Developing Contextual Responses

Or rather, 'Creating the Necessary Conditions to support Contextual Working in a Statutory Context' – the challenge for organisations and partnerships (not quite so succinct).

Where risk is located continues to gain traction as innovative approaches continue to advance how we respond effectively to the complex and contextual nature of extra-familial harm and the safeguarding of older children more comprehensively. With this innovation has come challenge as to how we incorporate different ways of thinking, planning and responding within our existing processes. Building confidence and insight across the workforce to understand the layered complexity that characterises older children’s experiences is essential for us to be able to assess, plan, intervene and review meaningfully. There are considerable learning opportunities that provide the detail of how types of extra-familial harm operate, but what does that mean for how Social Worker’s intervene in practice?

In describing a contextual safeguarding framework, Firmin (2020) writes, "it is one part to developing a coordinated response to all forms of extra-familial harm". This is a critical determinant to the evolution of services working to safeguard children from abuse that occurs outside of the family and how they fit together. Fundamental to our understanding of contexts are the social norms or ‘social rules’ that govern them, the unwritten conventions by which those within the context are influenced and function. In exploring the inherent nature of what is acceptable and expected we can work to understand where ‘harm’ might exist and how it operates.

Working contextually is an approach that promotes a comprehensive assessment of circumstances, taking account of all factors that children and families face, cautioning against an assessment or intervention that focusses cause, effect and remedy solely within the family (or more specifically parenting capacity). Our systems are adapting to respond to multiple children within a given harmful ‘context’, often across threshold tiers. The question, or challenge rather, is for us to identify what mechanisms are required within statutory settings and wider structures to facilitate robust and holistic assessment.

What is the ‘immediate’ risk?

I have often encountered social work colleagues anxious about how to respond to a child who has come to their attention due to a (suspected) significant incident or risk in the community, for example a child at risk of being stabbed. The anxiety around managing the ‘immediate’ risk regularly manifest in questions about additional resources or secure accommodation, fundamentally something needing to happen now. In a drive to eradicate it, the gravity of the potential risk can obscure the space to consider why it has arisen and inform how we might respond; the scenario observes a system moving directly to ‘action’ often in the absence of ‘understanding’.

It led me to consider what ‘norms’ may exist within statutory contexts that could reduce our ability to respond comprehensively to extra-familial harm. Now, I am by no means naive to the pressures of statutory social work – I say this having been the Assessment Social Worker asking, ‘what is the immediate risk?’ when trying to survive a day of competing demands. But the inherent consequence is that lack of immediate risk can equate to lack of threshold for statutory intervention. Now, some may argue that this is correct in working to reduce ‘escalation’ into statutory or specialist services. However quality assurance, audit and learning review activity will routinely demonstrate recurring patterns of repeat referrals, diversion activity or no further action - those children suffering harm that, while not immediate, was nonetheless significant. In such examples there has often been a failure to recognise cumulative harm and indicators of heightened vulnerability to extra-familial harm.

In our drive to deliver contextual working are we creating integrated, holistic responses, or does statutory social work sit separately? And if so, is that robust enough extension of child protection? The development of additional and more comprehensive services for older children signifies a recognition that responses to extra-familial harm, and older children more broadly, need to be different. But can contextual safeguarding be something that happens ‘over there’?

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Integrated Working

In working to develop services I believe that it is important to draw from intervention that has worked for children, families and communities. Much learning is often drawn from areas in need of development, however there is much to be learnt from children and families who succeed – what structures and approaches were helpful, that could be replicated or developed further to improve outcomes?

With that in mind, I wanted to reflect on a situation that I was involved in managing several years ago now. At the time, we talked about ‘substance supply exploitation’ before the term criminal exploitation was coined. The circumstances centre upon four young people who came to the attention of statutory services due to their attendance at a specific place and reports of them suffering sexual abuse. A pattern was emerging within referrals and a scoping strategy was called that mapped the children identified, any other children in the network who could be vulnerable, the adults of concern that were linked to the harm, the communities affected and the relevant community and provider services. Plans were drawn up to investigate the area, working with local communities affected with a view to making it safer. Investigations commenced in relation to identified adults and each child was allocated a Social Worker within the same team as part of the wider adolescent service. Staff from relevant disciplines were drawn in as part of ‘teams around the relationship’. The social workers and police were forensic in their investigation, the extended and therapeutic staff unreserved in how they responded to presenting need. This challenged traditional professional ‘role’ boundaries, developing an approach of who was best placed to respond and led by children.

Children and families were supported through whichever means was helpful, this included police and social care staff driving children around areas to aid their recollection of where they had been taken and ensuring that all due process was as easily accessible as possible – for example, ABE Interviews were undertaken with social workers present and with appropriate follow up and after care. Staff were supported with follow up and aftercare. While connected through similar forms of extra familial harm, comprehensive assessments undertaken identified both similar and extensively differing needs for the cohort, some children benefiting from additional support to enhance their safety, others requiring statutory intervention to protect them from significant and extensive intra-familial abuse. There were no barriers to what was required as all services collectively responded in accordance with children’s and family’s needs. It would not have been possible to safeguard comprehensively without attention to individual and contextual needs through both support and protective measures – to note, these were not static – the system required a continual cycle of assessment and review in response to ever shifting interdependencies, avoiding a ‘we now do this’ response to innovation.

Around operational work sat the infrastructure, the conditions. The social work team worked as a pack – a collective who held each other through reflective and analytical supervision. They could be vulnerable with one another which supported their understanding, their containment and their ability to remain present in their relationships with children and families, leading the teams around children. It meant that a service was operated whereby children could always access ‘someone’ who knew them, someone who they knew, if only by sight or name. It also meant that each agency was integrated in their response, not just their location.

There are no ‘quick wins’ in creating long term systemic change that protects children

Strategically operations were focussed across the partnership with clear leadership, joint collaborative planning and collective ownership that meant all agencies were pulling in the same direction. This was no mean feat and required great diplomacy, nurture and active management of relationships. It meant that the system supported genuine child led responses addressing family need, the networks around them, their communities, and the staff who worked with them as part of the the overall environment. It provided the necessary conditions to foster and facilitate meaningful change at every level.

This required and delivered some of the best work social work I have ever been a part of. The focus was beyond the immediate, beyond adherence to process – the depth and quality of practice ensured that these were not issues in need of address. Critical reflection was required as to who did what and when, but crucially these children were not delineated by ‘type of risk’ (several forms operating) and there was no alternative escalation.

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Relationship-Based

In the example given, relationships were are at the heart of success. Relational working began within the organisation, success resting upon the strength of the relationships between team members, team members and members of other teams, team members and managers, managers and senior managers, managers and quality assurance, and so it goes on – operating at every level across, up, down and around the directorate.

Time was spent developing how teams would work together, through learning about one another, sharing and exploring. The joining of knowledge, skill and experience gave a richness that supported hypothesising and critical reflection while also preserving professional identities and uniting all in the overall aim to safeguard. The approach extended across the partnership leading to renewed trust and confidence between key agencies and aided constructive collaborative working with voluntary, business and legal sectors. Strengths were identified and built on, difficulties confronted and addressed relationally. Working in this way worked to reduce challenges going ‘underground’ and becoming barriers to successful intervention. In aligning the mission of services, the mechanisms of how we could achieve this was largely within services’ gift.

Facilitating this way of working required what can be described as ‘emotionally informed thinking spaces’ (Ruch 2007; 2009) – safe spaces to support critical reflection where individuals felt able to bring themselves into their work, again at every professional level and for every team. Staff were able to feel vulnerable, supported to explore. Fook & Gardner (2007; 2013) describe the ‘container’ and the ‘contained’ within critical reflection. This is not transactional - in the example given there are numerous ‘containers’ across the system, the majority of whom interchange providing and receiving containment to and from individuals, groups and the system overall. These conditions, the structures and ethos, provided a canvas for effective coproduction and collaboration that afforded the necessary conditions to safeguard. It was not about compliance, or short-term projects, this was – and is – about sustainable investment and commitment to change over time.

Working in this way developed a much more sophisticated screening that focused on cumulative harm, trauma, development and indicators of future harm. It supported a comprehensive approach that did not delineate between types of harm but was curious to their interconnected nature and what responses might be required. Collective thinking space developed consideration of the intricacies and interdependencies that impacted robust safeguarding.

Developing Practice

For some the above scenario may sound like a fairy tale – there were certainly challenges! What I am wanting to highlight here are the mechanisms that must sit around practice, that relationship-based working depends upon: safe and secure systems. In the case of children who suffer extra-familial harm there can be fragmentation across the network – families and networks can find themselves brought together through a shared experience of things ‘falling apart’ without anyone being entirely sure who is responsible for holding them together (Larkin, M; Shaw, R; Flowers, P., 2019). Within such a situation, attention is rarely focussed on what is happening between different stakeholders within discussion. By consequence inaccurate narratives and barriers can be created and go undetected. These can have a significant detrimental impact, with positions becoming fixed. We need boundaries open for us to remain curious to join in a collective understanding of a complex and challenging set of circumstances to consider all.

There are strong views from commentators and stakeholders regarding decisions that should or should not be taken regarding children who suffer extra-familial harm. I advocate caution here, the truth is that often the situation is a lot greyer than we might want to believe and deciding what best to do is difficult. There are many variables that require careful consideration in each unique set of circumstances, and we need forum for constructive exploration. Take for example the child who is at risk of being stabbed. On the one hand we may argue that the child’s rights and agency must be respected while on the other we may know that the child is at risk of death or serious injury; there are distinct dilemmas in balancing a child’s agency with their right to protection. Can sufficient safeguards be enacted around the child, the family, the group? Do we need to consider a move out of area? (I know there are differing views of locality moves and use this only as example of where contention can arise). These are critical moments where the entire micro-system needs to be united in consideration, to think about what could be different and work those ideas through.

Change required is reliant upon the unique needs of localities served and the strength of local partnership cohesion. Achieving an approach that supports contextual working in a system that continues to place ultimate statutory responsibility outside of the innovative approaches to extra-familial harm undoubtedly leaves room for conflict and confusion – particularly if the norms in one environment or part of the service differ to those promoted in another. While there is a need for structures to bring together discussion about children holistically, these measures alone rarely realise the desired outcomes in the absence of effective conditions to support their implementation.