Signs of Safety
Norfolk Safeguarding Children Board – Policy Statement
Norfolk Safeguarding Children Board (NSCB) has adopted Signs of Safety as the basis of work with children across all partner agencies engaged in providing services for Children in Norfolk. Signs of Safety has also been adopted by Norfolk County Council Children’s Services and the Norfolk Children and Young People’s Strategic Partnership Board as the core philosophy for working with children and families across Norfolk.
We will ensure that a proven, evidence-based practice framework is used across all services creating consistent and inclusive experience across Norfolk for children and families in receipt of services. Families will become increasingly familiar with the concepts and vocabulary of Signs of Safety as it is used routinely in all our work with children and families from their first contact with practitioners in universal services and where necessary right through to child protection, children in public care and back to universal services
Central to this approach is the use of specific practice tools and processes where professionals and family members can engage with each other in partnership to address and work together on solutions to meet the needs of children. As practice depth grows, Children’s Services and partner agencies will use Signs of Safety as the basis of case discussions in multi-agency fora such as Child Protection conferences, Child in Need planning meetings and Looked After Children’s Reviews.
Other assessment tools
This section contains various Signs of Safety practice tools and information for direct work with children and their family networks to help understand the Signs of Safety ethos and methodology.
- Norfolk Signs of Safety Terms and Tools
- SoS practice principles for building better relationships Powerpoint
- Signs of Safety Assessment & Planning Form
- Quick Start Guide to Mapping
- Summary of Danger Statements and Safety Goals
- Turning questions into conversations
- Strengths Based Questions
- Roadmap to Family-owned Safety Planning
- Scaling Questions
- Words and Pictures – safety plan example
- Words & Pictures Example – Explaining L’s life journey
- Signs of Something
- Signs of Safe Contact mapping
- Guidance on group supervision and group mapping
Signs of Safety does not preclude the use of other well tested evidence based theories and assessment tools used by a wide spectrum of professionals, indeed it complements them.
Read here about the Innovative Plans to introduce Signs of Safety to Norfolk in 2015.
Signs of Safety Training
The 2 day Signs of Safety training course is aimed at those who will be attending Child Protection conferences and contributing to/conducting Signs of Safety based assessments.
Please note that not all delegates will need the 2 day training course, and details of briefings and workshops for those that do not require the 2 day course can be found below.
Click here for the latest dates for Signs of Safety Briefings 2016-17.
Click here for the latest dates for Signs of Safety Development Sessions for 2017.
For more information please see our NSCB training page.
Further Signs of Safety Information
Click here for the latest Signs of Safety Newsletter.
- From 27 July 2015, Norfolk County Council will be implementing a new approach to Child Protection Conferences, using the Signs of Safety approach. For more information, forms and guidance see our How to make a Referral page.
- Signs of Safety Timeline of Events
- Partnership Approach – Across Norfolk we are implementing Signs of Safety briefing sessions and if you want to know more, here is what is on offer for you.
- Signs of Safety training levels information
- Adapting Signs of Safety to other service settings
- Norfolk Signs of Safety Super Leaders – November 2016
- Norfolk SofS Practice Leads (by location ) – updated September 2017
- Norfolk SofS Practice Leads (by team) – updated September 2017
- Role of Practice Leader Information Sheet
- Through the England Innovation Project, research and evaluation is taking place using staff and parents surveys designed by Professor Eileen Munro.
This is the Overview Report, co-written with Marie Devine, following the parents survey. - Signs of Safety Multi-agency Meetings Glossary
- You can’t grow roses in concrete’ Action Research Report – Following the England Innovations Project, which Norfolk Children’s Services took part in from October 2014 to March 2016, this report, released by MTM, the team behind the Signs of Safety approach, give their findings on the project, which involved 10 local authorities all at various stages of implementing Signs of Safety.
- As part of the Innovation Project, the Department for Education commissioned Mary Baginsky of Kings College London to provide an evaluation report on implementing Signs of Safety across 10 pilot local authorities.
