Skylark Training

Practical, face-to-face learning for the people who care for and support children in residential homes.

Benchmark helps teams reflect on the care they provide, the language they use, the records they write and the culture they build. Children’s lived experience, safe care and reflective leadership run through the programme.

Modules can be delivered individually or as a whole, with half-day and full-day sessions shaped around your needs.

Residential support workers, seniors and shift leaders; deputies and registered managers; responsible individuals and senior leaders.

We work with new teams preparing to open a home, established services preparing for inspection, and homes seeking support following inspection findings, complaints or safeguarding concerns.

The foundations of good residential care.

Ground your team in the purpose of the home, children’s rights and the everyday evidence that shows children are known, safe and listened to.

The statement of purpose, matching and the promises made to children. Explore the Children’s Homes Regulations, Quality Standards and Guide alongside children’s voice and influence.

Understand the role of Ofsted, Regulation 44 visits and internal quality assurance. Reflect on how records help or harm children’s experience of being understood, with practical writing exercises using anonymised examples.

Relationships, trauma and the meaning of behaviour.

Connect attachment, trauma-informed care and reflective practice with what happens on shift.

• Attachment, disrupted relationships, family time and transitions.
• Regulation, dysregulation and what adults communicate when children are struggling.
• The secure base model and PACE: playfulness, acceptance, curiosity and empathy.
• Sensitive practice in everyday routines, supported by reflective exercises.

For: all staff and leaders.

Leadership, inspection and safeguarding oversight.

For people with supervisory or leadership responsibilities who want to strengthen confidence, judgement and the ability to evidence a safe, open culture.

• Managing inspection, professional dialogue and respectful challenge.
• Allegations management, feedback and organisational learning.
• Safeguarding oversight, safer recruitment and testing culture after appointment.
• Supervision, professional curiosity and the quality of care review.
• Children’s rights and visible child-centred leadership.

Focused sessions that respond to your home’s needs, risks and inspection context.

Available as stand-alone courses, additions to Benchmark or part of an improvement plan.

Write records that are accurate, proportionate, respectful and useful. Explore language, children’s voices and how recording shapes a child’s story.

Maintain a safeguarding culture and ethos. Recognise drift and defensiveness, strengthen professional curiosity and build habits that keep children visible and adults accountable.

A full-day session on challenge and compromise: preparing evidence, leading calmly during inspection and turning findings into learning afterwards.

Explore what we consider serious, professional judgement and clear, timely notifications that explain the facts, context, action and learning.

Understand developmentally appropriate, concerning and harmful behaviour, and support proportionate, safeguarding-led responses that preserve dignity and relationships.

Topics include missing from home, child exploitation, safeguarding and risk, legal care orders, deprivation of liberty and restrictive practice, memory-making, and longer PACE programmes.

A one-day leadership development programme.

For registered managers, responsible individuals, deputies, provider representatives, safeguarding leads and aspiring leaders.

Explore how organisational pressure can affect judgement and how principled leadership becomes visible in everyday practice. The course develops the language and awareness needed to recognise ethical tension, test decisions and create conditions in which staff can speak honestly.

Integrity is not a quality that training can confer. This programme creates space to examine what it means in practice.

Tell us about your home, the people you want to support and what you would like the training to address.

We can help you choose a session or shape a programme around your needs.