Frontline Social Care
Responsible Individual
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When a child moves on from one of our homes to something less restrictive, it is never because of a technique. It is because a team of ordinary people were consistent for long enough to make it possible.
In Hertfordshire, one of those teams needs the person who will supervise, support and, when it is needed, challenge them: their Responsible Individual. The role is two days a week. If you want five, we will fill them.
THE ROLE IN BRIEF
Reports to: Head of Practice and Quality, Frontline Social Care, with direct access to the Director of Operations and to Ofsted on any regulatory matter. The post is the Responsible Individual under Regulation 26 of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015.
Line management: the Registered Manager, or Nominated Manager working towards registration, of the home.
Pattern: two days a week for the Responsible Individual role: one day each week in the home, and one day for supervision, oversight and administration, from our head office at Sopers House, Cuffley, or remotely.
Full-time option: a further three days a week across our wider children’s services portfolio, remote by preference. See “Two days, or five” below.
Contract: Permanent. Part-time (two days) or full-time (five days), with Responsible Individual-level on-call for the home.
ABOUT FRONTLINE SOCIAL CARE
Frontline Social Care works with Local Authorities across England to establish, mobilise, govern and operate Ofsted-registered children’s homes, including specialist single-occupancy homes for children and young people with the most complex needs. We build a home around one child: the property, the staff team, the PACE model and the care plan are designed for that child, in partnership with the placing authority, before the child moves in.
Frontline Social Care is part of Aetheria Group, a values-led, governance-driven group headquartered at Sopers House, Cuffley, Hertfordshire. We have a number of homes in mobilisation and a pipeline of further homes, alongside long-term collaborative commissions with Local Authorities. That growth is why this role can be two days or five.
THE HOME
The Hertfordshire home has its own staff team, its own manager and its own care plan, agreed with the placing authority before the child moves in. You will supervise the management of the home through Ofsted registration and inspection and into the settled, everyday good practice Ofsted expects to find when it returns. One day a week you will be in the home: in supervision with the manager, in the records, and with the child. This is not a Responsible Individual role in name only.
THE CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE WE CARE FOR
The children and young people in our homes have usually experienced abuse, neglect or exploitation, and have then experienced the further harm of repeated placement breakdown. Many have emotional and behavioural difficulties, neurodevelopmental needs, including autism, ADHD and learning disability. Many live with the effects of trauma: some self-harm, some experience suicidal thoughts, some go missing, and some have hurt other people. A number are subject to deprivation of liberty orders. Every one of them has been let down by adults and is living with the consequences.
We do not describe children as “challenging”. We describe what has happened to them, what they need, and what a good day looks like. And every child we care for has the same goal written into their plan: to move on to something less restrictive than where they are now. A shared home. A foster family. Sometimes their own family. Our job is to make that possible.
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WHAT WE ARE NOT
We do not run zero-tolerance homes. Reaching for the police every time a young person loses their temper hands them a criminal record and teaches them nothing. We work to the National Protocol on Reducing Unnecessary Criminalisation of Looked-after Children and Care Leavers: police involvement when it is genuinely needed, never as a substitute for good practice. Nor do we run homes without boundaries. Expectations are clear, consequences are proportionate and explained in advance, and every one of them is followed by repair. Children feel safest with adults who mean what they say.
WHAT THE RESPONSIBLE INDIVIDUAL ACTUALLY DOES HERE
The Regulations describe the role in a single phrase: to supervise the management of the home.
For this home, that means:
• Being the accountable individual to Ofsted for the home, from the Statement of Purpose and the Fit Person Interview onwards: the name on the registration, the first person the regulator calls, and the person who answers. • Supervising, supporting and challenging the Registered Manager or Nominated Manager: monthly supervision, a day each week in the home, and knowing the child well enough to notice when something is not right. • Making the decisions that sit above the home: admissions and matching, staffing and resources, whether the home is ready, and when to say no. • Ensuring that Regulation 44 independent visits happen every month and are acted on, that the Regulation 45 quality of care review says what is true, and that Regulation 40 notifications reach Ofsted and the placing authority on time. • Leading safeguarding escalation alongside our organisational Designated Safeguarding Lead: allegations and LADO referrals, missing episodes, complaints, and scrutiny of every use of restraint; and holding the local relationships that matter, from the placing authority and Independent Reviewing Officer to Hertfordshire’s multi-agency safeguarding arrangements and Ofsted’s regional inspectors.
TWO DAYS, OR FIVE: HOW THIS ROLE CAN WORK
The Responsible Individual role for this home is two days a week, and a two-day appointment is a complete role in its own right. If you would rather work full time, we are a growing organisation and the other three days will be real work, not filler: remote by preference, with our Head of Practice and Quality, across the children’s services portfolio. They could be built from any of the following:
• Regulatory documentation for homes in mobilisation: Statements of Purpose, children’s guides, policies, registration applications and Regulation 45 reviews. • Quality assurance: scheduled and dip-sample audits, tracking of Regulation 44 actions across homes, and analysis of outcomes data for the Head of Practice and Quality. • Mobilisation and registration support for new homes: practice readiness before application, evidence folders, and inspection preparation. • Local Authority and commissioner documentation: referral and matching responses, quality assurance submissions and tender contributions. • Teaching on our development programme: mentoring Nominated Managers and Nominated Responsible Individuals, and delivering induction and practice training. • Responsible Individual capacity for a further home as the portfolio grows, subject to Ofsted’s assessment of fitness for each nomination, with pay reviewed to match.
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Tell us at application whether you want two days or five, or would like to start with two and grow. We would rather build the role around the right person than lose them to a pattern that did not fit.
WHO WE ARE LOOKING FOR
Three routes into this role are welcome, and we mean it.
• Established Responsible Individuals with experience of supervising the management of children’s homes, including registration and inspection. • Registered Managers of homes judged Good or Outstanding who are ready for the step up, and senior Ofsted or Local Authority managers/leaders with direct responsibility for in-house children’s homes, such as Heads of Service, Service Managers and quality assurance leads. • If you have not yet held the Responsible Individual role, our Nominated Responsible Individual programme, led by our Head of Practice and Quality, this is how you get there: appointment as Nominated Responsible Individual, a structured and supervised practice period alongside experienced Frontline leaders, mentoring, and preparation for Ofsted’s Fit Person Interview.
Appointment as Responsible Individual follows Ofsted’s assessment of your fitness.
Whichever route you come by, you will bring:
• Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management for Residential Childcare (England), or a qualification that Ofsted recognises as equivalent. • Detailed working knowledge of the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015 (as amended), the nine Quality Standards, Ofsted’s Social Care Common Inspection Framework, Working Together to Safeguard Children (2026) and the PACE model. • Direct experience of children with complex needs, including children who self-harm, go missing or are subject to deprivation of liberty orders. • Credibility with Ofsted inspectors, commissioners and Local Authority stakeholders; clear and precise writing; calm under pressure. • Living within reach of the home in Hertfordshire for the weekly on-site day; full UK driving licence.
BEFORE YOU APPLY
This post involves regulated activity with children and is exempt from the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974. Appointment is subject to an enhanced DBS check including a check of the children’s barred list, to the full pre-employment checks required by Schedule 2 to the Children’s Homes (England) Regulations 2015, and to Ofsted’s assessment of your fitness as Responsible Individual, including interview.
OUR COMMITMENT
Frontline Social Care is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects every colleague to share that commitment. We practise safer recruitment. We are committed to anti-discriminatory and anti-racist practice in the care we provide and in how we recruit, and we welcome applications from people with lived experience of care. Reasonable adjustments will be made throughout the recruitment process on request.
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