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Description: Abstract Background and rationale: Children’s homes, also called foster care homes, childcare institutions, residential care or custodial facilities among many other names are institutions looking after children and young people separated from their biological families (most commonly due to abuse or neglect). I have been repeatedly asked to describe key characteristics of my work setting (a children’s home) and been pondering about similarities and differences in-between children’s homes. Objective: To collect and categorize children’s home characteristics reported in Swiss social work undergraduate Bachelor theses. Study design: Cross-sectional analysis of Swiss social work Bachelor theses Methods: On May 14 and May 15, 2020 searches were done on the Swiss RERO DOC database using three filters designed to identify social work bachelor theses and three French keywords specific to children’s homes or educational staff. Bachelor theses deemed likely relevant on title/abstract screening were then downloaded and their full-texts re-assessed; characteristics of children’s homes were then manually extracted in an extraction form. Results: Searches undertaken on RERO DOC lead to a combined total of 182 records. Following deduplication of records and title and abstract screening 41 unique theses were selected for full-text assessment. Thirty-two (32) theses published from 2006 to 2019 were included in analysis following full-text assessments. All included theses (n=32) were written in French and published by students from HETS Valais. A total of 228 potential characteristics were identified. Characteristics were categorized into 20 categories (general, geographic, administrative and funding, historical, architectural, ancillary buildings, residents, living groups, rules, events, procedures, placements, activities, staff, training, staffing ratio and schedule, communication, external partners, working groups and other), with 2 subcategories (all staff, educational staff). Limitations: Limitations included a non-exhaustive search strategy, use of non-specific terminology within theses complicating database searches and assessments and subjectivity in assessing what constitutes a unique characteristic. Recommendations: To facilitate the identification, understanding and retrieval of their theses social work Bachelor students whose theses focus on children’s homes should be encouraged to use consistent and unique terminology when they refer to these institutions. For instance keywords such as “foyer éducatif” or “maison d’enfants” could be used in either abstracts or the list of keywords. Funding: No funding was received for this work. Registration: See https://osf.io/v78f5/ (see previous versions) Data and materials: See https://osf.io/argw4/. All other data is otherwise included within this manuscript. Keywords: Residential care, cross-sectional analysis, children’s home, bachelor thesis, HES-SO