Professional Curiosity

• Know the indicators of abuse or neglect.
• Be alert to the way in which care and support needs and family/environmental factors come together.
• Consider information from different sources; the child/adult at risk, case history, family members, friends, neighbours, other professionals.
• Ascertain the child/adult’s views - what is their lived experience?

• Does the narrative fit with information from other sources? Adopt a position of respectful uncertainty and ask questions.
• Are there any patterns or connections?
• Consider all alternative hypotheses.
• Hold the child/adult at risk in mind. What is their experience? What are the potential risks to them?

• Discuss the case in supervision and be open to helpful challenge to provide further analysis.
• Use a Signs of Safety approach to help you reflect: What is going well? What are you worried about
• Identify gaps and recognise what you don’t know.
• Talk through your worries with the safeguarding lead in your agency.

• Keep accurate records and provide additional dates and details where possible.
• Make clear distinctions between fact and opinion, and clearly outline your worries or concerns.
• Be comprehensive and do not presume information is already known.
• Follow up your referral and report any new information.

• Listen carefully to the child and take them seriously. Avoid expressing your own views and be mindful that a reaction of shock or disbelief could cause the child to shut down, retract what they have disclosed, or stop talking.
• Let them know they've done the right thing. Reassurance can make a big impact to the child who may have been keeping the abuse secret.
• Tell them it's not their fault. Abuse is never the child's fault and they need to know this.
• Say you believe them. They've told you because they want help, and trust you'll be the person to believe them and help them.
• Explain what you'll do next. If age appropriate, explain to the child you'll need to report the abuse to someone who will be able to help. It is important to maintain confidentiality, but you should not promise that you won’t tell anyone, as you may need to do so in order to protect the child.
• Don't talk to the alleged abuser. Confronting the alleged abuser about what the child has told you could make the situation a lot worse for the child.
• Don't delay reporting the abuse. The sooner the abuse is reported the better. Report as soon as possible so details are fresh in your mind and action can be taken quickly.

Information sharing is a common theme in regional Child and Adult Practice Reviews. The most important consideration is whether sharing information is likely to safeguard and protect a child. Always think of the safety and wellbeing of the child first. 

Do not ask for consent if doing so may increase the risk of significant harm to the child or young person, or a delay in sharing information may increase the risk of harm to the child or young person. Otherwise, however, it is important to respect the wishes of a child or young person who doesn’t consent to share confidential information.

Remember that if a child or young person refuses to give their consent to share confidential information, you may still lawfully go ahead if it can be justified to protect children from significant harm or promote the welfare of children. You’ll need to make a professional judgement and should discuss this with your designated safeguarding lead. If you share information without consent you’ll need to explain to the child or young person you’re going to do this and why, unless doing this will put the child at risk of significant harm.

• Always identify whether a man is living or visiting the family home. Check the basics, for example, are there men’s clothes in the home?
• Mothers may ‘gate-keep’ (withhold) a father’s identity. Don’t give up. Ask at every meeting and ask the extended families.
• Ensure accurate information e.g. telephone numbers and addresses for the father and his extended family is recorded on case files.
• Speak to the practice network around the child. Does the social worker, midwife, health visitor, children’s centre or school know the father’s name?
• Where a decision has been made to exclude the father/male care giver, ensure there is a clear record of the reasons for that decision and how the decision was made.

Be respectful: Notions of respect and disrespect have particular relevance for men. If workers can communicate respect they are more likely to engage and involve men. Solution-focused approaches, concentrating on strengths and showing how a man can influence a child’s development, tends to be a more successful approach.
Be consistent: in what you say and how you treat fathers. Above all, be consistent in what you say to fathers and what you say about them in written reports.
Be reliable: Do what you say you will do. Respond to messages in reasonable time. Keep fathers up to date on what’s happening.
Be available: Men’s experience is that workers can be difficult to contact and ‘hard to reach’. This makes it hard to develop trust or build a relationship.
Be honest: with both parents about the father’s involvement in practice activities. Be honest about concerns and willing to work with the positives.
Be empathetic: Listen to the father’s perspective. Recognise that many fathers are vulnerable and will either withdraw or be threatening as a form of defence. Men are often more powerfully motivated by the desire to be a good father. A good starting point for engagement is to ask them, “What does it mean to be a good father?”
Be flexible: Take into account where a father lives and the distance he has to travel when inviting him to meetings. Try to schedule around fathers’ (and mothers’) work commitments.
Be aware: Consider how power, gender relations and personal experience (of your own father or partner, or of being a father) may be shaping your perspective and influencing your practice.
Be knowledgeable: Know the law in relation to fathers and paternal responsibility.
Be safe: Work with your supervisor and your team to develop safety plans, strategies and approaches when engaging violent or abusive men. Do not minimise domestic violence.

• Commission and encourage attendance on high quality perpetrator programmes that include a significant element of dealing with fatherhood. Ensure there is also evaluation in place to monitor impact.
• Change IT and assessment systems to ensure details of fathers are required and question if a father has not been included.
• Ensure workers have access to training or CPD that includes theories about masculinity, gender, cultural influences on masculinity and dealing with violent or threatening behaviour.
• Make sure services, including early intervention, are meeting the needs of men as well as women i.e. being open outside of working hours and catering for non-resident fathers.
• Foster better partnership working across commissioned services, particularly between domestic violence services and perpetrator programmes or the probation service.
• Assess the way that work is organised - Review policy, procedures and work environment to ensure they are ‘father friendly’ and not implicitly excluding fathers from being involved.
• Model expectations that fathers and male care givers will be involved and the importance of that involvement. Challenge teams to reconsider if the level of engagement of fathers/male care givers is acceptable for that case, and provide support if needed.