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Embedding Risk Outside of the Home (ROTH) Pathways: Phase 3 Pilots

ROTH Phase 3 Pilots

…we weren’t seen as helping in such a way, so the door was maybe shut on us by the parent as well, because what could we do to help? Whereas, with the ROTH pathway…and I know that there are still gaps within attendance, but there is some invention there. There is…there is some…you know, there’s more curiosity, certainly, and there’s…and there's consideration given to creative solutions to reduce risk, rather than the traditional social work thinking of, well, it has to be this plan or that plan. You know, people around the table are-are more ingenious. (Focus Group, Exploitation team, Site 2)

Since 2019 we have worked with local authorities to design, test, and now embed structures through which social work can coordinate multi-agency responses to children and young people at risk of significant extra-familial harm.

During Phase 3 of the Risk Outside of the Home Child Protection Pilots, we continued to work with the four pilot sites involved in Phase 2 to understand the process of embedding the approach into local systems.  As such we used Phase 3 to understand understand now just what ROTH pathways featured (something we identified in Phase 2) but how they were being practised. We did so using a combination of data collected from four sites which included: observations; reviews of plans, assessments and policies; focus groups and interviews professionals; and practice development workshops. 

The Principal Investigator for this project was Carlene Firmin and Molly Manister, Lauren Wroe and Rachael Owens formed the wider research team to assist with data collection and analysis. The Phase 3 ROTH Pilot study was funded by the Department for Education and the Maria Marina foundation.

1. How are the extra-familial contexts/factors identified through ROTH pathway being addressed by plans?

2. To what extent can traditional child protection pathways consider extra-familial contexts while also addressing challenges within families?  

3. To what extent does the answer to the above suggest that ROTH and traditional child protection pathways could merge in the future?

4.  In what ways are sites able to embed principles of ROTH within wider structures in children’s social care, such as early help and services for children in care, and beyond social care, such as community safety partnerships?

For ROTH Pathways to be used ethically they must:

1.     Have a foundation of Care

2.     Be Chaired by social care

3.     Generate plans Collaboratively, in ways that involves Communities, and that are Creative

4.     Respond to the Contextual dynamics of harm

We call these the Six C’s of Efficacy, and explain them in the Phase 3 report as well as in an infographic which you can access on this page.

ROTH Pathways have a dual purpose: to meet young people’s needs and identify contextual dynamics of harm that require a response. Practitioners can best meet this purpose by maintaining an integrated and contextual understanding of extra-familial harm, and identifying/responding to system as well as individual challenges. We explain this in our Phase 3 report and have also produced ROTH assessment and planning templates to further support practice development in this direction. We used features of those tools tested in the four pilot sites to build these templates and will continue to pilot and refine them in Phase 4 of this project.

Implementing ROTH Pathways creates a welfare-based tone in developing responses to extra-familial harm: more work is needed to convert this tone into consistent actions; and this will be a goal of Phase 4 of the project.

Report: Embedding Risk Outside of the Home Child Protection Pathways: Phase 3 Pilots

This report shares learning from four areas who are embedding ‘Risk Outside of the Home’ (ROTH) Child Protection Pathways following an initial pilot period. 82 young people and families were supported during the period of data collection. The report uses information from assessments, plans, observations of ROTH conferences, documents produced during the pilots, and interviews professionals who participated, to outline how to implement and embed ROTH Pathways effectively and ethically. This includes: 

  • Foregrounding what young people supported via ROTH pathways needed from services
  • Detailing Six C’s of Effective Implementation
  • Identifying the dual purpose of ROTH pathways to both meet need and respond to contexts
  • Articulating where progress is still required
Read the report
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