1. New areas for adult safeguarding?
Jill Manthorpe
Social Care Workforce Research Unit,
King’s College London
@jillmanthorpe
@scwru

2. Adults at risk who have care and support needs and are unable to protect themselves (Care Act 2014) Local Authorities (LAs) and partners are responsible for safeguarding or protecting adults at risk from neglect and abuse Lots of reasons why people need care and support Lots of ways in which other people might mistreat or neglect them Lots of debate about what is safeguarding and what is the ‘problem’ This presentation covers ideas about ‘safeguarding’ and new(ish) areas and their implications for practice

3. Seven ‘new’ areas? Modern slavery Older renters Internet
Pressure ulcers
Coercion & control
Gambling
DoLS successor

4. In the beginning (nearly)
Granny battering
Family violence
Carer stress

5. And institutional scandals
Poor care
Care for the poor
Systems and/or bad apples

6. Modern slavery Under ‘umbrella’ of safeguarding
Can also include human trafficking or human smuggling
Prevention – supply chains; response chains
Illegal exploitation or trapped into servitude
Some people may be adults with care & support needs

7. Implications for practice
Domestic servitude – in care situations
Forced labour and coercion of people with disabilities
Forced marriage concerns when appearing lack of consent
Need to know local systems & protocols & keep eyes open; raise concerns

8. Internet Scams, fraud etc – part of financial abuse
Challenge to ‘abuse within a relationship of trust’
Was encouragement of IT accompanied by cautions?
What have we learned from this?
Social exclusion of IT non-users

9. Implications for practice
Remembering indicators of financial abuse eg debt, hardship
False friends and grooming
Relationships with trading standards
Power of peer advice

10. Private renting Vulnerability & precariousness of some older renters
Links to coercion
Invisible pressures
Fear
Confidence & capacity of ‘helping professionals’
Potential to confuse with self-neglect
NB cuckooing

11. Implications for practice
Recording of housing status (& conditions)
Linkages to housing and environmental health
Making Safeguarding Personal approaches
Power of Access to people with apparent capacity when refused by third party – negotiation and creativity (Helping and Hindering study)

12. Pressure ulcers
Pre-Care Act 2014 – in many areas automatic referral to safeguarding
Many NFA – no further action
Now – only if cause for safeguarding concern
Seen as barometer for care quality
Also ‘measurable’ (grades) and photographable

13. Implications for practice
Still barometer of care
Knowledge of prevention and treatments
Ask, see, record
Can be safeguarding concern – was it avoidable or not?
Liaison with health vital

14. Coercion and control Links with DV Not just a ‘Helen’ issue
Long interest in Adult Safeguarding and Domestic Violence interface eg DV graduates, Punch & Judy, role reversal
Also interest in DV as part of behavioural symptoms

15. Implications for practice
Is it safe to ask?
Ask
Frame the question and validate
Assess
Action and recording
Victim/perpetrator labels sometimes unhelpful

16. Gambling
Among adults with care and support needs – risks of exploitation, lack of insight, etc
Gabling related harm from problem gambling of others eg theft
Public health issue
Gabling Act 2005 requires industry to protect ‘vulnerable people’
Much gambling online

17. Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) 2009
The people the law forgot…
Did the ‘S’ for safeguarding get lost?
Strong criticisms but some charm?
Squeezing of safeguarding resource?
Light shone on some self-funders not known to local services

18. Implications for practice
Holding our breath
Risk of focusing on DoLS rather than whole of Mental Capacity Act 2005
MCA – continued chorus of concern about lack of recording and thinking through
Be or find the local DoLS and successor expert !

19. Concluding points Safeguarding – elastic
How do multiple sectors respond to this ever-inclusive debate?
Should safeguarding focus on core business?
Keep eye on children’s safeguarding
Need for recording; supervision discussion and local maps

20. Help needed
James Lind Alliance Priority Setting Partnership – Research on Adult Social Work
What are the unanswered questions? (excluding training)
Please complete – social workers, other professionals, users/carers

21. Thanks for listening! (& thanks to studies’ participants and funders – the usual disclaimers apply)