No. 17: Contextual Safeguarding

What is Contextual Safeguarding?

Contextual Safeguarding is a recognition that children and young people may be at significant risk of harm due to external factors outside of the family home.

All staff, but especially the designated safeguarding lead (and deputies) should consider whether children are at risk of abuse or exploitation in situations outside their families. Extra-familial harms take a variety of different forms and children can be vulnerable to multiple harms including (but not limited to) sexual abuse (including harassment and exploitation), domestic abuse in their own intimate relationships (teenage relationship abuse), criminal exploitation, serious youth violence, county lines, and radicalisation.
KCSiE

When and where does it occur?

Contextual Safeguarding recognises that the different relationships that young people form in their communities, schools and online can feature violence and abuse. Parents and carers have little influence over these contexts, and young people’s experiences of extra-familial abuse can undermine parent-child relationships.

Evidence shows that, for example: from robbery on public transport, sexual violence in parks and gang-related violence on streets, through to online bullying and harassment from school-based peers and abuse within their intimate relationships, young people encounter significant harm in a range of settings beyond their families.

Contextual safeguarding can refer to (but not an exhaustive list)

• Criminal exploitation
• Sexual exploitation
• Radicalisation
• Gangs (incl County Lines)
• Modern slavery
• Child-on-child abuse

It is important to remember that technology can be used to facilitate contextual safeguarding abuse online and lead to abuse offline.

What does this mean in practice?

The child protection system was designed to protect children and young people from risks posed by their families and/or situations where families had reduced capacity to safeguard those in their care. In traditional systems we address this by intervening with families to increase their capacity to safeguard young people from harm and/or relocating young people away from harmful contexts.

A Contextual Safeguarding system supports the development of approaches which disrupt/change harmful extra-familial contexts rather than move families/young people away from them. While parents/carers are not in a position to change the nature of extra-familial contexts those who manage or deliver services in these spaces are; and they therefore become critical partners in the safeguarding agenda.

What schools need to do if they have concerns regarding contextual safeguarding risks for a young person?

Devon and Plymouth:

Have the ASF (Adolescent Safety Framework) which is a framework and assessment process to identify risk associated with contextual safeguarding for children between the ages of 11 and 18. Professionals can undertake a Safer me assessment and then identify the best way to minimise any identified risk. This can include:

• Safer me meetings
• Safer me + meetings
• Neighbourhood context conferences
• School context conferences
• Peer group context conferences

Devon: for further information on ASF please refer to the OMG No 43. on the DES Website: OMG’s

Plymouth: for further information on the ASF please refer to: ASF Plymouth

Torbay: Ask professionals to share any concerns regarding children or adults who are vulnerable of being exploited with Devon & Cornwall Police via the Intel link and work with the Turning Corners Project who support young people who are at risk of Exploitation.

Further information can be found on the Torbay Safeguarding Children Partnership website: Missing, exploited and trafficked

You may also want to refer to the OMG’s:

• Sexting
• Child-on-child abuse
• Operation Encompass
• Prevent
• Modern Slavery
• County Lines
• Adolescent Safety Framework
• Harmful Sexual Behaviour

Further information

Contextual Safeguarding Network: Website

Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership (DSCP) – Adolescent Safety Framework: Adolescent Safety Framework (Safer Me) – Devon Safeguarding Children Partnership (devonscp.org.uk)

Torbay Safeguarding Children Partnership – Home – Torbay Safeguarding Children Partnership

Plymouth Safeguarding Children Partnership:

http://www.plymouthscb.co.uk/

DCDHUB: Resources and guidance