The Hampshire Approach- Our multi agency approach to safeguarding children
The Hampshire Approach is a mindset and is at the heart of all we do. It guides how we work with children, families, partners, and each other.
It can be can be woven into all areas of safeguarding practice from meetings, conversations, supervision and policies.
Different methodologies are used to support the approach including Motivational Interviewing, Solutions Focused Approaches, Restorative Practice and many more.
What does it look like in practice?
- Always looking to a family’s strengths, whilst also recognising and clearly assessing and responding to risk.
- Using a range of tools and techniques to engage and empower such as motivational interviewing and solution focused conversations.
- Drawing on restorative practice skills to help you navigate and strengthen the network and relationships around a child.
- Capturing the voice of children and families and going further so they have ownership and involvement in their plans and future goals.
- Ensure that all our family plans are SMARTER (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, timely, evaluated and reviewed).
- Invite support networks around the child and family to all meetings.
All children have the right to live in homes and communities that allow them to thrive and are free from abuse and neglect. Therefore, responding to risk and keeping children safe is at the core of what we all do. We all have a duty to contribute to this in our roles and while our responsibilities may look different, our overarching goal to safeguard children remains the same.
It is important for us to build connections with children and families we work with, to promote a trusting relationship which will encourage more open communication. Building rapport with children and families is important because it helps build trust, which is essential for the children and families to feel comfortable sharing personal information and experiences. It also allows us to better understand the child and family’s situation and needs.
We work in a strengths-based way to enable us to build purposeful relationships with children and families that support their safety and wellbeing. The strengths-based approach allows for children and families to see themselves at their best and their own value. It allows a person to move forward and gain from and build upon their strengths and use a family’s strengths to reduce risks and address areas of concern, wherever possible.
Family engagement should not be limited to formal meetings, but rather embedded in all our interactions with children and families. When
completing assessments and at all meetings we should consider the families wider support network and whether this has evolved or expanded and reflect this in the Family Plan.
By bringing wider support networks into the family planning, they are more likely to achieve sustainable change in addition to strengthening their relationships to promote resilience in the future.
If there are no wider family that can support, we should look at the local
community and whether there are groups and universal services that may be
accessible.