The PEACE project aims to protect young people at risk of extra-familial harm, with a particular focus on criminal and sexual exploitation. The project is located within the London Borough of Hounslow’s Youth Offending Services.
Katie Latimer, Research Fellow, spent one day week with the PEACE project to understand and capture their work, as they seek to embed a contextual approach within their interventions.
The research asked:
- How can Contextual Safeguarding theory and practice be used and developed within PEACE?
- How can this learning be extended across Hounslow Children’s and Families’ Services?
To support this understanding, Katie used the following methods as an embedded researcher:
- Review of policies, procedures and assessments associated to adolescent safeguarding in Hounslow and the PEACE project
- Observation of multi-agency meetings and shadowing of practitioners and services within Hounslow children and young people’s social care.
- Work with the project team in Hounslow to develop tools to self-evaluate their project.
- Observation of local contexts (for example fast food outlets, parks or shopping centres) within Hounslow as part of the pilot developed by the Hounslow project team.
- Training sessions and reflective workshops for staff working in Hounslow social care and other relevant agencies on contextual safeguarding.
- Identification of examples of contextual practice in the UK and internationally from the practitioners network that can be shared with Hounslow (via the embedded researcher) to enable an iterative learning process, and communicate lessons from Hounslow to the wider Contextual Safeguarding Network.
The resources below were co-developed by Katie and practitioners from the PEACE project team to share learning from the project.
Principal investigator: Dr Carlene Firmin
Funder: Home Office (Trusted Relationships) / London Borough of Hounslow
Contact: contextual.safeguarding@durham.ac.uk
Including Contextual Information within a Referral Form
To take a Contextual Safeguarding approach, the team re-designed the referral form to increase, and make explicit, the consideration of extra-familial contexts.
Contextualising a referral form podcast
Katie Latimer, embedded researcher with the PEACE project, speaks to social worker Peter Farrow about his experience of referring to the PEACE project using the revised template. Peter also shares his reflections on the impact of Contextual Safeguarding on his social work practice. This conversation was recorded in August 2020.
Professional and peer support for families responding to child exploitation
Sarah Houseman, Family and Systemic Psychotherapist in the PEACE team, presents about the parents and carers' groups offered by the project to support family members of young people who are at risk of, or currently experiencing, exploitation. We hope you find this useful! Please let us know if you have questions or have been involved in similar work.
Peer group referral form
This peer group referral form developed as part of the PEACE project with reflections from Farzana Wangde, a practitioner in the PEACE team.
Completing surveys with residents as part of a neighbourhood assessment
As part of this neighbourhood assessment, the team surveyed residents within the neighbourhood. To do this the team adapted a survey template developed by the Hackney Contextual Safeguarding Project and gave thought to how best to administer this survey. Nicola Toh, a practitioner from the project, reflects below on the steps the team took to prepare, complete and analyse the survey.
Designing and delivering the PEACE project
The PEACE project logic model seeks to capture the projects activities and its desired outcomes, both in the shorter and longer term, as well as the influences behind the project
Developing safeguarding policy with partners podcast
Rob Wyatt, PEACE team manager, talks with Alistair Turnham about their work in Hounslow to use licensing policies to improve safety for young people outside their homes. This conversation was recorded in May 2020