Are we spending too much time creating and focusing on statutory responsibilities and tools?

Recently, I have been pondering how we can improve our practice around safeguarding children. Often, when an organization identifies problems in its practice, it creates new procedures or practice aids, offers training, or enforces better adherence to procedures. All of the above is fine and can be beneficial. However, I think there may be instances where we keep using similar ways of working when problems occur and don’t investigate deeper into what may be causing them. Plenty of legislation, procedures, practice aids, and assessment tools exist that organizations have spent years trying to get right. But our field still struggles with how we assess families and work with them. Whether the plan meets our practice expectations is often debatable. I don't think we can attribute this to our workers not being trained to complete an assessment, and it’s time we shone a light on how our organization works.

Using a safeguarding plan is a simple example because we all know what should go in one, and as organizations, we have procedures to track what has been completed. Accountability is built in by the sheer reasons for the plan’s completion. But has the family agreed to make certain arrangements that aren’t their own? What if we've added someone to the plan who hasn't shown any evidence of understanding or willingness to safeguard a child? What if we believe the plan is working because the worker is managing the family or because the family and their network assure us it is? We may have documentation to support what we are doing, but I still question whether these plans would work if we removed ourselves.

I bring up a safeguarding plan because it relates to many aspects of practice we should be questioning. By setting what a worker should do, we don’t necessarily influence how they work. Each person can take the same assessment, use it alongside the legislation that surrounds our job, and still take completely different approaches to a family. One practitioner may believe the parent should meet a higher standard of parenting. Maybe they don't understand what it means for a family to engage or what they should believe to work or not. Two workers can use the same assessment and procedure and produce different results with one family. Even their supervisors can take different approaches. These practice inconsistencies can all happen within one organization or even within a team.

Something I have been passionate about with Safeguarding Together (SgT) is that it equips workers with the opportunity to reflect on how they work with families. We have tools, processes, paradigms and approaches that I believe can help workers reflect on their practice. But ultimately, it’s about how each practitioner is using them. For instance, practitioners must question what information they are collecting or whether they know enough about the family’s story to understand the concern.  Or are they also considering safeguards and who is doing what to ensure safety and well-being, or are they just focusing on what isn't happening? How do they think they should engage with the child, carer and others? What makes them confident that this child is safe? These are all questions I believe our organizations should encourage practitioners and supervisors to keep asking. I feel that if we all asked these questions, we would come closer to having the same approach to practice. Of course, judgment is necessary, but we need to understand that judgment can come from the same thought process and be either paternalistic or reflective. Leaders can expect practitioners to always look for family networks or expect similar practice across all services. However, even when practitioners use the same tools but operate with different mindsets, inconsistencies will flourish.

I think this issue is best illustrated when practitioners talk about working with family networks. Everyone knows we want the family to have supports, but how we get there may differ. We identify people and arrange meetings, and workers usually decide who will do what and ensure they complete it. Do we have true family ownership at that point? I think not. There are things we as professionals can't hand over to a family, but I feel we should question when we have become paternalistic and start to impose our own ideas of safeguarding.

Safeguarding Together encourages caregivers to take ownership of developing their own safeguarding network, made up of people who will remain in their lives long after child protection services are no longer involved. Our role is to support caregivers in bringing these people together, helping them understand the safeguarding concerns, and working collaboratively to develop arrangements that will protect the child over time. However, identifying people who are willing to help is only the beginning. Someone agreeing during a meeting to support the family does not necessarily mean they fully understand the concerns, recognize what is expected of them, or can follow through. Even when a network member understands their responsibilities and expresses a genuine commitment, we still need to establish whether they can demonstrate that commitment in practice. This is why SgT places such importance on testing safeguarding arrangements. We need to be assured that network members are not only willing to act, but can carry out their responsibilities reliably, particularly when circumstances become difficult. Ultimately, the strength of a safeguarding network is determined not by the promises people make, but by what they can consistently demonstrate they are willing and able to do.

The Miller family is a useful example of how Safeguarding Together works from beginning to end, bringing the different tools and stages of the framework together into one connected safeguarding process. Anna Miller is a single mother of three children: Sarah, aged seven, Ethan, aged four, and Noah, aged two. Anna has been struggling with methamphetamine use, which has at times left her unable to properly supervise or care for her children. The family has experienced significant neglect, including inadequate meals, poor living conditions, and inconsistent daily routines. The impact on the children is concerning. Sarah has taken on responsibility for caring for her younger brothers, leaving her anxious, exhausted, and struggling to concentrate at school. Ethan and Noah are also experiencing physical, emotional, and developmental difficulties. Serious safeguarding concerns require immediate attention, but longer-term questions remain about how the family can establish and sustain meaningful change.

A traditional response might involve completing an assessment, arranging for the children to stay temporarily with their maternal grandmother, referring Anna for substance use treatment, and developing a plan outlining the changes she needs to make before the children can return home. These are all important steps, but they don't necessarily tell us whether the children will remain safeguarded once they return to Anna's care. What happens if Anna begins using substances again? Who will recognize the early warning signs, and what will they actually do? What happens if Anna stops answering her phone or the person who agreed to check on the children is unavailable? Who steps in, and how quickly? These are not questions we should leave unanswered until something goes wrong. We need to work through them with Anna and her network, develop clear safeguarding arrangements, and test whether those arrangements work in practice. Otherwise, we risk becoming confident in a plan because it looks thorough during a review, without really knowing whether the people responsible can carry it out when the children need them most.

Using the Miller family as an example, we can see how these conversations begin to shape a meaningful safeguarding plan. Initially, Anna was reluctant to involve other people in her life. She worried about being judged and felt uncomfortable sharing her personal difficulties with family and friends. Rather than insisting she provide names for a network, the practitioner took time to understand what made this difficult for her. Together, they explored who Anna trusted, who had supported her in the past, and who might be willing to help. Anna eventually identified her mother, Mary, and her sister, Karen, as people she wanted involved. Other individuals were also considered, recognizing that not everyone would be suitable or able to take on direct safeguarding responsibilities. This is an important distinction within SgT. Some people may be able to take responsibility for safeguarding the children, while others may be better placed to offer practical or emotional support. Both can make valuable contributions, provided their roles are clear, appropriate, and realistic.

What I particularly like about the Miller family example is how the conversations moved beyond general promises of support and began to develop detailed safeguarding arrangements that reflected the family's actual circumstances. Rather than focusing only on Anna's substance use, the practitioner worked with Anna and her network to understand when she was most likely to struggle, what tended to happen beforehand, and what others might notice when things were beginning to deteriorate. They identified mornings and evenings as particularly difficult times. Karen suggested calling Anna in the morning to check that she was managing and that the children were being cared for. That was a useful starting point, but it was not yet a reliable safeguarding arrangement. What happens if Anna doesn't answer? How long should Karen wait before taking further action? What if Karen is at work or unable to attend the home? Who else can respond, and what should they do if Anna is unwell or unable to care for the children? By working through these possibilities together, the family and network began to identify gaps, clarify responsibilities, and establish alternative arrangements. This is where the real safeguarding work takes place. Each question helps turn a well-intentioned offer of help into something more practical, dependable, and testable. The aim is not simply to produce a detailed plan, but to develop arrangements that everyone understands, can carry out, and can demonstrate will work when the children need them most.

As I said before, SgT is about using our tools, but also about how we apply our mindsets and critical thinking when we use them. We can ask questions about our practice that challenge our thinking and help the family's network work toward a safer environment for the child. We need to consider what the family is doing to improve the situation and what we are helping them see they can do. Not only can our workers benefit from using these tools, but so can the family and network. By asking questions and testing our thoughts, we can learn what is working and what we can do differently.

These are all questions we can ask ourselves as we work through our practice journeys. SgT gives us a framework to think about our practice. We can use the Safeguarding Assessment Tool to learn what has happened in the past. We can understand what caregivers have been doing to keep their children safe and what we need them to work on. Once we have this information, we can work toward identifying our risk statement and the goals we want to work toward. We can then use our timeline to learn more about how these events have occurred. We can also help the family learn about what they have in their lives and create a plan that works for them. We shouldn't wait until the end of our time with a family to monitor and test if what we have put in place is working.

What I particularly value about this process is that it helps us maintain a clear line of sight throughout our work with families. We can understand what has been achieved, what is working well, where difficulties remain, and what needs to happen next. As families and their networks begin putting safeguarding arrangements into practice, we can learn from their experiences rather than assuming everything will work as planned. When something isn't working, we can explore why, involve the family and network in finding solutions, and make the necessary adjustments. This requires us to remain curious and willing to question our own thinking and decisions. We should never assume that because we've developed a plan, our work is complete. We need to keep asking whether the arrangements are making a meaningful difference for the child, whether the people involved can sustain them, and what we can learn and improve along the way. That ongoing process of monitoring, testing, and refining is what helps turn safeguarding planning into safeguarding that works in everyday family life.

This also requires us to continue to educate our workers on how to think critically for themselves. We need to encourage practitioners to advance and enhance their thinking, such as asking what they have learned and why they think that, or whether anything is missing. Supervisors can further help guide workers in their practice, but we also need to help workers learn how to challenge themselves.

Another concern I have about our field is that we place considerable responsibility on individual practitioners to improve outcomes for children and families, without always giving enough attention to the organizations and systems in which they work. As I've discussed earlier, improving practice requires us to look at how we supervise practitioners, support their professional judgment, and create an organizational culture that encourages learning and improvement.

But we also need to consider how change is sustained. Too often, improvements depend on a handful of committed leaders, supervisors, or practitioners who have the passion and determination to drive things forward. While their contributions are valuable, what happens when they leave? The knowledge, enthusiasm, and momentum they brought can disappear with them, leaving the organization struggling to maintain the progress it made. If meaningful change depends on a small group of individuals, have we really changed the organization, or have we simply changed how those particular people work? I believe lasting improvement requires embedding shared mindsets, values, and ways of working throughout the organization, so good practice becomes part of its everyday culture rather than something dependent on who happens to be leading it.

This is why I believe that improving practice needs to involve changing how we work as an organization, rather than simply training practitioners to use a new framework. We need to embed the thinking, values, and shared mindsets behind the framework into the organization's everyday practice, supervision, and leadership. Practitioners should feel supported and encouraged to question their own thinking, challenge assumptions, consider different perspectives, and reflect on whether their work is achieving what they intended. Just as importantly, organizations need to be willing to question themselves. Are our policies, expectations, and ways of working helping practitioners do their jobs well, or are we unintentionally creating barriers? When reflection and learning become part of the organizational culture, improvement is no longer dependent on a few committed individuals. It becomes a shared responsibility, allowing both practitioners and the organization to continue learning, adapting, and improving the quality of services provided to children and families.

I also believe we need to give much greater attention to practitioner well-being. We cannot expect workers to engage in thoughtful conversations with families, exercise critical judgment, and continually reflect on their practice without giving them the time and support to do so. In many organizations, practitioners are already managing demanding caseloads, extensive recording requirements, and numerous administrative tasks. When so much of their time is spent completing documentation and meeting procedural expectations, opportunities for reflection, professional learning, and meaningful direct work can become limited. This is one reason we're developing digital applications at ATA Consultancy. We want to explore how technology, including AI, can reduce unnecessary administrative and cognitive burdens, help practitioners capture information once and reuse it appropriately, and give them more time to focus on children, families, and their networks. But I am equally conscious that technology should not become another task or system that practitioners are expected to manage. Its purpose should be to support their work, not complicate it. There will always be aspects of child protection that cannot and should not be automated, particularly the relationships, professional judgment, and critical thinking that are essential to good practice. For me, the goal is to create organizations where practitioners have the time, confidence, and support to continue developing their expertise, because when we invest in the people doing the work, we also strengthen the quality of practice that children and families experience.

We want to create environments that allow our workers to learn from their mistakes. We will never achieve perfection, since that’s an impossibility when working with humans. Some days, we learn that what we thought would be effective in our practice wasn't. We want to allow our workers to share that information and learn from it. We need to keep asking questions about our practice and work to improve what we can because there is always room for improvement.

Finally, I think we need to remember what we are ultimately trying to achieve: helping children and families not only become safeguarded, but thrive. Child protection is complex, and progress will not always happen as we expect. There will be times when things don't work, when families experience setbacks, or when we don't achieve everything we had hoped for. Rather than seeing these moments simply as failures, we should use them as opportunities to learn, understand what needs to change, and work with families and their networks to find a better way forward. What matters is that we remain clear about where we are trying to get to, continue testing whether our approach is working, and make adjustments when needed. We should ask ourselves whether children are genuinely being safeguarded, whether they have the relationships and support they need to thrive, and whether improvements in their lives can be sustained. Understanding the difference our work is making, including where it falls short, helps us become more thoughtful practitioners and stronger organizations. Ultimately, we should measure our success not only by the tasks we complete or the targets we meet, but by the lasting difference we make in the lives of children and families.

ATA Consultancy provides Safeguarding Together and Thriving Together to support Child Protection and Welfare services to improve practice.