Safety

Keeping children safe

Fundamental to practice is to keep children safe and ensure their wellbeing. Risks to the safety and wellbeing of the child may come from external sources or may relate to their behaviour.

Examples of external sources of safety and wellbeing concerns include discrimination, familial abuse or neglect, exploitation by older or more sophisticated offenders, sexual exploitation or bullying.

Internal sources of safety and wellbeing concerns could include mental or physical health, substance misuse, risk-taking behaviour or a low sense of self-worth.

This should also consider the impact of the child’s own behaviour on their safety and wellbeing; including identifying any physical or mental health concerns, missing from home episodes, substance misuse or behaviour that may place them at risk. Case records should accurately and consistently reflect a classification of safety and wellbeing. There are four classifications displayed in the diagram above.

Keeping people safe

Keeping people safe is a fundamental expectation and forms part of the core objectives of the work of probation and youth offending services.

HM Inspectorate of Probation expects to see assessment, planning, implementation and delivery and reviewing that promotes all elements of safety, not just those linked to reducing serious harm.

Practitioners should consider:

actuarial risk assessments – a purely statistical estimate of the risk of a new offence based upon ‘static’ factors which cannot be changed
static risk factors – including age, gender and nature, number and circumstances of previous convictions
dynamic risk factors (which may be acute or stable)
- acute dynamic risk factors are those which have the potential to change quickly, such as substance misuse
- stable dynamic risk factors are those which may change over a longer period, such as problem-solving capability or response to trauma
strengths of the child/person on probation – including internal protective factors (such as feeling part of the community, a sense of self-efficacy or being hopeful about the future)
resources or services available to the child/person on probation, or external protective factors (including supportive family members, positive personal relationships and access to appropriate services/interventions)
capacity and motivation to change (including the extent to which the child/person on probation is willing and able to engage with safety management).

The resources we have developed to date are:

Effective practice guide: Working with domestic abuse (adult services) July 2023 (PDF, 3 MB)

This guide provides some guiding principles for working with domestic abuse perpetrators and victims, and highlight examples where we have seen our standards delivered well.

Read the practitioners professional curiosity insights guide. (PDF, 3 MB)

Effective Practice guide: Adult MAPPA (July 2022)

This guide explores effective practice identified during our joint thematic inspection of Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements. Through good practice examples, self-assessment tools and learning from the thematic inspection, we set out how practitioners can improve their work in this area.

Read the adult MAPPA effective practice guide.

Effective Practice guide: Serious Further Offence reviews (September 2020)

This guide explores effective practice identified during our thematic inspection of the Serious Further Offences (SFO) investigation and review process. Through good practice examples, self-assessment tools and learning from the thematic inspection, we set out how practitioners can improve their work in this area.

Read the Serious Further Offence reviews effective practice guide.