Records & plans
What is a placement plan?
A placement plan sets out how a children's home will meet a particular child's needs day to day — their routines, health and education arrangements, contact with family, and the support agreed for them.
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<img src="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/placement-plan/diagram.svg" alt="placement plan — diagram from CareOptix" width="880" height="620" loading="lazy">
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<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk/glossary/placement-plan">What is a placement plan?</a> — diagram by
<a href="https://careoptix.co.uk">CareOptix</a>
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</figure>It translates the care plan into this home's practice. The care plan says what the child needs; the placement plan says who does what, when, in this building, with these staff.
It should be built with the child rather than about them. A plan a child has never seen describes arrangements they are expected to live inside without having been asked, which is both poor practice and poor strategy.
It changes as the child does. A plan that has not been revised across a long placement has stopped describing the child who lives there.
What goes wrong in practice
- Written at admission and never revised as the child's needs changed.
- Produced without the child's involvement or knowledge.
- Generic routines repeated across children rather than arrangements specific to this one.
- Held in the office and unknown to staff on shift, who then work from custom rather than plan.