Safeguarding children the role of family support

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Safeguarding children the role of family support

• Ruth Gardner
• Senior Research Fellow
• University of East Anglia NSPCC

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Safeguarding Children

• The responsibility and capacity of agencies,
  groups and individuals to prevent or respond to
  actual and potential harm to children
• Could include businesses voluntary and
  community organisations faith groups
• Within this, child protection usually refers to
  statutory interventions

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Family support

• Providing advice and support to parents to help
  them in bringing up their children
• Promoting competence and meeting basic
  developmental needsas opposed to identifying and
  treating underlying pathology
• A way of dealing with life crises and
  problemswhich takes account of strengths

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A false dichotomy?

• Prescription---Choice
• Rules--- Diversity
• Logic--- Creativity
• Target--- Context
• Intellect--- Emotion
• Challenge--- Empathy
• Work--- Play

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Reflective Practice

• Engaged in a dialogue between the thinking that
  attaches to action and the thinking that deals in
  more propositional (abstract) knowledge
• Capable of appraisal and self-appraisal and to
  learn constructively form significant experiences
  
• Modifying action in the light of knowledge,
  experience and current context

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Safeguarding in family support

• Keeping children safe should run through all
  provision- health, education and child care
• Visibility is the greatest safeguard for a child
• Social networks promote competence are a buffer
  to stress and risk
• Family support allows for reflection

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Family support and safeguarding

• Excluded or potentially excluded children
• Domestic abuse and harm to children
• Parents who have been abused
• Distressed and challenging children who may or
  may not have been harmed
• The wider family and its network

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Reflective practice-only connect

• Asking questions constructively -getting the
  bigger picture
• Dialogue and two way learning eg with children
• Adapting services to need eg bringing specialists
  to the child
• Non-defensive practice eg gaps in knowledge are
  an opportunity

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What is needed

• More learning and appraisal opportunities for
  front-line practitioners
• More service-user (including childrens) forums
• Quicker access to specialists eg speech
  therapists
• More trained advocates

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What is needed

• Keeping safe an outcome for every child in every
  service, with accountability located
• Families with more responsibility for outcomes
  and more choice of methods eg client -held
  budgets, FGCs
• A funding formula based on the population of
  need