Care records for children's homes, from the daily log to the manager's sign-off.

Daily logs and a handover the next shift actually reads

A daily log asks what happened, what the young person said in their own words — kept apart from the staff account — and how they seemed. A finished entry is never edited: a correction goes underneath and the original stays.

Handover covers the shift, or everything since you last read in, grouped by child — including the child nobody wrote about — with medication due or missed and what is coming up. Marking it read stamps the moment, so anything written later shows as new. A manager in handover presses “Needs me” on an entry to raise a follow-up with an owner and a date.

• End of day

  A summary drafted from the day's records, with the parts only a person knows asked for, then signed.

• Quick record

  A daily log or an incident from a phone with no signal, kept in an encrypted outbox on the device and sent when the signal comes back.

The manager's review: approve it or send it back

Incidents, physical interventions, safeguarding records, missing episodes and sanctions go to a manager before they count. The manager reads the whole record, with its evidence and the follow-ups it has raised, then approves it with an oversight note or sends it back to its author with a reason.

Approving freezes the record, with the approver's name, the time and their note written onto it. Anything learned later goes on as an addendum. Everyday records go straight on the record, so the queue is kept for the ones that need a second reading.

What needs doing, and who owns it

Records set things off: a young person coming back from missing raises a return home interview, a medication error raises a review. Each is a follow-up with an owner and a due date, set by the home's own procedures. Owners are reminded before it is due and chased when it is late.

The Care overview gives a manager the home's queue and each worker their own day: drafts to finish, records sent back and follow-ups in their name.

Incidents, physical intervention, missing and safeguarding

The Safety tab holds incidents, physical interventions, sanctions, safeguarding concerns, disclosures, self-harm, room searches and device checks. Restricted records are walled off in the database itself, so only people cleared for that child can read them.

A missing episode stays open while the young person is away, and a child reported missing at high risk tells every manager at the home and the Director at once. A record can be marked for your regulator's attention: Careframe prompts a manager and keeps a signed note that it was done. Anyone on shift can use “I've spotted something” to put an observation on the record and alert the managers.

Care plans, key work and how things are going

Each young person has six plans — placement, care, risk assessment, behaviour support, education and family contact — kept as locked versions with review dates. Key work goals carry progress on the home's own scale, and a monthly review drafts itself from the month's facts for the keyworker to finish.

“How things are going” is Careframe's own check-in: the young person picks their answer first for each area of life, the worker adds theirs, and the record draws each area over time. It is the home's to reword or replace.

Medication with stock, witnesses and counts

Each medicine has its dose times and a running stock. Only staff signed off for medication can record a dose, and a controlled drug needs a second signed-off person as witness, signing on their own account. A cabinet count that does not match raises a manager's follow-up and a warning on the next dose.

The child's voice, complaints and their own record

What a young person says is kept in their own words, grouped by theme. “You said, we did” comes back on a date you choose to ask whether the change worked. A worker reads the record with the young person, who can agree, disagree or comment; a disagreement raises a follow-up so the home answers beside their words. Complaints record the outcome and when the child was told.

From admission to leaving, and the daily registers

A referral is matched against your Statement of Purpose before a decision, and admitting sets up the record, the keyworker's access and first-days follow-ups. A discharge closes what only made sense while they lived here and lists what is still to do. The full record pack is the whole file in one download.

Daily care holds the registers about the house: meals with dietary needs in view, a visitors book with a reason for every visit, and a log of calls, emails and meetings with families and professionals.

Questions people ask

Read next

• Inspection ready
• Forms and procedures
• Switching to Careframe
• Security