This section explains what it means to work with friends and peers in both individual-case-work and work-to-change contexts.
Click on the drop-down sections below to understand the difference between the two levels of Contextual Safeguarding and use the information in these sections to help you work with friendships and peers on either or both of these levels.
Level 1 refers to work with individual young people and their families (the traditional approach to case work). If you are working with a young person at Level 1, you might explore with them the friends and peer relationships that matter to them, the environment in which they spend time together, and how important these relationships are in their everyday lives.
If you identify positive relationships for a young person, you could strengthen and support these positive relationships and acknowledge how they help the young person. Equally, if there were harmful aspects to the young person’s friendships or peer relationships, you could explore this with them to understand why these relationships matter to them and what needs these relationships might be meeting.
Level 2 refers to practice developed through Contextual Safeguarding, where instead of an individual, a context - i.e. a group of friends, school or neighbourhood - is the target of the work. Some local authorities have developed safeguarding systems that can take referrals for contexts, assess those contexts for safety and harm and then offer responses and interventions to create safety not just for those young people who are open to services, but potentially for all young people who are part of a group of friends or peers.
Although Level 1 and Level 2 work relate to each other, they often require different methods of assessment and response. This is because they have different aims. While the aim of Level 1 work is safety for a young person and their family, in Level 2 work the aim is to bring about safety for a context, such as making a friendship group safer for all the young people who are part of that group. This type of work is quite new and requires strategy and resourcing so we would caution jumping into it without this in place.