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Children’s services

A home where a child can be a child

Somewhere safe, with the same adults, where school and friendships carry on and somebody notices what a young person actually wants.
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What actually happens

Not a waiting list. This is the shape of a referral, so a placing authority knows what we will and will not be able to tell them, and when.

Safe, known, and able to be a child.

Who looks after them

The question a placing authority asks first and a family asks second, so it gets a band of its own.

  • The same small team

    Wherever the rota allows it. For a child who has moved between placements, knowing which adult will be there on Thursday is not a detail — it is the whole thing.

  • What we check before anyone starts

    A child and a carer making toast together in an ordinary kitchen on a bright morning, both laughing at something. The child is completely at ease — leaning on the counter, mid-sentence. Ordinary, unremarkable, happy.
    Before anyone starts we will run the checks the regulations require for their role: identity, right to work, full employment history with any gap explained, references taken up directly, and an enhanced DBS check with the children’s barred list where the role is eligible for one. We have not recruited yet. The standard is set by regulation, not by us — the detail is in our safeguarding policy.

  • Trained, and supervised after that

    Training before anyone works unsupervised, and regular supervision so practice is seen rather than assumed. TBD — Bluebell has not yet confirmed the training programme, the qualification level or the refresher interval, and we would rather leave that open than describe it vaguely.

  • Where, and how many

    A child playing football in an ordinary back garden on a summer evening, a carer in goal and losing. Both laughing. A normal garden with a washing line and a shed. Nothing that identifies an address.
    TBD — locations, the number of places and the age range have not been supplied, and we will not publish a home’s address in any case. Ask us and you will get a straight answer for the young person you are placing.

What children’s services are

A children’s home is somewhere a young person lives when living at home is not possible or not safe. It is a house with adults in it who are there to look after them — not a facility, not a placement, and not a waiting room for something else. What makes one good is unglamorous: the same faces, a room that is theirs, school on time, and adults who notice when something is wrong before it becomes a crisis.

What we provide

Four things a young person should be able to take for granted. Everything else is built on top of them.

  • Safety

    Safeguarding first, and it is not a policy on a shelf

    Every adult vetted before they start, every concern recorded and acted on, and a route for a young person to raise something without going through the person it is about.

  • Stability

    The same adults, and a room that is theirs

    Children who have moved a lot need the opposite of movement. Continuity of staff is the thing that makes everything else possible, and it is the first thing to ask any provider about.

  • Education

    School carries on

    Education is not paused because a child has moved. Getting them there, keeping the place, and being the adult who turns up to the meeting.

  • Being heard

    Their view is written down, and it changes things

    A young person is entitled to say what they think about their own life and to have it recorded. Recording it is the easy half; the test is whether anything is different afterwards.

What a referral actually looks like

  1. The call

    What we can say the same day

    Whether we are able to consider a referral at all, and who will handle it. If the answer is no, you get it immediately rather than after a week of chasing.

  2. Matching

    The children already living there come first

    A match is not a vacancy. It is a judgement about the young people already in the house as much as the one being referred, and a provider who never says no is not matching.

  3. Before moving in

    A visit, and a plan written with them

    Nobody arrives at a house they have never seen. What that looks like in practice depends on the young person and the placing authority, and it is agreed rather than assumed.

  4. Afterwards

    Reviewed with them, not about them

    The plan is revisited with the young person in it. Changes get picked up and written down, and the record is the thing the next adult reads.

The question most care sites skip

What it costs

No figure yet. A fee quoted before we have read the referral is worse than none.

How a children’s placement is normally funded
  • Charged as a weekly fee per child, agreed with the placing local authority.
  • Anything additional — education support, therapeutic input, transport — is quoted separately. Ask for it by name.
  • Framework and spot-purchase terms differ. TBD — Bluebell has not confirmed which frameworks it is on.
  • Anyone who quotes a fee before reading the referral is guessing. Including us.
A child at a kitchen table showing a drawing to a carer who has stopped what they were doing to look at it properly. Daylight, an ordinary kitchen. The child is pleased with it; the adult is genuinely interested. Paperwork pushed aside at the far end of the table.

Regulation and registration

A children’s home in England is a regulated setting. A provider cannot lawfully run one without being registered with Ofsted, each home is registered and inspected individually, and its inspection reports are published on the Ofsted register for anyone to read.

TBD — Bluebell’s Ofsted registration and inspection ratings have not been supplied to this project, so neither is shown here. That is a gap in what we have been given rather than a statement about the service, and for this service it is the first thing you should ask us for — before anything else on this page. You can also search the Ofsted register yourself before you speak to us, and we would rather you did.

How support starts

Four steps, and you can stop at any of them.

  1. Talk to us

    One call or one short form. No assessment paperwork to start.

  2. We visit

    We come to you, meet the people who matter, and listen.

  3. A written plan

    Names, times and costs in writing before anything begins.

  4. Support begins

    The same small team wherever we can manage it, reviewed with you.

Before you get in touch

The questions we are asked about children’s services, answered as straight as we can while some of the detail is still open.

Can you take a referral this week?
Ask us and you will get a yes or a no, not a maybe. TBD — whether any home is open and taking referrals has not been confirmed to this project, so this page does not claim it either way.
What happens if a placement is not working?
We say so early, to you and to the young person, rather than letting it run until it ends badly. An unplanned move is one of the most damaging things that can happen to a child in care, and avoiding one starts with admitting a problem while there is still time to fix it.
Can a young person tell you they are unhappy?
Yes, and not only through the adult they live with. How a concern is raised, recorded and escalated is set out in our safeguarding policy, including the routes that go outside the home.

Not sure which service you need?

We will point you at the right service even if it is not one of ours.

Commissioners and professionals

Local authority enquiries

Framework, spot purchase and block contract enquiries go to the commissioning team, not the family inbox.

Partnership enquiries