1. Safeguarding children; the role of family support
Ruth Gardner
Senior Research Fellow
University of East Anglia & NSPCC

2. Safeguarding Children
The responsibility and capacity of agencies, groups and individuals to prevent or respond to actual and potential harm to children
Could include; businesses; voluntary and community organisations; faith groups
Within this, child protection usually refers to statutory interventions

3. Family support
Providing advice and support to parents to help them in bringing up their children
Promoting competence and meeting basic developmental needs…as opposed to identifying and treating underlying pathology
A way of dealing with life crises and problems…which takes account of strengths

4. A false dichotomy? Prescription---Choice Rules--- Diversity
Logic Creativity
Target Context
Intellect Emotion
Challenge--- Empathy
Work Play

5. Reflective Practice
Engaged in a dialogue between the thinking that attaches to action and the thinking that deals in more propositional (abstract) knowledge
Capable of appraisal and self-appraisal and to learn constructively form significant experiences
Modifying action in the light of knowledge, experience and current context

6. Safeguarding in family support
Keeping children safe should run through all provision- health, education and child care
Visibility is the greatest safeguard for a child
Social networks promote competence & are a buffer to stress and risk
Family support allows for reflection

7. Family support and safeguarding
Excluded or potentially excluded children
Domestic abuse and harm to children
Parents who have been abused
Distressed and challenging children who may or may not have been harmed
The wider family and its network

8. Reflective practice-only connect
Asking questions constructively -getting the bigger picture
Dialogue and two way learning eg with children
Adapting services to need eg bringing specialists to the child
Non-defensive practice eg gaps in knowledge are an opportunity

9. What is needed
More learning and appraisal opportunities for front-line practitioners
More service-user (including children’s) forums
Quicker access to specialists eg speech therapists
More trained advocates

10. What is needed
Keeping safe an outcome for every child in every service, with accountability located
Families with more responsibility for outcomes and more choice of methods eg client -held budgets, FGCs
A funding formula based on the population of need