Health and Safety in a Children’s Home

This course is grounded directly in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999, RIDDOR 2013, COSHH, and the Quality and Purpose of Care and Protection of Children Quality Standards from the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 — the framework Ofsted inspects children’s homes against.

Health and safety in a children’s home carries a genuine tension worth naming honestly from the outset: a children’s home is meant to be a genuine home, where children cook, bake, use scissors, climb on furniture, and gradually take on the everyday risks and responsibilities of growing up — not a sterile, risk-free institution. Genuinely good health and safety practice is what holds this balance, identifying and controlling real, preventable hazards without stripping a child’s home of everything that makes it feel like one.

Written for registered managers and residential care staff, this course covers across eighteen lessons the legal framework, the five steps of genuinely good risk assessment, balancing safety with a homely environment, kitchen and everyday domestic safety, slips, trips and falls, COSHH, first aid and medical emergencies, hot water and bathing safety, vehicle and minibus safety, off-site activities, lone working and staff personal safety, RIDDOR reporting, infection prevention and control, online and digital safety as part of the wider picture, safety for visitors and contact, and building a genuine health and safety culture.