Children's social care surveys: guidance for providers
Guidance for children's social care providers about distributing the 2026 annual survey, including a promotional poster that they can use.
Applies to England
Documents
Details
The annual children’s social care survey allows Ofsted to hear what children and young people, parents, staff, social workers and other professionals say about social care settings. These include children’s homes, adoption agencies, fostering services and residential family centres.
This guidance explains how providers can send out links to the survey on Ofsted’s behalf.
Read the findings from our annual surveys.
Updates to this page
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Updated the guidance and promotional poster for social care providers to share the 2026 children's social care survey.
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Updated guidance and promotional posters for social care providers for 2025 surveys.
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Updated guidance and promotional posters for social care providers for 2024 surveys.
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Updated guidance and promotional posters for social care providers for 2023 surveys.
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Updated guidance and promotional posters for social care providers for 2022 surveys.
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Our 2021 social care point in time survey is now live: this guidance for providers explains the process and how to send out links, along with a promotional poster.
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We have added the 2020 social care annual survey guidance for providers and accompanying poster.
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Updated guidance and promotional posters for social care providers for 2019 surveys.
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Updated the promotional poster: boarding schools can use this to publicise Ofsted's annual surveys.
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Updated promotional poster for providers.
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Updated guidance and promotional poster for providers for the 2018 social care surveys.
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Added survey dates for further education colleges, boarding schools and residential special schools to the guidance and poster.
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Updated for 2017 survey: 19 June to 13 August 2017.
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First published.