A children’s home needs more than a completed training matrix. Staff must be introduced to the role properly, supervised in relation to their practice, supported to develop and appraised at least once each year. Regulation 33 of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 sets the framework for those duties.
The purpose is not paperwork for its own sake. Good staff development helps adults understand each child, recognise risk, make consistent decisions and improve the quality of care. It also gives managers a structured way to identify strengths, address poor practice and check whether learning is changing what happens in the home.
This guide explains each part of Regulation 33 and turns it into a practical system for registered providers and managers.
Key point:
Attendance at training is only one source of evidence. Supervision, observation, feedback, records and outcomes should show that staff can apply learning safely.
Images in this guide are AI-generated illustrations, not photographs of Welcare premises or evidence of a particular home’s facilities.
What Regulation 33 requires
Regulation 33 requires the registered person to ensure that all employees:
undertake appropriate continuing professional development
receive practice-related supervision from a person with appropriate experience
have their performance and fitness to perform their roles appraised at least once every year.
The registered person must ensure that each employee completes an appropriate induction and has a job description. Each permanent appointment must be subject to satisfactory completion of probation. The probation provision should not be described as applying identically to every temporary engagement.
A disciplinary procedure must provide for suspension where necessary for children’s safety or welfare. It must identify failure to report abuse or suspected abuse, whether past or present, to an appropriate person as a potential ground for disciplinary proceedings. Regulation 33 identifies that person as the registered person, an Ofsted officer, an officer of the local authority where the home is located, or a police officer. The home’s safeguarding procedure must also address neglect and immediate protective action.
These requirements connect with Regulation 31 staffing arrangements, Regulation 32 fitness of workers and the leadership and management standard.
Induction for new employees
Induction should prepare a new employee to work safely in this particular home. A generic company presentation or online course does not, by itself, explain the children, building, local risks and daily practice.
A strong induction usually covers:
- the home’s statement of purpose and children’s guide;
- the needs, communication and plans of children they will support;
- safeguarding, allegations, whistleblowing and escalation;
- missing-from-care procedures and local protocols;
- behaviour support and the home’s approach to restraint;
- medicines responsibilities and competency limits;
- recording, confidentiality and data protection;
- fire safety, evacuation and first aid;
- health and safety, food safety and infection control;
- complaints and children’s access to advocacy;
- professional boundaries, online conduct and use of personal devices;
- equality, identity, culture and anti-discriminatory practice;
- shift routines, handover and on-call arrangements; and
- how supervision, probation and concerns about practice will be managed.
The home should decide which activities require observation or competency assessment before the worker can perform them alone. Until then, the rota and deployment should reflect that the person is still learning.
The Regulation 34 safeguarding policy guide explains the local procedures that every new employee must understand.
Making induction individual
Induction should respond to previous experience. A qualified worker who is new to the organisation may not need the same foundation teaching as somebody entering residential care for the first time, but both need a local induction.
The manager should identify:
- prior qualifications and experience;
- knowledge gaps relevant to the home’s purpose;
- learning or accessibility needs;
- tasks requiring local sign-off;
- the named person providing support;
- planned shadow shifts; and
- a date for reviewing completion.
Agency and bank workers also need enough local induction to work safely. The depth may differ according to their role and familiarity, but employment status does not remove the need to know emergency and safeguarding procedures.
The probationary period
Regulation 33 requires each permanent appointment to be subject to satisfactory completion of probation. It does not prescribe one universal length. The provider should define the period and assessment arrangements clearly, while meeting induction, supervision and suitability duties for all relevant workers.
Probation should be an active assessment, not a date that passes automatically.
Reviews can consider:
- reliability and professional conduct;
- relationships with children;
- understanding of plans and risk;
- quality and timeliness of records;
- response to feedback;
- safeguarding knowledge;
- teamwork and communication;
- training and qualification progress; and
- whether the worker is suitable for the role.
Concerns should be specific, evidenced and discussed promptly. The employee should understand the required improvement, support offered, timescale and possible outcome. Any extension should be reasoned and recorded.
Clear job descriptions
County lines exploitation can create a powerful trap. A child may be told they owe money after drugs or cash are stolen, threatened with violence, filmed being humiliated or made to believe that police and family will reject them. At the same time, the group may offer status, income, friendship or protection. These mixed pressures help explain why a child may return after being found.
Questions to Ask After a Missing Episode
Every employee should have a job description that outlines responsibilities. It should match the role the person actually performs and the home’s current structure.
A useful job description clarifies accountability, safeguarding duties, recording expectations, decision-making authority, line management, on-call responsibilities and any role-specific competencies. It should also state the employee’s responsibility to raise concerns and cooperate with investigations.
Job descriptions should be reviewed when duties change. Asking somebody to act as a shift leader or deputy for a sustained period without updating expectations can create confusion about authority and accountability.
Continuing professional development
Continuing professional development, often shortened to CPD, is broader than mandatory refresher training. It can include coached practice, team learning, research, reflective discussion, qualification work, feedback from children and learning from incidents.
A development plan should draw on:
- the home’s statement of purpose;
- the workforce plan;
- the needs of children currently placed;
- supervision and appraisal;
- incident, complaint and restraint analysis;
- changes in law, guidance or local procedures;
- inspection findings;
- audits and Regulation 44 reports; and
- the employee’s career and qualification needs.
The manager should check impact. After training, can the person explain the learning, apply it in a scenario, demonstrate the task and improve their records or direct work? If not, further coaching or assessment may be needed.
Practice-related supervision
Every employee must receive practice-related supervision from someone with appropriate experience. Supervision should create protected space to examine the employee’s work, not just exchange operational updates.
Topics may include:
- the experiences and progress of individual children;
- decisions made since the last session;
- safeguarding concerns and professional curiosity;
- relationships, boundaries and emotional responses;
- incidents, missing episodes, restraints and complaints;
- record quality;
- workload, health and wellbeing;
- training and qualification progress;
- feedback, strengths and areas for improvement; and
- agreed actions with owners and deadlines.
Supervision should remain centred on practice and children. A separate team meeting, handover or casual conversation is useful, but it does not normally replace an individual supervisory discussion.
How often should supervision take place?
Who can provide supervision?
The supervisor must have appropriate experience. In many homes this will be the registered manager, deputy or an experienced line manager. The provider should consider competence, conflicts of interest and the person’s ability to challenge practice constructively.
Where staff provide clinical or specialist services, they may also need supervision from a suitably qualified professional. Managerial supervision and clinical supervision serve different purposes, so one should not be assumed to replace the other.
The registered manager also needs regular, effective supervision. Governance arrangements should say who provides it and how provider-level concerns are escalated.
Recording supervision
A supervision record should be accurate, proportionate and useful. It should show the date, participants, significant discussion, analysis, decisions and actions. Both parties should have an opportunity to confirm accuracy.
Records should distinguish fact, professional opinion and agreed action. Sensitive personal information about children should be limited to what is necessary and stored securely. The home should be able to find previous actions and show whether they were completed.
Repeated identical entries, vague statements such as “all fine”, or unsigned records weaken assurance. They may also conceal unresolved concerns.
Make an Action Specific Enough to Review
“Improve recording” is difficult to follow up. A more useful illustrative action is: review an anonymised example together, agree how observations and interpretations should be separated, arrange any needed coaching, and sample later records at an agreed review point.
The follow-up should check whether practice improved, not just whether the employee attended training. Keep the supervision record proportionate and avoid copying unnecessary detail from a child’s case record.
Annual appraisal
Each employee’s performance and fitness to perform their role must be appraised at least once every year. An appraisal should look across the period, not simply repeat the most recent supervision.
Evidence can include:
- progress against previous objectives;
- direct observation and audits;
- quality of care and records;
- attendance, reliability and conduct;
- training and qualification progress;
- feedback from colleagues and professionals;
- the employee’s reflective account; and
- where reasonable and appropriate, the views of children.
The outcome should identify achievements, required improvements, development goals and any change in responsibilities. It should also confirm whether the person remains fit and competent for the role.
An annual appraisal does not remove the need to address concerns when they arise. Serious issues should never wait for the appraisal date.
Disciplinary procedure and suspension
The registered person must have a disciplinary procedure. It must allow an employee to be suspended where necessary in the interests of children’s safety or welfare.
Suspension is a protective measure that may be considered while concerns are assessed. It is not automatically a finding of wrongdoing. Decisions should follow employment law, safeguarding procedures and advice appropriate to the case.
The procedure must also address failure to report suspected abuse or neglect.
Staff should know:
- what must be reported;
- who receives the report;
- how to escalate if the usual manager is involved or does not act;
- how whistleblowers are protected; and
- that withholding a concern can result in disciplinary action.
Immediate safeguarding action and referral to external agencies should not be delayed by an internal employment process.
Responding to poor performance
Poor performance may arise from unclear expectations, limited training, workload, health, conduct or a mismatch between the person and the role. The manager should identify the issue accurately before choosing a response.
A fair improvement process normally records:
- the specific standard not met;
- evidence and examples;
- the impact or potential impact on children;
- the employee’s explanation;
- support, training or adjustment offered;
- the required improvement;
- review dates; and
- what happens if improvement is not achieved.
Where the concern raises safeguarding or suitability questions, the manager should use the home’s safeguarding policy and consider external notifications or referrals. The disciplinary process should not be used to contain a matter that requires wider action.
Learning from incidents and feedback
Staff development should respond to what happens in the home. After a serious incident, complaint, medication error, missing episode or restraint, managers should identify learning at individual, team and organisational levels.
That may lead to:
- individual reflection in supervision;
- a team practice discussion;
- refreshed training;
- revised guidance or risk assessment;
- observation of practice;
- a competency reassessment; or
- changes to staffing or leadership.
The purpose is to improve care and prevent recurrence, not to produce a lesson-learned sentence with no follow-through.
The workforce plan and training matrix
What Ofsted may examine
Inspectors may review:
- induction and probation records;
- job descriptions;
- supervision frequency and quality;
- annual appraisals;
- training and qualification records;
- competency checks;
- disciplinary and capability records;
- the workforce plan;
- staff turnover and vacancies;
- incident analysis;
- children’s feedback; and
- evidence that leaders addressed weak practice.
The strongest evidence is consistency between records, staff explanations, children’s experiences and observed care.
Common weaknesses
Weak systems often rely on course attendance while supervision and observation remain superficial. Other problems include missing probation reviews, appraisals completed late, identical supervision notes, actions that are not followed up and night or bank staff receiving less support.
Another warning sign is separating training from the home’s real risks. A complete generic matrix may still be inadequate if nobody has developed competence for the children currently placed.
Regulation 33 audit checklist
- Every new employee has a role-specific induction plan.
- Tasks requiring competency sign-off are identified.
- Permanent appointments have satisfactory probation assessments.
- Every employee has a current job description
- CPD reflects the home's purpose and children's needs.
- Supervision is practice-related and provided by an experienced person.
- Frequency reflects role, experience and risk.
- Supervision actions are tracked to completion.
- Every employee receives an appraisal at least annually.
- The disciplinary procedure covers protective suspension.
- Failure to report suspected abuse or neglect is addressed.
- Learning from incidents and complaints changes practice.
- Workforce plan, training matrix and staff files agree.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
No. It requires practice-related supervision by a person with appropriate experience. The provider should set and follow a frequency that is suitable for the role, the employee and the home's circumstances.
Usually not. Team meetings support shared communication, while supervision provides individual analysis, challenge, support and accountability for practice.
Regulation 2 gives employment a broad meaning, including paid and unpaid work, contracts for services and volunteers. Regulation 33's development, practice-related supervision and appraisal duties should not be avoided by labelling someone agency staff. The home and agency should agree how those duties are met and evidenced; a contract does not remove the registered person's responsibility.
Appraisal and supervision have different purposes. Annual appraisal reviews performance and fitness across the year. Ongoing supervision addresses current practice, decisions, wellbeing and actions.
The disciplinary procedure must set out action that may be taken. The home must also respond to the safeguarding concern itself, including external referral and notification where required.