Harm Outside the Family Home (Contextual Safeguarding)

What is Contextual Safeguarding

Contextual Safeguarding is an approach to understanding, and responding to, young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. Traditional approaches to protecting children/young people from harm have focussed on the risk of violence and abuse from inside the home, usually from a parent/carer or other trusted adult and don’t always address the time that children/young people spend outside the home and the influence of peers on young people’s development and safety.

Contextual safeguarding recognises the impact of the public/social context on young people’s lives, and consequently their safety. Contextual safeguarding seeks to identify and respond to harm and abuse posed to young people outside their home, either from adults or other young people. It’s an approach that looks at how interventions can change the processes and environments, to make them safer for all young people, as opposed to focussing on an individual.

Research illustrates that young people's experience is not only influenced by their family, but also by their peer network, wider community and society in general.

The model of contextual safeguarding was developed by Dr Carlene Firmin at the University of Bedfordshire.

For more information visit the Contextual Safeguarding website [external link]

To access policy and practice resources visit the virtual hub of the Contextual Safeguarding Practitioners Network [external link]