5 - Learning from safeguarding children and beyond

Summary

Introduction

This chapter considers what can be learned from safeguarding children in order to inform thinking about Transitional Safeguarding, aiming to complement Chapter 6, which focuses on learning from safeguarding adults. It starts by reflecting on some of the trends and ideologies apparent within child protection, exploring how policy reform has tended to respond to crises, which in turn may have fuelled a culture of blame and application of over-procedural solutions. In arguing for a different approach to system reform than has tended to be seen previously, this chapter then explores tensions and challenges observed both within ‘traditional’ child protection and within safeguarding of young people facing extra-familial harm. A number of innovations within safeguarding children's work are considered, along with their potential connection to Transitional Safeguarding. The chapter then discusses other parts of the wider system, beyond safeguarding, in which there are clear policy and practice efforts to consider young people's support needs beyond their eighteenth birthday. Finally, these reflections are consolidated with the intention of drawing out potential lessons for how the Transitional Safeguarding approach might be developed and embedded.

How we got here

Chapter 3 explored the legal and policy frameworks that govern how children and young people under 18 are supported and safeguarded, and noted the way that the state's response to children and young people at risk of harm has tended to be formulated in response to crises or scandals, with numerous examples of child deaths instigating high-profile national inquiries. The consequence of these public inquiries, however unintended, can be to fuel a culture in which blame is located at practice level (Munro 2004, 2011), despite these inquiries invariably identifying systemic and structural problems. A concordant feature of how reform has tended to play out can be seen in the ever-growing raft of procedural checks and balances intended, presumably, to eliminate the danger of practitioners making mistakes. Social work, in particular, has been found to be highly proceduralised (Parton 2009), with some researchers noting that the efforts to make the system safer through formalising procedures may be counter-productive (Broadhurst et al 2010). Some have argued that the notion of child-centredness within children's safeguarding practice, clearly an important tenet, has contributed to a mindset in which wider family needs or strengths are overlooked and cynicism can prevail (Featherstone et al 2014).