1. Introducing Safety Mapping Product and Process
Northern California Training Academy Webinar
December 1, 2010
Introducing Safety Mapping Product and Process
Philip Decter, Family-Centered Services Project
John Vogel, Action Learning Group

2. Agenda
Safety Mapping
Background
Definitions
Examples
Process

3. Visualization
Think about a time you when you had in-depth conversation with a caregiver about danger and safety that you thought went particularly well.

4. Visualization
What do you think you allowed it to go so well?

5. Safety Organized Child Welfare Practice!
Signs of Safety
Quick Reminders
Objectives of Signs of Safety are to promote:
ENGAGEMENT: Create a shared focus to guide casework among all stakeholders (child, family, worker, supervisor, etc.).
CRITICAL THINKING: Help these stakeholders consider complicated & ambiguous case information and sort it into meaningful CW categories.
ENHANCING SAFETY: Clear the way for stakeholders to engage in “rigorous, sustainable, on the ground child safety” efforts.
Safety Organized Child Welfare Practice!
Quick review – don’t go into depth here.

6. Safety Mapping Safety mapping is a facilitated conversation of
Critically thinking through the impact of a caregiver’s actions on a child and
Coming to understanding and group agreements about ‘goals’ and what needs to happen next to enhance protection for a child.
It is a process that can take place:
With families and workers together
In family meetings (TDM’s/FGC’s)
In supervision
In case consults
By yourself

7. Safety Mapping
“Completing the Signs of Safety framework is, in the end, simply a process of creating a map of the circumstances surrounding a vulnerable child.
As with all maps, the Signs of Safety map needs always to be seen as a mechanism to arrive at a destination. That destination is rigorous, sustainable, everyday child safety in the actual home and places where the child lives.”
Andrew Turnell

8. Assumptions in Safety Mapping
Relationships are the most significant factor in promoting child safety, permanency, and well-being.
The words we use matter— building a series of shared agreements over time to reach larger goal requires that we share some common language.
Organizing information about safety and danger to children is not easy – hard to ‘admit we might be wrong’.
The more that information is effectively organized among all the key people involved, the more likely it is for effective decisions to be made.

9. Three Questions What are we worried about? What’s working well?
What needs to happen next?

10. Three Questions What are we worried about? Harm, Danger, Risk
Complicating Factors
Danger Statements
What’s going well?
Safety
Supporting Strengths
Safety Goals
What needs to happen next?
Identifying and Enhancing the Safety Network
Safety Planning

11. Harm, Danger and Risk Harm: Danger: Risk:
Past actions by a caregiver to a child that have hurt the child physically, developmentally or emotionally
Danger:
Credible worries/concerns child welfare and others in the community have about actions that caregiver may be taking now or in the future that will harm that child
Risk:
The resulting likelihood of repeated future harm
Go quickly through these definitions… next 4 slides.

12. Safety
Safety is regarded as actions of protection (specifically related to dangers & concerns) demonstrated over time
All families have some signs of safety
The best predictor of future protection is past protection
Without searching for examples of protection it will be difficult to know the extent of the signs of danger or to determine how protection could be enhanced and measured in the present and future

13. Complicating Factors
Warning signs, red flags, issues that make the provision of protection more difficult but in and of themselves are not direct dangers.
Mental illness, teenage parenting, poverty, low IQ, what else?

14. Supporting Strengths
Skills of living, coping skills, cultural or familial histories of recovery or support that are important but do not directly support the provision of protection.
Being organized, exercising, being good at sports/school, what else?

15. Safety Mapping What are we worried about? What’s working well?
What needs to happen next?
Harm, Danger +
Complicating Factors:
Safety +
Strengths:
Safety Goals, Identifying a Safety Network,
Safety Planning

16. Safety Mapping What are we worried about? What’s working well?
Harm and Danger:
Safety:
Complicating Factors:
Strengths:
Questions for Follow up/What needs to happen next?

17. Clinical Vignette ?
Ann 40
Donna 39
Kim 32 10
Paul
Allegation of substance abuse – Kim passed out while shooting heroin and cooking dinner. Paul was home. Paul goes to live with his aunt Donna and her wife Ann.

18. What are we worried about?
Kimberly overdosed on heroin and became unconscious while cooking dinner. 10yo Paul was home at the time. Her landlady heard the fire alarm and had to call the police and open the door
Kim has an extensive history of heroin use in the past and reports that she has been struggling with addiction "for more than 15 years". This led to one DCF referral 4 years ago when Paul came to school multiple days smelling of urine and feces
Kim attributes this incident to a growing depression after loosing her job as a saleswoman at a department store. She has been looking for work for more than 14 weeks without finding anything. Both Donna and Ann confirm this.
Kim had stopped attending NA 2+year ago ("they get kind of preachy, and the meetings were not good times.").
Kim has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder, and ADD.

19. What are we worried about?
Kim: "I'm doing what I need to do and don't know why my son has not been able to come back yet!"
Kim: "I'm worried about my son growing up without his mom and want him back.”
Kim she appreciates her sisters help but that Donna can be "a know it all" and that it's hard to work with her sometimes on Paul's care

20. What’s going well?
Kim reports she has been clean and sober for 4 years before this incident - a report supported by her sister Donna - during which time Paul has come to school clean, on time and with his work done
In her past work with the department, Kim worked with her worker, a home-based outreach team, went into drug treatment, and ensured that Paul came to school and was appropriately clothed and bathed
Paul was able to go into a kinship foster placement with his Aunt Donna and her wife Ann. He was able to stay in the same school system and it is reported by Aunt and school guidance counselor that he continues to "thrive" despite these changes.
Kimberly had made a plan with Donna in the past that if anything were to happen to her Paul should go to stay with her.

21. What’s going well?
Kim has attended drug treatment in the past including detox (more than five times) and inpatient substance abuse treatment (2x before this incident ). She completed an inpatient stay after this incident and reports now that will again begin to regularly attend NA meetings.
Donna and Ann have been helping Kim financially and report they are willing and able to continue to do so.
Kim is in individual treatment and has been regularly attending. She reports that she takes her Ritalin and Celexa regularly.
Kimberly: "I want Paul back and will do whatever it takes to make that happen.”
Paul: "I love my mom and want to be back with her.”
Donna and Ann: “Kim is a great mom. She had been doing really well and we think she can be clear and sober again.”
School: “We hadn’t seen any problems since Paul has been at this school.”

22. Making sense of what we learn
Kimberly overdosed on heroin and became unconscious while cooking dinner. 10yo Paul was home at the time. Her landlady heard the fire alarm and had to call the police and open the door.
Harm or complicating factor?

23. Making sense of what we learn
Kimberly has been diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder and Attention Deficit Disorder.
Harm or complicating factor?

24. Making sense of what we learn: Looking for Patterns
Kim reports she has been clean and sober for 4 years before this incident - a report supported by her sister Donna - during which time Paul has come to school clean, on time and with his work done
Safety or strength?

25. Making sense of what we learn
Kim is in individual treatment and has been regularly attending. She reports that she takes her Ritalin and Celexa regularly.
Safety or strength?

28. Stories from the field
Of those of you who have been at trainings on this in the past…
What have you tried?
What are you learning about this?
What works well?
Where are the challenges and roadblocks?
What have you done to try to respond to those challenges?
What do you think is important for others who perhaps have not tried this yet to understand?

29. Process
The map is both product and process – as much a conversation as a piece of paper
The map is completed through inquiry – through a process of asking questions we don’t know the answer to
Our ability to complete SDM tools well is enhanced as we ask questions that fill in this map
Open/Narrow/Closed facilitation description

30. Strategic Questions

31. Dimensions of Success
Process
Relationships
Objectives/Goals

32. Networks/Stakeholders
Dialog Structure
Purpose
What will we be doing together?
Describe concretely.
Context
What is happening outside of the room that pulls you away from what we are doing together?
Elicit competing priorities and commitments
which might be a barrier against the work of the group.
Networks/Stakeholders
Do you feel that everyone who needs to be here is here? Who else needs to be here?
Desired Outcomes
What do we want to walk away with today?
Describe concretely: a plan, a decision, etc.
Content
Next Steps
+/∆
∆ s are upgrades or something that needs to be different. It is not necessarily a negative or a detraction.

33. Facilitative Process of Safety Mapping
OPEN Facilitative Behaviors to gather information
Check
for
understanding
NARROW Strategic and Critical Thinking to organize information
Check for
agreement
CLOSE Collaborative Attitude to select the best approach and reach agreement
What are the worries?
Use of inquiry to search for detail: (Solution Focused; E.A.R.S.; Strategic; Appreciative)
Can you describe that in concrete terms? What did you see?
How do we know this to be true or false? What evidence counts?
How sure can we be?
Have we seen something like this before?
What is the impact of the caregiver’s behavior on the child?
Has the child been harmed in the past or currently?
How worried are we that the child will be harmed in the future?
Agreement about the nature and severity of the problem
What works well?
What makes it credible to us?
How else might this look if we viewed it from the family’s perspective?
What behaviors has the caregiver demonstrated that protect the child?
What does it need to look like for the agency to be satisfied that the child is safe enough?
What acts of protection are needed?
What needs to happen?
Who can be part of the network? What might network members do to support change?; What resources are available to help promote change?; Are changes needed in “what people do” or “what they think” or both?
What actions will specific people take to insure that the child is safe?
What are the concrete actions included in a plan for safety?
How can we check to make sure that the plan is being followed?
What do we agree needs to happen if the plan is not being implemented?

34. Facilitative Process of Safety Mapping
OPEN Facilitative Behaviors to gather information
Check
for
understanding
NARROW Strategic and Critical Thinking to organize information
Check for
agreement
CLOSE Collaborative Attitude to select the best approach and reach agreement
What are the worries?
Reveal Patterns of past worries, Search for details, elicit multiple perspectives and stories, Hear the voices of children, Collaborate to describe CPS threshold, Rely on Shared Definitions, Sort out understanding of Danger and Complicating Factors, Utilize SDM Tools, Describe behavior= IMPACT
Develop shared agreement about the nature and severity of the problem
Agreement about an agency Danger Statement
Understanding of the Risk Level
What works well?
Reveal Patterns of past success using exception questions, Appreciative inquiry to tell story when things worked well, Search for details, Elicit multiple perspectives and stories, Hear the voice of children, Use SDM Tools to identify Protective Capacities, Describe behaviors=IMPACT
Develop Safety Goals
Specify Acts of Protection
Describe Supporting Strengths
What needs to happen?
Who can be part of the network? What might network members do to support change?; What resources are available to help promote change?; Are changes needed in “what people do” or “what they think” or both?
Clear expectations of the actions that network members will take.
Safety Plan/Service Plan
Reunification Plan, Implementation Plan

35. Safety Mapping Summary
Helps us all ‘think our way though’ complexity, ambiguity and contradiction in this work.
Helps us to develop a common language across multiple lines – families, providers, workers, supervisors, managers.
Positions us toward ‘shared agreements’ in next steps for enhancing safety for children.
Summarize here.