What is Professional Challenge?
Introduction
Effective working together depends on an open approach and honest relationships between agencies. When working in the arena of safeguarding, it is inevitable that from time to time there will be practitioner disagreement. Whilst this is understandable and generally acceptable, it is vital that such differences do not affect the outcomes for children and adults with needs for care and support. This procedure outlines expectations in relation to professional challenge and defines the process for resolving disputes, including how to escalate matters of concern and provides a framework that encourages professional challenge in a constructive and non-threatening way, providing a multi-agency process for resolving practitioner disagreements and ensuring there is effective challenge in the system. It also provides practitioners with advice, support and guidance to enable them to confidently escalate concerns where disagreements are not resolved at a practitioner level.
Professional challenge is a positive activity and a sign of good professional practice and effective multi-agency working. Decisions are made on the information available to people at the time. It is acknowledged that there may be times when practitioners from differing agencies have differing views, which will need further exploration. Practitioners need to be open to being questioned about how a decision was reached or a particular course of action was taken and should be supported in raising a professional challenge, irrespective of the seniority or status of the organisation or practitioner who has made the decision which is disputed.
All agencies and services should promote a culture which encourages constructive challenge within and between organisations; acknowledging the important role that challenge can play in safeguarding children and adults with needs for care and support. Effective ‘working together’ depends on open and honest relationships between agencies and where different practitioner perspectives are welcomed and given serious consideration by practitioners who want the best outcomes for children and adults with needs for care and support.
Both national and local Safeguarding Adults Reviews (SARs) and Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (CSPRs) continue to draw attention to the importance of interagency communication. They have identified an apparent reluctance to challenge interagency decision making or to escalate concerns where resolution cannot be reached. Reviews often identify concerns were not followed up with robust professional challenge and escalation which may have altered the professional response and the outcome for the children or adult at risk.
Disagreements can arise in a number of areas of multi-agency working, which includes:
- response to a safeguarding concern
- perceived levels of risk - threshold decisions
- not recognising the signs of harm
- outcomes of assessments
- progressing plans and clear communication
- mental capacity issues
- issues concerning consent and best interest decisions
- decision making – including to convene a meeting/strategy discussion or during multi-agency safeguarding meetings
- decisions about an agency closing a case
- roles and responsibilities of practitioners
- service provision
- recording practices
- information sharing and communication in relation to practice, or actions which may not effectively ensure the safety or well-being of a child or adult with care and support needs or other family members
- decision as to whether to make a child subject of a Child Protection Plan (see section below)
- decisions regarding implementation and/or responding to and addressing the DSP Executive Strategy Process (Adult). This procedure sets out a multi-agency framework for dealing with serious safeguarding concerns in organisational settings.
- decisions regarding implementation of the DSP Risk Enablement Forum (Adult).
Professional challenge and critical reflection about the focus and intended outcome of intervention should include questioning and being open to professional challenge from colleagues, as well as being confident to challenge others.
DSP established a challenge pledge in January 2024 following a recommendation of the Family H Local Child Safeguarding Practice Review (LCSPR). The Pledge is to be read out at the start of multi-agency meetings with an expectation that all agencies share and support the use of the pledge. Its purpose is to enable multi-agency practitioners to have the confidence to have open and honest conversations with each other in order to do the very best for children, adults and their families. See DSP 'Our Pledge' [PDF Document].
Professional challenge is about challenging decisions, practice or actions which may not effectively ensure the safety or well-being of a child, an adult at risk and other family members. It is an integral part of professional co-operation and joint working and many professional challenges can be resolved on an informal basis by contact between the practitioner raising the challenge (or their manager) and the agency receiving the challenge and will end there.
Organisations must have robust supervision processes in place to support staff to reflect on their professional practice, particularly when their practice has been subject to challenge but also to offer support and guidance to those who invoke this procedure.