Enduring relationships: more than a contact record

The government’s September policy paper places enduring, trusted relationships at the centre of care and leaving-care reform. The residential-care read-across is practical: records should help people sustain relationships, not merely count contact.

The policy direction

The Department for Education describes enduring relationships as a golden thread through a child’s life. It calls on leaders and practitioners to prioritise family, friends and trusted adults already important to the child, where those relationships are safe.

What residential records can show

A contact entry records that something happened. A stronger connected picture can also show who matters to the child, what support helps the relationship continue, how the child experiences contact, what changed, and whether decisions unintentionally weaken an important connection.

Continuity when people change

Children may experience changes of home, social worker, school or staff team. Information should preserve the significance of relationships through those transitions without reducing a person to a name in a list.

Count contact where necessary. Understand belonging wherever possible.

Questions for homes

Can the child’s record identify trusted people in their own terms? Are siblings and wider networks visible? Does planning show how relationships will be maintained? When contact changes, is the child’s view and the reason for the decision clear?

Primary source: Department for Education: Enduring relationships.