‘How we Practice in Durham’ is our practice model and includes Signs of Safety alongside other approaches such as Family Group Conferencing and relational, trauma informed practice. We use this model across the whole of Children and Young People’s Services (CYPS), from Early Help through to Children in Care and Care Leavers.
This is helping to improve the quality of our work and ensure a consistent approach wherever children and families are at in their journey with CYPS.
‘How we Practice in Durham’ puts children, parents/carers and the family and practitioners who are most important to them at the heart of assessments, decision making and planning. This means we co-create plans with children, families and the people who know them best.
We want children to remain with their family network where it is safe for them to do so. When this cannot happen, we support children to have relationships with the people and pets who are most important to them as this gives them a sense of belonging and supports them to have life-long links once they leave care.
Signs of Safety
The Signs of Safety Mapping tool is the framework we use to guide our assessments. It is based on asking four questions:
- What are we worried about?
- What is working well?
- What needs to happen next?
- Where would we rate it on a scale of 0-10
This is called the four domains of assessment, and within this there are 7 sub analysis categories to analyse the risk: Harm; Complicating factors; Existing strengths; Existing safety; Danger statements; Safety goals; Next steps
We want to offer a fair and balanced assessment to children and families, where we ask about the things that are working well and help to reduce the worries as much as we ask about the things that are not going so well in a family.
Where there is safety in a family, we want the people that are keeping the children safe to talk more about how they do this and what else they can do so we can build future safety for the children should things get difficult again.
Scaling questions
Scaling questions come from solution focused practice and are strengths based and action focused. We use scaling questions to explore difference of opinion, track progress and consider next steps to move towards a goal.
Each person scales the situation from their own perspective. Scaling is not a way to get everyone to agree on a number. Instead, it allows us to understand the reason for each person’s scale and what they think needs to happen to move up the scale.
Scaling is always from 0 to 10, where 10 is the desired behaviour we will see to no longer be worried and 0 is what life would be like if nothing changes for the child/young person. Practitioners and family members will be asked to scale when you attend review meetings and conferences. You will be asked to explain why you scaled that number and what you would need to see to move up the scale, even just a little. This helps to build hope for families and keeps actions realistic and manageable between one review meeting and the next.
Practitioners can use scaling questions at any time, not just at meetings. You can use scaling in your work with children and families to understand their views, for example how confident they are around a particular issue.
Safety Planning
All families are unique, so we work with children, their parents, carers, and the other important people in their lives to help them think through their best ideas for keeping the children safe. This is so that families come up with plans that work for them, rather than practitioners offering their ideas first.
We always try to safety plan with the most important people in the child and parents’ lives. We know that all parents struggle and need help from time to time to care for their children and keep them safe. Safety planning builds on the good things going on in the child’s life and is clear about who will do what if something risky happens so that the child is kept safe from harm.
Words and Pictures
Children learn and understand best through story telling. We use words and pictures to help us to have difficult conversations with children in a way that is balanced with the good times in their life, using words that they can easily understand.
It is important that children know why they have services involved in their lives so that we can have an honest conversation with them about what they are worried about and what would help to keep them safe.
We also know that when there are big changes in a child’s life, for example if a parent leaves home or if the child goes to live with someone else, then the child can sometimes blame themselves for this.
Children’s services practitioners work with parents to help them to provide an explanation for their child about how things have got to where they are, in a way that makes sense to their child and does not blame or shame the parents or the child. We also use words and pictures to explain plans to children, so they know who is doing what to keep them safe.
Help and support
The Signs of Safety: Knowledge Bank has some helpful information on the approach which is available to all practitioners. Practice Champions in Children’s Services have a login which allows them to access many more example of practice. Practitioners need a subscription to access these additional resources.
Useful links
- How we Practice in Durham – fifth edition (specific to Children’s Social Care)
- Harm/Worry Matrix.pdf
- Eco Map.pdf
- Guidance for Genograms and Eco Maps.pdf