Once a month, every children's home in England receives a visitor whose job is to judge it independently. It is one of the least known and most valuable safeguards in the care system, and we think families and professionals should know how it works.
The visits happen under Regulation 44 of the Children's Homes Regulations 2015, so the visitor is usually called a Reg 44 visitor. They are independent of the provider: not our employee, not our friend doing us a favour, but an experienced professional whose role is defined in law. Every month, sometimes unannounced, they spend time in the home, and they go wherever the truth is. They talk to children, in private, and take what children say seriously. They talk to staff. They read records: incidents, complaints, sanctions, medication, safeguarding. They look at the building. Then they write a report answering two questions set by the regulations: are children being effectively safeguarded, and does the home's care promote their wellbeing?
That report goes to Ofsted as well as to us. Inspectors read them, and so they should. It means that between inspections, there is always a recent, independent account of how the home is really doing.
What makes the system work is what a provider does with the findings. Our approach is straightforward: recommendations become actions, actions have owners and deadlines, and the next visit checks the loop closed. A Reg 44 visitor who keeps finding the same issue is describing a provider that does not listen. We make sure ours never has to write that sentence.
Welcoming scrutiny is a choice, and it says something about a provider's confidence. Our homes are visited, questioned and reported on twelve times a year by someone we do not control. We would not have it any other way.
