Behaviour Management Policy for Children's Homes: Regulation 35, Prohibited Measures & Ofsted Requirements

Regulation 35 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 requires every registered children's home to prepare and implement a written behaviour management policy, and sets a precise standard for what that policy must contain.

The policy must set out:

• How appropriate behaviour is promoted in the home.
• The measures of control, discipline and restraint that may be used in relation to children living there.

Regulation 35 also requires you to keep the policy under review and revise it where appropriate. This is not a procedural formality. The behaviour management policy is an Ofsted submission document and an inspection reference point. An inspector reading it must be able to form a clear picture of how your home manages children's behaviour: what approaches you use, in what order, and under what constraints.

What the policy cannot authorise

A behaviour management policy cannot permit anything that Regulation 19 of the same Regulations prohibits. Regulation 19 bars any measure of control or discipline that is excessive, unreasonable, or on its list of prohibited measures, among them corporal punishment, deprivation of food or drink, and intimate physical examination. These are covered in full in the section on prohibited measures below.

The link to your Statement of Purpose

Your behaviour management policy must be consistent with your Statement of Purpose. The Statement of Purpose is required under Regulation 16 and Schedule 1, and the Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations expects your operational policies to reflect the care model it describes. If your Statement of Purpose describes therapeutic residential care for young people aged 13–17 with trauma histories, your behaviour management policy must explain how that care model is delivered when behaviour presents, not assert that the home uses "positive approaches" and leave it there.

A policy that could have been written for any home, regardless of the children it actually serves, will draw an Ofsted query.

Your behaviour management policy must be built primarily on positive approaches. This is the clear expectation of the Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations (Department for Education, 2015) and follows directly from the positive relationships standard in Regulation 11 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015.

Positive behaviour management means building the conditions in which children want to behave well, and supporting them when they struggle, before reaching for any sanction. In regulatory terms, the policy should describe specific positive approaches as the primary and first response to behaviour.

What positive behaviour management looks like in policy

The Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations expects to see:

• Individual behaviour support plans: written for each child, based on their assessed needs, history, and known triggers. Plans must be updated when behaviour patterns change.
• De-escalation techniques: specific approaches trained staff use to interrupt an escalating situation before it becomes a physical risk.
• Relationship-based approaches: building trust and rapport as the foundation of behaviour management, not an afterthought.
• Positive reinforcement: explicit recognition and reward of the behaviour you want to see more of.

What "measures of discipline" means in regulatory terms

Regulation 35 allows your policy to set out measures of control and discipline, but Regulation 19 makes clear that no measure may be excessive, unreasonable, or on its list of prohibited measures. A consequence designed to humiliate, isolate, or distress a child is not a legitimate measure of discipline, even where it does not fall within the specific prohibitions in Regulation 19.

Individual behaviour support plans

Every child in your home should have a behaviour support plan that is genuinely individual to them, not a pro forma with a name inserted. Inspectors read these plans and compare them with the child's placement agreement and care plan to assess whether the home has thought carefully about how to support that specific child.

Plans must be accessible to all staff who work with the child, including bank and agency staff, and updated promptly when behaviour patterns shift or after a significant incident.

Physical restraint is lawful at a children's home only in narrow, specific circumstances, and those circumstances are set out in Regulation 20 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, headed "Restraint and deprivation of liberty".

Under Regulation 20, restraint of a child is permitted only for the purpose of preventing:

1. Injury to any person, including the child themselves.
2. Serious damage to the property of any person.
3. A child accommodated in a secure children's home from absconding from the home.

In every case, the restraint must be necessary and proportionate. Restraint used as a punishment, to enforce compliance with a routine, or as a general behaviour management tool falls entirely outside these purposes; it is unlawful under the Regulations, not merely inadvisable.

The standard the Guide adds: minimum force, trained staff

The Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations builds on Regulation 20 with the operational standard inspectors expect: restraint should use the minimum force for the minimum duration, always as a last resort, and only by staff trained in an accredited method. Your policy must reflect this standard, not only the bare statutory test.

Naming an accredited physical intervention method

Your policy must name the specific accredited physical intervention method your staff are trained in, for example, an accredited Team-Teach or MAPA (Management of Actual or Potential Aggression) framework, or an equivalent. It must confirm that all staff authorised to use restraint hold a current certificate in that method, and state the refresher schedule for maintaining accreditation.

A policy that authorises "physical restraint where necessary" without naming a specific method provides no evidence that staff are trained in a safe, recognised technique. Ofsted will query this immediately.

The Responsible Individual's role in monitoring restraint

The Responsible Individual should review restraint data regularly, not just individual incidents but patterns over time. A cluster of restraints involving the same child, the same staff member, or the same time of day signals that the home's positive behaviour approaches need adjustment for that situation.

Every measure of control, discipline or restraint must be recorded, and Regulation 35 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 sets exact timescales and contents for that record. The record is the primary evidence through which the Responsible Individual, Ofsted, and placing authorities assess whether measures are being used lawfully and proportionately.

What Regulation 35 requires you to record, and when

Regulation 35(3) sets a three-stage timetable:

The 24-hour record must include the child's name, the behaviour that led to the measure, the date, time and location, a description of the measure and its duration, the steps taken to avoid using it, who used it and who else was present, its effectiveness and consequences, and any injury and treatment.

Reporting to the Responsible Individual

The Responsible Individual must be able to see and review these records and act on what they show. Where records raise concerns about lawfulness, proportionality, or patterns, the RI must take action, and record that action. Passive acknowledgement is not sufficient.

Regulation 40 notifications to Ofsted

Separately from the Regulation 35 record, Regulation 40 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015 ("Notification of a serious event") requires the registered person to notify Ofsted, and other relevant persons, without delay of serious events affecting a child, including serious harm. Restraint resulting in injury must be assessed against this threshold.

Placing authority notification

Most placement agreements require the home to notify the child's placing authority of any restraint incident. Check each child's individual placement agreement and confirm the obligation. Failing to notify the placing authority as the agreement requires is a relationship matter as well as a governance one.

Regulation 19 of the Children's Homes (England) Regulations 2015, headed "Behaviour management and discipline", sets the outer limit on what any behaviour management policy can permit. Regulation 19(1) bars any measure of control or discipline that is excessive, unreasonable, or contrary to the list in Regulation 19(2), and that list is absolute. There is no circumstance that makes a prohibited measure lawful in a children's home.

The measures prohibited by Regulation 19(2) are:

1. Corporal punishment: any form of physical punishment.
2. Deprivation of food or drink: any punishment involving the consumption or deprivation of food or drink.
3. Restricting contact or communications: restricting a child's contact with parents, relatives or friends, or access to a helpline, other than where imposed by a court or under Regulation 22.
4. Using or withholding medication or medical or dental treatment, as a disciplinary measure.
5. Intentional deprivation of sleep.
6. Financial penalties, other than a requirement to pay a reasonable sum as reparation.
7. Intimate physical examination of a child.
8. Withholding aids or equipment needed by a disabled child.
9. Peer-imposed measures: involving a child in imposing a measure of control or discipline on another child.
10. Collective punishment: punishing a group of children for the behaviour of an individual child.

Why generic templates fail this test

Downloaded behaviour management policy templates frequently omit a clear statement of prohibited measures, or use language that is ambiguous about whether certain sanctions are permitted. Inspectors read these templates regularly, and vague language does not pass as compliance.

Your policy should reproduce the Regulation 19 prohibitions explicitly and confirm they will not be used under any circumstances. Any member of staff who uses a prohibited measure, regardless of instruction or provocation, exposes the home to enforcement action.

A behaviour management policy that does not reflect your specific care model, age range, and the needs of the children your home serves will not satisfy Ofsted, because the Guide to the Children's Homes Regulations expects your Regulation 35 policy to be consistent with the Statement of Purpose you submit under Regulation 16.

Inspectors cross-check the two documents. If your Statement of Purpose describes an emotionally-based therapeutic model for young people aged 12–17 with trauma histories, the behaviour management policy must explain how that model is applied when behaviour presents: the specific therapeutic techniques, the trained staff who deliver them, and how de-escalation works for a child experiencing trauma rather than simple non-compliance.

EBD and trauma-informed models

If your home cares for children with emotional and behavioural difficulties, or for young people with trauma-related presentations, the policy must reflect:

• The specific therapeutic approach in use, for example, a PACE-informed approach (Playfulness, Acceptance, Curiosity, Empathy) or another recognised trauma-informed model.
• How staff training equips them to distinguish trauma responses from deliberate non-compliance, and respond to each appropriately.
• De-escalation approaches calibrated to distress-based behaviour rather than compliance-based techniques that may escalate a trauma response.

Unaccompanied asylum-seeking children

If your home cares for unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, the policy should address communication where language barriers affect de-escalation, culturally informed responses to behaviour that may reflect trauma from displacement, and the role of interpreters in behaviour support conversations.

Keeping the policy current

Regulation 35 requires you to keep the behaviour management policy under review and revise it where appropriate. Review it at least annually and after any significant incident, regulatory change, or material change in your home's population or care model. As placements change, individual behaviour support plans change with them, and the general policy must evolve too.

Ofsted assesses behaviour management at the pre-registration visit and at every subsequent inspection through documentation review, observation of staff interactions with children, and private conversations with children and staff.

The documents Ofsted reviews

What inspectors observe

During the visit, inspectors observe how staff respond to low-level behaviour: whether they use de-escalation language, build rapport, and respond calmly rather than escalating. An inspector who witnesses dismissive language, raised voices, or pressure tactics will record that observation and explore it further.

Private conversations with children

Inspectors speak with children privately, without managers or staff present. On behaviour management, children are typically asked whether they feel safe, whether staff treat them with respect, whether they have seen staff behave in a way that frightened them, and whether they know how to raise a concern.

Common behaviour management findings

The most frequent behaviour management findings arise from:

• A generic or template-based policy that is inconsistent with the Statement of Purpose.
• Restraint records that lack de-escalation evidence or are completed outside the 24-hour Regulation 35 window.
• Physical intervention training certificates that are expired or missing for one or more staff.
• Individual behaviour support plans that are identical across children, or not updated after significant incidents.
• Children who cannot describe how to raise a concern about a staff member's behaviour.

Address each of these before submitting your application. The readiness checker scores your policy documentation as part of the documents dimension.