Stage One Health and Safety Visit

[WittyUsername123]

Hello all,
We are on Stage One and our social worker wants to do a health and safety visit. The issue is, no children live here now, so we don’t have stair gates etc. (Think it might be a bit weird if we did...?)
Should we fit all this stuff, knowing it may not be used for a year or two? Or will the social worker just advise us on these things?
Thanks so much for any advice/ experience you can offer.

If I remember rightly the health and safety visit is more like checking the boiler is working, no ponds uncovered etc in the garden rather than stair gates etc. So the big obvious stuff. They wouldn't expect you to have gates as you don't know what age any child placed will be.
It sounds daunting but I think it's really to check your overall house rather than nitty gritty details.

We had the boiler service paperwork ready to show and pointed out what additional measures like stair gates we would put in, where and why as we showed them around. The visit is about making sure the house is a safe home now and can easily be adapted to meet the need of any child placed. Our younger LO's social worker would ask to see the bedroom on every visit to check there was a bed whereas the older one's never did.

As others have said, they won't expect all of those things done already as what you may need will depend on child and age you adopt too. We found they gave some helpful ideas and pointers advice on what you may need to do and think about prior to child moving in.

When i had my home safety check my social worker asked if I had a fire extinguisher, first aid kit and fire blanket. I did but she never actually asked to see them. She pointed out things I'd need eg baby Gates and locks on the shed.

At ours, they checked for obvious safety measures like smoke alarms, locking windows etc but also outlined what was needed to be done by the time we adopted - and as baby, it was stair gates, safety locks on kitchen cupboards etc. The one bizarre thing was we had to put like a mesh over our bannister rail on the landing as they classified the (normal width) spindles to be too wide. I hated it - it was such an eye sore and cos it was tied on with strings it would undo and fall down. I took it down the day the adoption order was granted

We had to exchange the glass in the greenhouse for plastic.

@UnderTheNameOfSanders

We had to exchange the glass in the greenhouse for plastic.

We either had to do this or show our glass was safety glass (which it is) so luckily didn't have to do anything.

They have checklist if things but it isn't a case of expecting you to have done them already but rather making you aware (and gauging your reactions to) needing to change them. We haven't had the visit yet but we have been sent the checklist as we were doing some renovations a few months ago and wanted to make sure we didn't spend money on something we would only have to change later. We were initially upset that a beautiful original glass door would have to go as it wasn't safety glass. But were told that our response of 'that's a shame but we totally understand why it isn't safe and will just enjoy it while we have it' was what they were looking for.

You won't be expected to do anything as such. They'll just point things out and expect you to be commited to sorting them prior to a child moving in. If you want to score brownie points then it's really cheap and easy to make sure all your medicines and cleaning products are locked away. You can get combination lock boxes of all sizes on amazon. Otherwise I wouldn't worry just yet as they'll tell you anything else they notice and shouldn't count it against you. Good luck x

We had ours last month. Our lady had a tick list and gave recommendations at the end (stair gates, buying a fire guard, a fire blanket, child locks on low units in kitchen attaching units to the walls etc.) We are now into stage two and in the stage two letter, we were advised to start actioning these points. Think we'll start with the fire blanket then see what she says as we're not sure at all about ages yet!

Our spindles were too wide on our stairs... They won't expect the safety gates... Good luck.

No need to have your house ready, but good to show the social worker that you thought in advance about the things that you are planning on changing when you have a child, and run her through that as you give her a tour of the house. This will give you extra points!