Signs of Safety is our adopted practice framework and provides the structure and format for our assessments and plans to help and support children, young people and families.
Although the same approach is used by all our teams, the language changes according to the type of work we are doing:
- Signs of Safety is used by our social workers where there are concerns about the safety of a child or young person.
- Signs of Wellbeing is used by our early help workers to provide help and support to families at an early stage to prevent them needing a social worker. We also use the Signs of Wellbeing when working with children with disabilities, unless there are concerns about safety.
- Signs of Success is used in all the work that we do with children and young people who are in our care, including care leavers.
Signs of Safety involves working with families to help them create a network (of family, friends and other important people) to support them and to address the worries that have led to professional agencies becoming involved.
With support from the social worker or early help worker the family will work with their network to create a plan to keep the child(ren) safe and well.
Signs of Safety takes an evidence and risk based approach to identify harm and focuses on things that are working well in families so that this can be built upon to keep children safe.
When working with Children in our Care and Care Leavers, the role of the network is to support children to achieve their goals and overcome any worries.
For more information about Signs of Safety please see:
If you are a professional from an external agency who works with Children and Families, please click here to find out more about Signs of Safety and what it means for you.