How AI is actually being used in residential settings right now
Staff are using AI for admin tasks
Night staff are asking ChatGPT to help structure incident reports after a difficult shift. Support workers are using AI to help write daily logs when they're running behind. Senior staff are experimenting with AI to draft care plan reviews or summarise weekly team meetings.
Children are using AI constantly
Young people have AI apps on their phones. They're using it for homework, creating images, having conversations with chatbots, and sometimes using it in ways that are concerning – generating inappropriate content, seeking advice on harmful topics, or creating deepfakes of other children.
Some care management systems are building AI features
Auto-complete for incident reports. Suggested wording for behaviour records. Pattern recognition in incident data. Risk prediction algorithms.
Ofsted acknowledges that some children or staff members are likely using AI in connection with the care they provide. A 2024 survey by the Alan Turing Institute found that
generative AI use is already widespread in the public sector, with over 80% of social care respondents believing GenAI could enhance productivity and reduce bureaucracy. But half of respondents felt there was a lack of clear guidance from employers on how to use these systems, and nearly half were unsure who was accountable for any outputs they used in their work.That's the gap you need to close.
What inspectors will ask about your home
When AI use comes up during your inspection you
will be asked whether you've made sensible decisions. The same approach they take with any other tool.
On your record-keeping
If you're using AI to help generate behaviour support plans, daily logs, or incident summaries,
inspectors will want to understand how you ensure these are accurate. Who's checking them? What's your process for ensuring nothing critical gets missed or misrepresented? Can you demonstrate that your records reflect what actually happened, not what AI thinks should have happened?
On risk assessment
Inspectors will ask what steps you've taken to ensure your use of AI properly considers risks. Were those risks evaluated when introducing the AI application? Do you have assurance processes to identify emerging risks? Have you considered what happens if AI-generated content contains errors that affect a child's care?
On children's use of AI
Inspectors will explore how you're ensuring that
when children use AI – whether for homework or on their phones – this is in the children's best interests. In a residential setting where you're responsible for children around the clock, this takes on additional weight. What's your approach when a young person is using AI to generate self-harm content? Or creating inappropriate images? Or seeking advice about running away?
The specific risks in residential settings
The guidance highlights three risk areas that have particular relevance for residential children's homes:
Data protection
AI tools process large amounts of personal data about vulnerable children. Your existing obligations under GDPR and data protection legislation haven't disappeared. If staff are copying sensitive information about children into ChatGPT or other AI tools, that's a data breach. If your care management software uses AI, you need to understand what happens to that data, where it's processed, and who has access to it.
Bias and discrimination
AI perpetuates biases present in training data. If you're using AI to help assess risk or predict behaviour, you need to understand how it might discriminate against certain children based on their background, ethnicity, or past behaviour. Are you inadvertently creating a system that treats some children as higher risk simply because of patterns in historical data?
Safeguarding
This is the big one for residential settings. Children in care are already vulnerable. They're more likely to be exploited online. They're more susceptible to grooming. AI tools can be weaponised – creating fake images, generating harmful content, facilitating contact with dangerous individuals. You need policies that address this, staff who understand the risks, and systems that protect children without being oppressively restrictive.
What good practice looks like
North Yorkshire Council demonstrates what responsible AI implementation looks like in children's social care. Facing the reality that
social workers were dedicating 80% of their time to administrative tasks due to the volume of data they manage, they developed an AI tool that tackles case notes, forms, assessments, and images.
They achieved
a 90% reduction in time and cost for some data retrieval tasks, plus the ability to automatically generate eco-maps visualising networks surrounding children and families. But crucially, they didn't just implement and hope. They conducted an AI Ethics Impact Assessment to ensure the tool was used ethically, transparently, and in ways that safeguarded children's wellbeing.
For residential children's homes, good practice means
Clear policies on staff use of AI
What's permitted? What's forbidden? If a night worker uses AI to help write an incident report at 3am after a difficult shift, is that acceptable? Who checks it? What information can never be put into an AI tool?
Robust checking mechanisms
Ofsted's focus is on outcomes, safeguarding and data governance, with human review remaining essential.
Every AI-generated piece of content needs human oversight from someone who knows the child and was actually there.
Children's digital safety policies that address AI
Your existing policies on internet safety and mobile phone use need updating. What's your response when a young person shows you an AI-generated image of themselves? Or admits they've been chatting to an AI companion app that's giving them harmful advice?
Understanding what your software actually does
If your care management system has AI features, you need to understand them. What data is being processed? Where? By whom? What happens if it gets something wrong?
