 visits, missing episodes, staff training and safeguarding, in one place, with the evidence linked to the record it proves.
Direct to the developer
You brief the person who writes the code. No account manager in between.
Fixed written price
Scope and cost agreed in writing before any work begins. No hourly drift.
You own everything
Code, hosting and data in your name from day one. No lock-in, ever.
Nottingham & Leicester
On site across the East Midlands, or online anywhere in the UK.
Why generic care software does not fit a children's home
Most care software is written for adult social care and then sold to children's services with the labels changed. The gap shows up quickly, because a children's home is inspected against a different framework, keeps different records, and answers to a different regulator.
Ofsted looks at the Social Care Common Inspection Framework. A product built around CQC quality statements will not have a place to put a Regulation 44 report, a missing-from-home episode, or an independent visitor's recommendation and the actions that followed it.
What that means in practice
Homes end up keeping the Ofsted-specific parts in a parallel set of folders and spreadsheets, which is exactly the split that makes inspection stressful. The real record lives in two places, and only one of them is searchable.
What gets built
The parts that matter for this kind of service
Regulation 44 visits
Monthly independent visit reports logged with recommendations, who owns each action, and whether it was actually closed.
Placement and care records
Placement plans, risk assessments, key-work sessions and daily logs against each young person, in one timeline.
Missing episodes
Missing-from-home events with return interviews, notifications and follow-up, recorded as one linked chain rather than four documents.
Safeguarding and LADO
Concerns, referrals and outcomes tracked with the full audit trail, so the sequence of who knew what and when is never in doubt.
Staff, training and DBS
Who is qualified for what, what expires when, and the reminders that arrive weeks before anything lapses.
Inspection evidence pack
The whole picture exported in one click, in a shape an inspector can actually read.
Built to the standards you are judged against
I am an independent developer. I am not affiliated with, endorsed by or acting on behalf of any regulator named here.
Questions
Questions from children's homes providers
Do you understand the Social Care Common Inspection Framework?
Yes, and it is the reason this is a separate page. Building for SCCIF is not the same as building for CQC, and software that treats them as interchangeable will leave you keeping the difference in a spreadsheet.
Can it handle several homes under one provider?
Yes. Each home keeps its own records and its own registered manager view, with a group-level dashboard across all of them. See the groups and consultancies page.
What about data protection for young people's records?
Access is restricted by role at the database level, so a member of staff sees only the young people they support. Data stays in the UK or EU, and you hold the accounts in your own name.
Get started
Tell me how your service actually runs.
Every service is shaped slightly differently. Describe yours and I will tell you honestly what is worth building and what is not.