Report: Building Safety: Safeguarding black young men and boys in Lambeth
Authors: Carlene Firmin and Lauren Wroe with Jahnine Davis, Brid Featherstone, Anna Gupta, Daniel Morris, Kate Morris, and Yuval Saar-Heiman
"I think that we have struggled to have a conversation, an honest conversation about structural
inequalities, I think we have struggled to have the conversation about narratives that are
established around particular groups, marginalised groups. I think young Black boys are seen
in a particular way, they will speak to you about that that they know that they are perceived in a
particular way. So I think that we have to start with ourselves, and kind of we have to think
differently, we have to be willing to kind of look at the context and our role within that" (Interviewee)
Do multi-agency safeguarding responses to black young men and boys’ experiences of extra-familial harm contribute to the risks they experience? What do we need to do to build safety for their futures? This report presents findings from a study commissioned by Lambeth Safeguarding Children Partnership into the role of children’s social care, and other statutory partners, in safeguarding black young men and boys. They were particularly keen to:
- Identify the social and contextual dynamics that impact how black boys and young men experience harm, and statutory responses to them
- Understand the extent to which professional values, processes, practices, and partnerships are informed by and inform these social and contextual features, and their impact on statutory responses to young people
The research highlighted five key themes:
- Talking about race, naming racism and challenging its impact - participants were able to talk about discrimination but some struggled to talk about and name racism. Black boys and young men were at once hyper-visible and invisible, and their voices were not informing services.
- Contextual and structural drivers of harm and sources of safety - Structural drivers such as poverty, discriminatory practices in policing and education and lack of available resources are driving extra-familial harm.
- The target of services and the source of challenges - There is a mismatch between the services available and the harm they are responding to.
- Partnerships that are prioritised and partnerships that are needed -When asked about key partners participants were more likely to list organisations/services and professional colleagues, than they were to name the boys and young men themselves. Information flowed between professionals but not between professionals and families.
- Defining success -participants largely responded by detailing processes or pathways they were using to respond to extra-familial harm than talking about safety for boys and young men.
At this stage in the project the research team recommend that Lambeth Safeguarding
Children’s Partnership:
- Undertake a series of activities with black young men, their families and wider
communities to co-produce a service offer that meets their needs and addresses the
challenges that they face. - Create safe, courageous, reflective spaces for professionals to think about what
racism is, what it does and, what is in their, and their institutions’, agency to change,
as well as creating a safe, reflective, spaces solely for Black professionals. - Map all commissioned services currently available in Lambeth in response to extrafamilial harm and review what issues/challenges they are designed to address.
- Develop, and make explicit, a shared value base upon which they respond to extrafamilial harm, and build safety for black young men in general
- Review the safety of black young men in pupil referral units.
- Review and address the finding that black young men are being disproportionately
excluded from Lambeth schools, and not receiving timely diagnosis of ASD or
learning difficulties, as a safeguarding concern. - Identify the numbers of families who have requested to leave Lambeth due to extrafamilial risks but have been unable to do so due to concerns regarding loss of
tenancy.
We also recommend that Lambeth children’s social care:
- Review and articulate the role of social care in creating safety for young black men. As part of this consider how social workers use existing services, partnerships, and processes to achieve safety – including partnerships with black young men; and identify how this role could challenge partner agencies, and leverage change, for black young men.
- Assess levels of professional anxiety being held within its workforce in respects of responding to the significant violence impacting some young people in the borough.
- Equip its workforce to support black young men and their families; using supervision, other reflective spaces, and quality assurance processes to identify and address racism within service responses in a timely fashion
- Build the capability of its workforce to offer an intersectional response to harm, violence and discrimination. For example: developing poverty-aware practice amongst social workers; supporting social workers to challenge the decisions of partner agencies on the grounds of racism or other forms of oppression; naming, and addressing, the impact of having no-recourse-to-public-funds on families in need of support.
This report looks at the findings of an exploratory study between the Contextual Safeguarding team (then at the University of Bedfordshire) and Lambeth Safeguarding Children Partnership into the role of children’s social care, and wider statutory services, in safeguarding black young men and boys. They were particularly keen to:
- Identify the social and contextual dynamics that impact how black boys and young men experience harm, and statutory responses to them
- Understand the extent to which professional values, processes, practices, and partnerships are informed by and inform these social and contextual features, and their impact on statutory responses to young people
Photo by Siviwe Kapteyn on Unsplash
Building Safety: Safeguarding black young men and boys in Lambeth
September 2021
Carlene Firmin and Lauren Wroe with Jahnine Davis, Brid Featherstone, Anna Gupta, Daniel Morris, Kate Morris, and Yuval Saar-Heiman