Placement plan template. A printable placement plan — how this home will meet this child's needs day to day, written with the child rather than about them.
This is the paper version. CareOptix does the same job on a phone, with the record filed against the young person or the staff member automatically.
What is on the sheet
- The child, their social worker, their legal status and who holds parental responsibility
- What the child has said they want from living here, in their own words
- Daily arrangements: routines, education, health, contact, money, phone and going out
- What helps when things are hard, and what makes them worse, taken from the child and from people who know them
- Who does what — the home, the social worker, the school, health, and the child themselves
- How the plan was agreed, who has a copy, and when it will be looked at again
Why this record matters
A placement plan is the document that turns a care plan into how a Tuesday actually goes. The care plan says a child needs stability and education; the placement plan says who wakes them, what happens if they will not go to school, and who they ring when it goes wrong at nine at night.
It is written with the child. That is not a style preference — a plan a child has not been part of is a plan they have no reason to follow, and the first thing any inspector looks for is whether the young person recognises the document as being about their life.
The section that earns its place is what helps when things are hard. Staff turn over, agency staff cover nights, and the knowledge that this child needs to be left alone for twenty minutes and then offered a drink, rather than talked to immediately, is exactly what gets lost between shifts and exactly what prevents an incident.
The plan is distinct from the care plan and this page does not blur them. The care plan belongs to the local authority and the placement plan is the home's, and confusing the two is how a home ends up believing somebody else is reviewing something nobody is.
Use it with
- Daily log and key work recordA printable daily log and key work session record — what happened, what the child said and did, and what it means, written so a child could read it.
- Wishes and feelings recordA printable record of what a child has said they want — asked properly, recorded in their words, and followed up so they can see what happened.
- Incident recordA printable incident record — what led up to it, what happened, what the child said afterwards, and what the home is going to do differently.
- Missing from care recordA printable record for a child missing or away from the home without agreement — what was done, who was told, and what the child said when they came back.
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© 2026 CareOptix. Free to print, copy and use in your service. Not for resale. Please keep this notice.
Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. Written for children's homes in England. General guidance, not legal advice, and never a substitute for your own safeguarding procedures — if a child is at risk, act now. Checked October 2026.