How to Achieve Outstanding in a Children’s Home

Estimated reading time: 11 minutes

Achieving Outstanding in a children’s home is rarely about inspection alone. In my experience as a Registered Manager, it comes from leadership, consistency, resilience, relationships and keeping the child at the centre of everyday practice.

When people talk about achieving ‘Outstanding’ from Ofsted, it can sometimes sound like something that happens once a home has been running for years, and everything is already established.

My experience was very different.

I had the opportunity to open and manage a start-up children’s home designed for a complex solo placement, and together with the team we went on to achieve an Outstanding judgement.

Starting a home from scratch brings its own challenges. There are systems to build, a team to develop, and a culture to create from day one. When you are supporting a young person with complex needs at the same time, that responsibility becomes even greater.

For me, achieving Outstanding was never about aiming for an inspection outcome. It was about creating a home where the young person felt safe, staff felt supported, and everyone was committed to doing the right thing even when things felt difficult.

Looking back, there were lots of challenges along the way, but a few things made the biggest difference.

Leading by Example

One of the biggest things I learned as a Registered Manager is that leadership in residential care cannot sit behind a desk.

Your team look to you constantly. Not just for direction, but for reassurance, support and guidance, especially when things feel difficult.

For me, leading by example meant being present in the home, supporting staff through challenging incidents, and showing the kind of calm and reflective approach that I expected from the team.

Sometimes leadership means more than simply overseeing practice. It can mean getting up at 3am when something has happened in the home and being there alongside your staff, helping them navigate a difficult moment and making sure the young person is safe and supported.

It also means carrying some of the emotional weight that comes with the job. Staff often bring their worries, anxieties and frustrations to you, particularly after challenging incidents or difficult shifts. Part of leading well is listening to those concerns, helping staff process difficult moments, and supporting them to regain confidence in their practice.

While that responsibility can feel heavy at times, it is also one of the most rewarding parts of the role. Being able to support and develop a team, and seeing staff grow in confidence and skill, creates a real sense of connection and shared purpose. When a team knows you are there for them during the difficult moments, it builds trust, strengthens relationships and creates a culture where everyone feels supported.

Young people notice this too. They quickly recognise which adults are genuine, consistent and truly committed to supporting them.

Hard Work and Commitment

Residential childcare is incredibly rewarding, but it is also demanding work.

There will be long days, challenging behaviours, emotional conversations and moments where progress feels slow. As a Registered Manager, the role often stretches beyond standard working hours. Supporting a home, a team and a young person with complex needs can mean late evenings, early mornings and times where the job stays with you long after you have left the building.

Achieving outstanding practice does not come from avoiding those challenges. It comes from remaining committed through them, even when the going gets tough, and believe me, I have experienced those moments first-hand.

One of the things I learned quickly in the role was the importance of being able to reflect and, at times, rationally detach from situations. When you care deeply about the young people you support, it can be easy to carry the emotional weight of the work with you. Being able to step back, reflect objectively and process situations calmly is essential, both for good decision-making and for maintaining your own wellbeing.

That also means recognising when you need to take time for yourself. Residential care requires resilience, and sustaining that resilience means creating space to recharge and maintain balance outside of the role. I learned how crucial that is through experience. At times, I became so invested in the role and the young person I was supporting that I lost a little bit of myself in the work. Taking time to step back, reflect and look after your own wellbeing is not a weakness in this sector. It is essential if you want to lead effectively and continue supporting others over the long term.

Something that made a significant difference for me was having supportive senior leadership who were willing to listen and talk things through when needed. Being able to reflect on challenges, share concerns and work through decisions with experienced colleagues provides reassurance and perspective.

Outstanding homes are rarely built through quick solutions. They are built through hard work, reflection, strong support systems and a shared commitment to doing the right thing for the young people in our care.

Keeping Going When Things Get Tough

If there is one thing residential care teaches you, it is resilience.

When you are supporting young people with complex needs, progress rarely follows a straight path. In the home I managed, we were supporting young people who had stepped down from secure units and who presented with extremely high levels of need. This included violent and aggressive behaviours, missing from care episodes, serious and persistent self-harm, and frequent suicide attempts.

Working with children who are experiencing that level of distress can be incredibly challenging, both emotionally and professionally. There were times when incidents were difficult, routines were disrupted, and the progress we had worked hard to achieve felt fragile.

During those periods, leadership becomes even more important.

As a manager, you have to continue believing in the young person and supporting your staff team, even when situations feel particularly difficult. Your team take their cues from you. Remaining calm, reflective and solution-focused helps staff feel more confident in their own responses.

Some of the most meaningful progress often happens during those difficult periods. When staff remain patient, consistent and committed, young people begin to see that the adults around them are not going to give up on them, even when things are at their toughest.

Real Relationships Matter

At the heart of everything in residential care are relationships.

Many of the young people we support have experienced significant trauma, instability and broken trust in their lives. When you are supporting children who have stepped down from secure settings and who may present with extreme distress, aggression or self-harming behaviours, building trust does not happen overnight.

It takes patience, consistency and a genuine commitment to standing by them even during the most difficult moments.

In my experience, relationships were built in the small everyday interactions. Listening properly, remaining consistent with boundaries, supporting them through moments of crisis, and showing them that you were not going to give up on them when things became challenging.

For some of the young people I supported, there were times when their behaviour pushed adults away. What mattered most was demonstrating, through actions rather than words, that we were still there, still supporting them and still believing in them.

That consistency over time is what begins to build trust.

One of the most rewarding parts of the work for me has been seeing the long-term impact of those relationships. Some of the young people I supported during that time are now adults, and I still have positive relationships with them today. Seeing them grow, develop independence and reflect on how far they have come is something I will always be incredibly proud of.

Those relationships remind you why the work matters.

When young people know that the adults around them are genuine, consistent and truly care about them, it creates the foundation for real progress and change.

Creating the Right Culture

Something I always believed strongly in as a manager was creating the right culture within the home.

Culture does not come from policies or procedures. It comes from how people treat each other every day. As a leader, the way you communicate, listen and respond to your team sets the standard for the whole service.

For me, it was important that staff felt respected and valued. Residential care can be demanding work, and teams need to feel that their voices are heard. I always tried to make sure I was actively listening to staff, giving them the space to talk through situations, share ideas and reflect on practice. Often the best solutions come from those conversations.

At the same time, leadership also requires clear boundaries and direction. While it is important to be approachable and flexible, staff still need to feel that there is structure and guidance in place. In difficult situations especially, teams look to their manager to provide reassurance, clarity and a sense of direction.

Striking that balance between being supportive and being authoritative is important. Staff should feel comfortable coming to you with concerns, but they should also feel confident that when things become challenging there is someone there to guide the situation and help them navigate it. This was something that took me time to get right, and something I worked hard to develop during my time as a manager.

One of the things I reflected on during that time was how the team coped when I was not there. In such an intense environment, particularly within a complex solo placement, the home could sometimes feel very dependent on the manager’s presence. When I took leave, the pressure on the team became more visible and it highlighted just how demanding the work could be.

That experience taught me a lot about leadership. It reinforced the importance of building confidence within the team, creating clear structures and supporting staff to feel empowered in their decision-making. Leadership is a continual learning process, and reflecting on those moments helped me grow as a manager.

Anyone who has managed a complex residential placement will know that the responsibility can feel enormous at times. There are moments where the weight of decision-making and supporting both staff and young people sits heavily with you.

Keeping the Child at the Centre

Throughout my time managing the home, one thing always remained clear to me: everything we did had to come back to the young person.

When you are supporting children with complex needs, particularly those who have stepped down from secure settings, it can sometimes feel like the focus becomes incidents, risk management and safeguarding processes. While those things are incredibly important, it is just as important to remember that behind all of that is a young person who deserves stability, care and the chance to experience a childhood.

Keeping the child at the centre meant constantly asking ourselves what they needed in that moment. Sometimes that meant managing difficult behaviours safely and calmly. Other times it meant sitting and listening, having fun together, or creating opportunities for them to experience things they may never have had before.

It also meant recognising progress in ways that might seem small to others but were hugely significant for that young person. Building trust, regulating emotions more safely, engaging with activities or beginning to believe in their own future are all important steps.

For me, keeping the child at the centre helped guide every decision we made as a team. When that focus remains clear, the purpose of the work becomes much easier to hold on to, even during the most challenging periods.

Final Thoughts

I often remember people saying to me, “I can’t imagine doing your job.” And while I understood where that came from, my experience was that although residential care can be incredibly demanding, it is also deeply rewarding. Being able to support young people through some of the most challenging periods of their lives and seeing the progress they make over time is something that makes the hard work worthwhile.

Looking back on my time managing that start-up solo placement home, achieving an Outstanding judgement was never something that came from one moment or one inspection.

It came from the culture that was built day by day.

It came from leading by example, supporting staff through the difficult moments, working long hours when needed and continuing to believe in young people even when progress felt slow.

It came from building genuine relationships with both staff and the young people we supported, creating an environment where people felt respected, listened to and supported.

Residential childcare is demanding work and there will always be challenges along the way. But it is also one of the most meaningful and rewarding roles a person can have.

Seeing young people grow, develop and move into adulthood, and knowing that the relationships built during that time still exist today, is something I will always value.

For me, outstanding practice was never about chasing an inspection outcome. It was about creating a home where young people felt safe, valued and believed in.

When that becomes the focus, outstanding practice often follows naturally.

Sophie Lawrence

Former Registered Manager of a Children’s Home
Registrations and Compliance Manager

Delphi Care Solutions

Next steps: choose the option that fits your situation

If you are dealing with leadership pressure, inspection concerns or the feeling that standards are slipping into reactive practice, the right next step depends on the level of support you need now.

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Download our Ofsted Inspection Checklist for Children’s Homes for a clear, practical view of what inspectors are likely to look for before a visit. Get the Ofsted Inspection Checklist for Children’s Homes