Guidance Care
Parents and families.
If someone in your family lives in one of our homes, this explains how we work with you, what you can expect, and who to speak to.
Where you fit
A child moving into a children's home does not stop being part of their family. You may still be closely involved in decisions, or your involvement may be limited by the plan the local authority has made. Either way you are someone we expect to deal with honestly.
One thing shapes everything below: each child has a care plan and a placement plan, agreed with their local authority. Those plans decide what contact looks like, who is involved in what, and what information can be shared. We follow them. That is why this page explains how things work rather than promising what will happen in your case – the honest answer to most specific questions is that it depends on the plan, and the person who can tell you is your child's social worker.
Keeping in touch
Contact with family matters and we will support it wherever the plan allows. In practice that can mean phone and video calls, visits, letters, and time at home.
How often, in what form, and whether anyone else needs to be present are set by the care plan, not by us. If you think the arrangements are not working, say so – to the home or to the social worker. Arrangements get reviewed.
There is a separate page written for young people about staying connected with the people who matter to them.
Meetings and reviews
Your child's care is reviewed regularly, and those reviews are chaired by an Independent Reviewing Officer from the local authority rather than by us. Where the plan provides for it, you are invited and your views are recorded.
If you cannot attend, you can send your views in writing and ask for them to be read. You can ask for a copy of what was decided. If you do not know when the next review is, the social worker holds that.
School and health
We work with schools, colleges, alternative education providers and health services. Day to day that means getting a child to education, supporting them with it, and registering them with local health services.
Where you hold parental responsibility, decisions about education and significant health matters involve you, through the local authority. Tell us and the social worker if there is something about your child's health, routine or history that would help the people caring for them.
If you are worried about your child's safety
Tell the home or the social worker straight away. You can also contact the local authority children's services directly, and you do not need to go through us first.
If a child is in immediate danger, call 999. Our keeping children safe page sets out the routes in full.
If you are unhappy with something
Tell us. You can raise a concern with the home's Registered Manager, or make a formal complaint, and you do not have to go to the manager first if your concern is about them – you can go to the Responsible Individual, Lorraine Anderson.
Our concerns and complaints page sets out the steps, and the people outside Guidance Care you can go to, including Ofsted.
Your child can also ask for an advocate, who is independent of us and of the local authority. We will not treat your child differently because you or they have complained, and the law requires that of us.
Who to contact
For day-to-day matters, the home your child lives in. For decisions about the care plan, contact, or information sharing, your child's social worker – they hold those, not us.
For anything else, email info@guidancecare.co.uk or call 01253 530008, 9am–5pm Monday to Friday. That line is for general enquiries and is not a route for reporting something urgent.