Signs of Safety
Signs of Safety is a restorative approach. The key to being restorative is that families and children are active participants in the assessment, planning and decision making, and that families have every chance to put their solutions into practice before child protection authorities impose theirs if they have to do so.
Purpose of Signs of Safety:
- Enable us to do all our child protection / children’s services work with a rigorous focus on child safety.
- Our practice, policy, procedures and organization set up so that we can do everything humanly possible to put the parents, children and everyone naturally connected to the children at the center of the assessment and decision-making.
- Giving families every opportunity to come up with their ideas before we offer / impose ours is critical.
Why Signs of Safety:
Service Users
- Give the family time to put into practice a plan before we impose solutions.
- Desire to be actively helping families build their own safety plans that are lasting and built by them.
Staff
- Build internal capacity and skills.
- Staff empowered to make informed decisions.
Community
- Meaningful family led partnerships as opposed to then overly prescribed connections.
- The community is engaged with to ensure safety.