tenth international signs of sa fety...
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Signs of SafetyGathering
ProgrammeGathering2016
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
T E N T H I N T E R N A T I O N A L
5–7 July 2016Norwich, United Kingdom
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
T E N T H I N T E R N A T I O N A L
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This Gathering will not be live-streamed however video of all sessions will be available to view for a limited time on the web page noted above from late-August.
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W E B S I T E
V I D E O
It’s with the greatest pleasure I welcome my close colleague and Signs of
Safety co-creator Steve Edwards to this Gathering. This is the first international
Gathering Steve has been able to attend. It’s a simple fact that there would be no
Signs of Safety approach without Steve and it will be a joy to share this Gathering
with him and hear his reflections at the close. I want also to welcome Pon Jedtha
and Ross Layton from Cambodian Children’s Trust (CTC) from Battambang,
Cambodia. CTC together with two other Cambodian children’s services agencies
have asked the Signs of Safety community to work with them over the coming
years in their important social and cultural work. CTC want to utilise and apply
the Signs of Safety approach in their work of developing community based,
family centred children’s services and challenge the orphanage business model
that undermines traditional child raising in Cambodia and across the developing
world. The same individualised child rescue model that is problematic in The West
has tragic consequences in poorer countries and I believe we in over developed
countries have much to learn from building our connection with Pon, Ross, CTC
and their partners. Thank you for joining us Pon and Ross. Finally, and most
importantly, I want to honour and thank all those who will make presentations at
this Gathering. You will be brilliant and you will make this Gathering and show us
what the Signs of Safety looks like in practice and in organisation!
Welcome to the Tenth International Signs of Safety Gathering!
Andrew Turnell
I N T R O D U C T I O N
Since the first Signs of Safety Gathering was held in England in 2005 (under the watchful eye of Gateshead’s
Angel of the North), an English Gathering always feels like coming home. That first Gathering was in a very
real way an international coming out for the Signs of Safety as well as the creation of a wonderful platform
for building and growing a community around the approach. The past 11 years have seen much change and
learning. Interest in the Signs of Safety has exploded, the practice model has continued to evolve and most
critically we have become more acutely aware that organisational alignment is crucial if the approach is to
significantly change outcomes for children and their families. This Gathering will, as always offer rich and
detailed stories from practitioners themselves about how the approach works in their cases and their agency.
It is the heart of the approach that always makes a Signs of Safety Gathering so inspiring. As the Signs of Safety
practice model has matured and as more organisations have taken on the approach our biggest challenge is
to grow our capacity to assist procedurally-habituated organisations to align themselves with the practice,
describing processes for learning, measurement, organisation, and leadership that allow the promise of the
Signs of Safety approach to be realised in consistently improved outcomes for children and families. The
2016 Gathering marks a moment in the evolution of the Signs of Safety approach where we report back on
the practice, organisational alignment and research work of the Signs of Safety English Innovations Project
and hear from others from around the world about how we are shaping and leading our organisations to use
Signs of Safety to put children, their parents and those naturally connected to them back at the centre of the
assessment, decision-making and planning. The learning continues! As well as welcoming all participants I
want to also offer two welcomes particularly special to me:
I’m very proud and excited to stand alongside my friend and mentor Andrew Turnell to welcome you to the
10th International Signs of Safety Gathering. When we held the first Gathering in 2005 in Gateshead, UK, I
thought “well it doesn’t get much better than this”, but it does and it has and this week all of the participants
will be showing us just how much better it has got. The early Gatherings focused on innovative practice and
we were inspired by what we heard and saw and it gave practitioners the courage and vision to try out these
new ideas with the children and families they were working with. Now, as we have grown in wisdom and
sophistication, we know that whilst practice is the very heart of everything that matters and is the main reason
we are all here, we also know so much more.
Viv Hogg
3Signs of Safety
GatheringInnovation and Couragein Children’s Services
We know that the practice we admire and strive for can only be achieved in organisations that understand
that everyone from the Chief Executive to the person answering the phone has a crucial role in leading this
practice; that a learning organisation is much more than a strap-line and that Rome wasn’t built in a day so if
we are serious about transforming our services, we need to be in it for the long haul.
Over this week, it is my hope and belief that practitioners will learn things that will make them become better
at what they do, that leaders will be inspired by what they hear to become stronger in their leadership and
that trainers will learn from every single one of you and will incorporate their learning into the training that
they bring back to your organisations. Since the last International Gathering to be held in the UK in 2014, much
has happened; Munro, Turnell & Murphy (MTM) have been working in partnership with 10 Local Authorities
in England under a Government innovation project. This project has really helped us focus on what it takes to
radically reform the way we do complex work within a complex system.
You will hear from 9 of the 10 agencies this week and you will also hear Andrew
Turnell & Terry Murphy offering some reflections about what we have learned
along the way. Every presentation will highlight individual and organisational
learning and because we are all so very well connected up nationally and
internationally, the ideas will spread and take hold and we will take courage from
each other to challenge our systems, to try out new ways of doing things and to
stake a claim for good practice. Have a great Gathering, learn lots and make
new friends.
Dylan’s story explains how the use of Words and Pictures has
contributed to improved parent, child and carer relationships for
him and his family. The presentation will include an outline of
the work, share samples and show film extracts evidencing what
difference the work meant for those involved. Hear about some
of the unexpected consequences! The work is captured in more
detail in the refreshed Creative Communications booklet which
will be available at the Gathering.
As a Trainer and Consultant the recurrent struggles among social
workers who are using Signs of Safety is to put aside their own
values and preconceptions, which they know sometimes prevent
them to focus on the safety within the child’s own family network
and also possible reunifications. To have a conversation about a
father and his goal to have drinks cabinet in the house without
emptying it might sound unacceptable or even horrifying for
some. How come some would explore this goal with a father
rather than rejecting it?
Danielle Marsden & Gill Graham
D A Y O N E
9.30
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
Dylan’s Story Leicestershire County Council
Ophelia Mac-Kwashie
Open Minded vs Own Personal Values En Hel By (An Entire Village) – Sweden
10.00
Morning Tea 10:30 – 11:00
Michael Rosen, Director Children’s Services David Ashcroft, Chair of Local Safeguarding Children Board, Norfolk County Council
Viv Hogg & Andrew Turnell
9.00
9.10
Welcome to the Norwich Gathering
Setting the Scene for the Gathering
5
Dylan’s story explains how the use of Words and Pictures has
contributed to improved parent, child and carer relationships for
him and his family. The presentation will include an outline of
the work, share samples and show film extracts evidencing what
difference the work meant for those involved. Hear about some
of the unexpected consequences! The work is captured in more
detail in the refreshed Creative Communications booklet which
will be available at the Gathering.
VZW Sporen always works with the whole family and focuses
on every child within the family. The presentation shows good
practice in cases from two of their units - De Pas en Traject and
MFC Traject. Unit ‘de Pas’ works primarily with adolescent boys
who stayed in the closed Government Institutions because of
delinquent behavior. This presentation is about a case where
the workers built a good partnership with the mother, how they
involved her network and what it meant to her. Unit ‘MFC Traject’
works with adolescent boys (12–20 years) and we will see how
the workers in a case adjusted the Signs of Safety tools in order
to talk with the children about difficult themes in the guidance.
Avi Versanov and Pene Turnell
11.30 Partnership – The Power Behind The PracticeCanada and Western Australia
Networks, Cartoons & Games – Being Creative With Families and Young PeopleVZW Sporen, Belgium
12.00
Lunch 12:30 – 1:30
Kevin Van Bedts & Denis Gorgon
Through the England Innovations programme, Suffolk has used
the Continuum of Services practice reform project to promote
their firm commitment to using Signs of Safety in all of their
children’s services. Some of their greatest challenges have been
to flex the model within some of their most highly regulated
services (adoption and fostering, residential homes, children in
care) while keep fidelity to Signs of Safety principles.
The presentation will showcase how Suffolk has approached
these challenges through three examples which demonstrate
how Signs of Safety is transforming the work they do.
Alison Hislop, Julia Ilott and Serena Emberley
11.00 Flexing with Fidelity: Adapting Signs of Safety Across Our Services Suffolk County Council
Safety planning is hard and scary work, both to do and to
describe. There is no manual that tells families and professionals
exactly whats needed to guarantee a vulnerable child will be
safe. In every situation, safety planning depends on quickly
building relationships between the family and professionals
where that can together wrestle with what safety will look like.
Safety planning work demands courage because to be effective,
professionals and family must be able to discuss the very worst
possibilities of what may have or could happen and these
conversations need to be lead with compassion, imagination
and hope. Susie describes the relationships that sustains
effective safety planning as firm and hugely kind. Because safety
planning is anxious business and child protection work is so time
pressured there is always the tendency to avoid the relational
work, duck hard issues, avoid difficult conversations and resort
to standardised answers and set piece rules Drawing on two case
examples, Susie and Andrew will explore the interconnection
between the methods and relational foundation of effective
safety planning. Susie and Andrew want to articulate safety
planning as a journey not a product where creating an informed
network, a words and pictures explanation and a words and
pictures safety plan are seen as methods for building the depth
of thinking and relationship in which children will be kept safe.
Susie Essex and Andrew Turnell
D A Y O N E
2.00
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
The Journey of Safety Planning
Afternoon Tea 3:00 – 3:30
The presentation shows how Swansea Social Services are using
Signs of Safety in Child Protection Conferences to support
families to fully understand the worries where there is a risk of
significant harm to children and to support families to use their
own strengths and identify existing safety within their network
to develop and follow safety plans to keep families together in a
way that ensures safety and protection for the children.
Sarah Ford & Claire Lloyd
1.30 Learning from a Parent’s Experience in The Child Protection Conference ProcessSwansea Council
7
The presentation tells the story of Sophia, a young care leaver
who experienced secure accommodation because of Child Sexual
Exploitation, regular absconding and an inability to regulate her
emotions. At that time, Sophias experience of Childrens Services
was that it was service-led and problem-focused. When Sophia
falls pregnant with Zarah the service shows her a difference by
using a new practice framework to bring honest conversations,
family-led plans and a strengths based assessment.
Estelle Kelleway, Judith Ramsden & Julie Saunders
4.00 Zarah’s Life Begins....Wokingham Borough Council
The end to end journey - Front Door to Conferencing - in one
short year. Wakefield will demonstrate what you can achieve in
just one year, showing the highs and lows of each stage of the
journey and the impact they have made in the implementation
of Signs of Safety. The presentation will share practice on how
they took partners with them to achieve successful outcomes
and the difference this has made to the success of the project;
the move from basic training to application of the model; and
ensuring quality and consistency of Signs of Safety use through
the alignment of new documentation and support from child
protection conference chairs.
Mark Stonell, Anne-Marie Spencer, Sally Williams & Tami Mohans
3.30 One Short YearWakefield Council
Close 4:30
The presentation demonstrates how the Signs of Safety approach
was used as the overarching framework in establishing how to
best support a 16-year old girl where there were considerable
concerns of death by misadventure and an extensive history of
neglectful and abusive care. It showcases how Signs of Safety was
used by Social Care, Mental Health Services and Education working
together to establish a common understanding and language
surrounding the young persons needs and to create a plan of how
to meet her needs without restricting her freedom.
In 2013, Racheal went from being the acting Executive Director of
a Delegated Aboriginal Agency, to a mother requiring intervention
from CPS. This presentation will highlight some of the pivotal
moments that helped her work to resume full-time care of her
son. Although part of the story is personal, the general reflections
& learnings can be applied to many other cases. Often the focus
is on preparing a strong danger statements or safety goals;
however, this presentation will highlight the importance of both
vulnerability and hope in creating true change for families.
Tower Hamlets is transforming practice by applying Signs of
Safety across the childs journey within Childrens’ Services. This
presentation showcases how they have applied Signs of Safety
from the Front Door through to working with Looked After
Children. It will show how Signs of Something has been used
in work with education. The presenters will also talk about the
complexities of working with culturally and linguistically diverse
families and how Signs of Safety was used to address difficult
and sensitive issues with young people and families.
Nic Yeates, Karen Reynolds & Nicki Bramford
D A Y T W O
9.00
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
Beth’s Journey Compass, Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation NHS Trust
Racheal Nicholas
One Little Monkey Ktunaxa Kinbasket Child & Family Services, Canada
9.30
Rebecca Ellam, Rumi Mustofa & Amy Sands
10.00 Finding the Right Words London Borough of Tower Hamlets
Morning Tea 10:30 – 11:00
9
Servelec Corelogic will talk about the current implementation of
Signs of Safety in Manchester City Council using the Mosaic case
management solution and how working in partnership to create
a system that reflects the model can make a radical difference
to practitioners engagement and the quality of their recording.
During the gathering there will be opportunity to see the system
being used and to talk to staff from Servelec Corelogic.
‘#I AM ME’ is a handbook for Social Workers developed in
Swansea that brings important messages learned from working
with Words and Pictures and integrating these into the childs Life
Story Work. The presentation will share how the Signs of Safety
approach inspired the evolution of the workbook, how it aims to
change practice, challenges faced when changing practice and
feedback from workers in how the workbook is supporting them
to help parents/carers give their children honest explanations.
From a child welfare agency Ontario, Canada, the presenters
will take you along their journey since the last Gathering in
Minnesota (2015), stressing to you how their agency was inspired
by the Signs of Safety work happening all over the globe. Just
when we thought we got it, the Revolution was just that! It
shook us again but in the best possible way. We knew we were
on the right track, but we had not even neared the station.
This presentation will use a case example to demonstrate the
importance of joint learnings from a worker and supervisors
perspective as well as hearing from the voice of the family, legal
community and community partners. The significance of the
Signs of Safety community has permitted ongoing support and
growth as the field of child welfare continues to evolve.
Pippa Young & Angela Robertson
11.00 Signs of Safety – Making IT WorkServelec Corelogic
#I AM ME – A Handbook for Social WorkersSwansea Council
11.30
Theresa Vinokuroff & Katie Vachon
11.45 A Revolution in 2015... An Awakening in 2016 Children’s Aid Society of Stormont, Dundas & Glengarry, Canada
Vanessa Chambers
Group Photo & Lunch 12:15 – 1:30
Jack (17) violently robbed a snack bar. He needed the money for
his drug addiction. Now he is facing a Youth Probation order.
With his mother and his probation officer, Judith, he made a
words and pictures about his life prior to his offence, what
happened since and where he wants to go. This helps him to
keep grip on the justice process. Because of his mild cognitive
limitation this is important for him. This presentation shows
the work, findings and struggles in working with words and
pictures in Youth Probation.
This presentation describes how an external primary school has
implemented Signs of Safety into everything they do.
It follows the journey of three children and shows how using
Signs of Safety allowed the cases to be held in Early Help without
escalating to Social Care. There are practical examples of direct
work with the children, Words and Pictures, creative tools and
the significant impact this has had for the family.
The presentation also looks at how schools/education can
implement the model into their everyday way of working and the
success of doing so.
This presentation will consider how using Signs of Safety has
changed the trajectory for one family. The presentation will
include consideration of group learning, staff supervision and
supporting staff to try new skills. In the period before using
Signs of Safety the potential for a positive outcome was
questionable. Using Signs of Safety has enabled a fresh
prospective and approach and subsequently enhanced the
mother’s engagement and thinking.
Ruudje Kea & Judith van Boxtel
D A Y T W O
1.30
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
Imagine Success William Schrikker Group, Netherlands
Alison Russell
Signs of Safety In Early Help and Schools Parish Primary School, Lincolnshire
2.00
Afternoon Tea 2:30 – 3:00
Julie Davidson, Julie Maguire & Melissa Allen
3.00 Leading, Learning and Changing Trajectories Kent County Council
11
The presentation is about encountering an almost impossible
situation and being able to say “Don’t panic, we can fix this
TOGETHER” to the children, parents and other professionals
by using Signs of Safety. It gives a verbal and enthusiastic
account of the turmoil experienced by one family when the
father was removed by police from the home for a second time.
The account includes a description of an in-depth mapping
session which led to a safety plan to allow the father to return to
the home to keep the family together, and shows the investment
that the family placed in the Signs of Safety approach which
ensured a positive outcome.
The Signs of Safety EIP project involved 10 local authorities
in an intensive 18-month learning process researching the
implementation of Signs of Safety in the English context. It
focused on organisational alignment, information management,
four practice reform projects and action research. In this
presentation Andrew Turnell and Terry Murphy will detail the key
learnings and the most important achievements that have come
out of the EIP.
Tess Terzza
3.30 Bringing Daddy Home Norfolk County Council
Learning from England Innovations Project4.00Andrew Turnell & Terry Murphy
Close 4:30
West Sussex will take you on a journey of how they embraced
family led safety planning for an injured baby when it was not
known who in the family had caused the injuries. This was at a
time of redesign of service, new job roles and a context of high
anxiety and scrutiny across our system. By focusing on Signs of
Safety principles and practice, they will demonstrate how this
enabled them to work across local authority boundaries and keep
the child at the heart of their work. They will share their reflections
on past practice and learning for the future.
Safety in Partnership is a local innovation that began in 2010,
following the introduction of frameworks such as Signs of Safety &
Building Safety & Strengthening Families within family and childcare
settings. As the approach evolved so did the thinking on ensuring
that the needs of children are met, improving workforce skills
and promoting a learning culture by improving relationships with
families as well as between social workers and other
professionals/agencies to generate greater safety for children.
This presentation will focus on the use of the Safety in Partnership
approach in situations where social workers are faced with having
to have difficult conversations with families. Focusing on two case
examples to explore the systemic thinking and practice used to
promote collaborative working, carrying out the mapping process
and reaching safety goals and safety plans.
Effective child protection is all about the practice. But it’s also all
about leadership. The ways in which organisations are led can either
support workers to do their best or set an obstacle course where
the work has to happen despite the organisation. Terry Murphy
will interview some of the practitioners who have presented their
practice to the Gathering, to reflect on the leadership they have
experienced and what it takes to support great practice.
Pauline Barrett & Stephanie Snow
D A Y T H R E E
9.00
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
Embracing Family Led Safety Planning For An Injured Baby West Sussex County Council
Natasha Duddy & Jennifer McKinney
From Difficult Conversations to Different Conversations: The Safety in Partnership ApproachWestern Health & Social Care Trust, Northern Ireland
9.30
Terry Murphy
10.00 Plenary: Reflections on Leadership—from the Practitioners Who Experience its Impact Western Australia
13
Brent is on a drive to transform outcomes for children and
is continuing to embed Signs of Safety across the service -
developing front line practice and reforming organisational
processes to be effective and support practice. The presentation
uses 2 case examples to show how front line staff are using
Signs of Safety in different areas of their work. Social workers
and managers talk on the practical ways of fostering genuine
collaborative relationships amongst families, children and
professionals outside of the Local Authority.
Without Steve Edwards there would be no Signs of Safety
because it was his 17 year’s direct field experience that provided
the foundation from which Steve and Andrew created the
approach. Andrew and Steve started collaborating in 1988, and
somehow 28 years later they find themselves in 2016 with their
work having transformed into an internationally recognised
child protection approach. In this presentation Steve will bring
his practitioner’s heart and connect what he has heard at
this Gathering to the history and development of the Signs of
Safety with his thoughts about how we continue to strive to put
children, parents and families at the centre of the work.
Emotional neglect and unsafe attachment are topics that are
difficult to address in assessments. The presentation shows a
case example where the focus is especially on creating helpful
questions directed to these issues and to creating a common
language in a context of social work with drug addicted
parents. It will demonstrate an understanding of assessments
as ‘situations of knowledge production’ where different forms
of knowledge have to be balanced and in making sense of the
questions at stake.
Emily Gwynn, Jennifer Faithfull & Justin Colman
11.15 A Flexible Approach – Using Signs Of Safety Across Our WorkLondon Borough of Brent
Are We There Yet? 11.45
Ulla Peters
12.00 Making the Invisible VisibleUniversity of Luxembourg
Steve Edwards
Morning Tea 10:45 – 11:15
Lunch 12:30 – 1:30
This presentation demonstrates how Words & Pictures was used
to create an open understanding for parents with a learning
disability of the worries held by professionals about their ability
to safely care for their baby. It considers the impact that this
piece of work had upon the parents’ understanding of the
concerns and the positive change in their ability to meet their
child’s needs, which led to this child being able to remain within
their family. It will provide an opportunity to see how the work
influenced the progress made by the family, how it provided a
platform for all parties to express and talk about their worries
in a way that the parents could understand and the importance
of securing parents’ understanding and engagement when
assessing for and protecting against risk.
Professor Eileen Munro and Dame Moira Gibb connect messages
of the Gathering’s presentations to the bigger issues that always
swirl around, intersect and drive children’s service organisation,
policy and practice. This final session will help all participants think
more broadly about the connections between their own contexts
and current policy/social issues that face all child protection
practitioners and organisations, and will assist us as we seek to
build more participatory, human focused children’s services.
Some final thoughts on the Gathering and thank-you’s from
Andrew and Viv.
Darryl Clarke & Tina Morris
D A Y T H R E E
1.30
Signs of SafetyGathering
Innovation and Couragein Children’s Services
July 2016 - Norwich, United Kingdom
Inventive Words & Pictures Leicestershire County Council
Professor Eileen Munro & Dame Moira GibbReflections, Intersections and Directions 2.00
Andrew Turnell Viv Hogg3.00 Way Forward/Thanks
Close 3:30