PLEASE NOTE: New Standards Published

April 2011: The Standards no longer apply, Tri.x have published a web enabled version of the new Children’s Homes and Fostering Standards, please follow this link:

www.minimumstandards.org

2. Quality of Care	Size:
Personal appearance, clothing, requisites and pocket money

	OUTCOME Children are encouraged and enabled to choose their own clothes and personal requisites and have these needs fully met.
	STANDARD 11
11.1	Children’s clothing and personal requisite needs are fully met.
11.2	Children are able to exercise choice in the clothes and personal requisites that they buy, and to buy these through normal shopping arrangements. Younger children are accompanied by staff and older children are given the choice of shopping alone or with the guidance of staff, subject to a risk assessment where shopping alone involves significant risks.
11.3	Cultural, racial, ethnic or religious expectations regarding the choice of clothes or personal requisites are supported and positively promoted.
11.4	Children are able to keep their clothing and personal requisites and toiletries for their own exclusive use, subject to risk assessments on particular items (e.g. aerosols and razors).
11.5	Young women have their own supply of sanitary protection and do not have to request it from a central stock.
11.6	Staff provide, where appropriate, advice to children on the use of toiletries, cosmetics and sanitary protection.
11.7	Suitable and acceptable clothing and personal requisites are bought for any child who does not wish to, or is unable to, purchase their own.
11.8	Children’s money is held in safe keeping for them and children sign the records. They are encouraged to manage their own finances through help with budgeting and banking, and are given as much freedom as possible in making decisions about spending their own pocket money or earnings.
11.9	There is a policy, implemented in practice and known to the children, on personal allowances. The policy makes clear the purpose of different allowances, the arrangements for children receiving them, reasons why they may be withheld, the monitoring of their use and how requests for special allowances should be made and decided upon. [Regulation: 14]