Residential care
Residential care homes offer children and young people a safe place to live together with other children away from home. They provide care and support and, in some cases, education.
Children and young people may reside in residential care in certain circumstances, including where the child:
- is subject to a Compulsory Supervision Order under the Children’s Hearings (Scotland) Act 2011 with a residence requirement.
- is being provided with accommodation under Section 25 of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 (a voluntary agreement).
- is placed by a local authority which holds a permanence order made under Section 80 of the Adoption and Children (Scotland) Act 2007.
In Scotland, care home services for children and young people are provided by local authorities, private firms, voluntary organisations and health boards. Children in a residential care home will have a plan for their care for the people looking after them to follow.
Standards of residential care
The Care Inspectorate inspects care home services against the Health and Social Care Standards which came into effect in April 2018.
The standards set out what is expected when using health, social care or social work services in Scotland. They seek to provide better outcomes for everyone; to ensure that individuals are treated with respect and dignity, and that the basic human rights we are all entitled to are upheld.
Improving residential care
We are committed to keeping The Promise by 2030. The Promise arises from the conclusions to the Independent Care Review which ran from 2017 to 2020.
The Children (Care and Justice) (Scotland) Act 2024 will make changes to the law in relation to the care of children and young people and contains provisions to ensure we can improve their experiences of Scotland’s care and justice systems. For residential care this will particularly be in relation to cross-border placements where a child or young person from England, Wales or Northern Ireland is placed in a care setting in Scotland.