A model of care is only as real as the records it produces, the supervision it carries, and the inspections it stands up to. This page is where the standards live, how the practice evidences them day to day, and what we publish about it.
These are the bodies of work our service is accountable against. We don't treat them as separate checklists. They are absorbed into how care is planned, delivered, and reviewed.
HIQA
Applies to: Children's residential and aftercare
The eight national standards underneath every aspect of how a children's residential service is run. They cover the child's voice, safety, leadership, workforce, and use of resources. Our practice is structured to evidence each standard in everyday work, not as a separate compliance exercise.
Statutory Instrument
Applies to: Children's residential and aftercare
The legal framework underneath the HIQA standards. The regulations set the minimum conditions every Tusla-funded residential service must meet, including care planning, contact, safety, complaints, and the role of an external manager.
Tusla
Applies to: Children's residential and aftercare
Tusla's national policies apply in parallel: care planning, complaints and representations, aftercare provision, and Children First (child protection and welfare).
HSE
Applies to: Disability services
Our disability service operates under the relevant HSE quality and safeguarding frameworks, supported by our person-centred Positive Behaviour Support model.
Quality lives in records and conversations, not in statements of intent. These are the artefacts the model produces, every week, in every home.
Each plan references the GROUND → GROWTH domains most relevant to the young person right now. Plans are co-written with the young person, the referrer and the family, and reviewed on the published cycle.
Daily logs sit alongside the care plan and capture how the day went. They are written to be useful to the next shift and to a future reviewer, not to satisfy a form.
Every young person has a named key worker. Key-work sessions are recorded against the domains of the model: what's been grounded, what's clear, what relationships matter, what's developing, where we're going.
Every incident is recorded the same day. Reflective debriefs follow, and feed back into care planning and supervision so the same thing doesn't keep happening unexamined.
Team supervision is structured around the GROUND → GROWTH domains. It asks which domain the team is operating in and whether the foundations are sufficiently in place before the growth-focused goals get pushed.
Each service is reviewed against its own outcomes on a published cycle. Findings inform team training, individual care plans, and the service-development plan.
A model of care without training, supervision and incident learning is a poster. These three disciplines are how we keep the model alive in the daily work.
Every team member is trained in CPI verbal and safety interventions. CPI gives the team a shared, evidence-informed framework for recognising early signs of distress, responding with calm and respectful communication, and preventing escalation wherever possible. Physical interventions are used only as a last resort, in line with policy, the law, and the rights of the young person.
Supervision is regular, structured, and aligned to the GROUND → GROWTH domains. It supports professional accountability and ethical practice, and protects team wellbeing in work that carries real weight. Supervision is where drift toward compliance-led or crisis-driven practice is caught and corrected.
Incidents are reviewed in a reflective, learning-focused way. Reviews look not only at the response in the moment, but at whether grounding, clarity and connection were sufficiently present in the days before. Findings inform individual care planning, team practice and service development. Learning sits above blame.
CPI training is the floor, not the ceiling. Every team member moves through an annual continuing-professional- development cycle that revisits the work from multiple angles, year on year.
Regulation and de-escalation
Working with loss and uncertainty
Cultural humility and inclusion
Supporting separated children and young people
Team wellbeing and secondary trauma
Person-centred practice, dignity, choice and inclusion
Governance, accountability and continuous improvement
Partnership working with families, multidisciplinary teams and statutory services
Three sets of documents live in public view. They are the same documents the regulator works from, and every one of them can be downloaded here.
The GROUND → GROWTH model of care is the foundation of our Statement of Purpose. The Statement explains the service's aim, the people it's for, the team it depends on, and how it is led.
Our senior team have a long habit, from previous services, of publishing inspection reports openly. We carry that here. The most recent report is below, and further reports are added as they are issued.
Every young person receives a Children's Guide on arrival, in age-appropriate language and revisited regularly. It covers rights, advocacy and complaints. Our disability and aftercare services have their own guides written the same way.
We'll send the current Statement of Purpose, share inspection reports, or walk through any of the practice evidence above. A senior team member responds within two working days.
