The Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding (GCCS) uses the concept of Contextual Safeguarding to transform how societies understand and deliver services that safeguard young people beyond their homes, create systems that look beyond the capacity of parents to protect children, and build sustainable partnerships in which safeguarding is truly everybody's business. Previously a research programme in the Sociology Department at Durham University (and prior to that at the University of Bedfordshire) the GCCS brings together Durham researchers from Sociology, Criminology, Business, Law, Education, Psychology and Theology, in partnership with scholars and practitioners from around the world, to scale Contextual Safeguarding across disciplines and countries.
Contextual Safeguarding is an approach to understanding and responding to young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. It recognises that the different relationships that young people form in their neighbourhoods, schools and online can feature violence and abuse. Parents and carers have little influence over these contexts, and young people’s experiences of extra-familial abuse can undermine parent-child relationships. Therefore, children’s social-care practitioners and child-protection systems need to engage with individuals and sectors that do have influence over/within extra-familial contexts, and recognise that assessment of, and intervention with, these spaces (and the systems and services that can cause harm in these spaces) are a critical part of safeguarding practices. Contextual Safeguarding, therefore, expands the objectives of child-protection systems in recognition of the fact that young people are vulnerable to abuse beyond their front doors.
Our strategy provides an overview of our achievements so far, our policy and practice goals for the next five years, and information on our new projects and PhDs.
In this talk Dr Firmin, the founder of Contextual Safeguarding outlines three things. One: how contexts beyond families are associated with abuse. Two: how traditional child protection systems fail to engage with these contextual dynamics. Three: the components of the Contextual Safeguarding system that would redefine what child protection means.
-
![]()
What is Contextual Safeguarding?This short video provides an overview of contextual safeguarding and what it means in practice for different social contexts. -
![]()
The Principles of Contextual SafeguardingThis short video provides a brief introduction to the principles of Contextual Safeguarding. -
![]()
Social theory and Contextual SafeguardingThis video provides an accessible overview of Pierre Bourdieu's social theory which underpins Contextual Safeguarding.
