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The purpose of this paper is to explore the opportunities of geographical child protection assessment methods for adolescents victimised in extra-familial contexts.

Presenting empirical evidence from an action research study within one child protection service in the UK, the study draws upon qualitative data from practice observations, case review, training and five context assessments.

Safety mapping and neighbourhood observations provide options to assess extra-familial contexts. Findings reveal that these methods support practitioners to build local knowledge of areas supporting interventions into community places rooted in principles of child protection.

While geographical methods are already used by the police to map the locations of crimes, these methods provide opportunities to account for young people’s own experiences of harm and support interventions into neighbourhood spaces supporting a contextual safeguarding approach to adolescent harm.

The paper highlights the need for further testing of contextual safeguarding approaches and policy guidance that outlines whose role it is to protect children in communities.

Geographical assessment methods provide a route to engage with young people’s lived experience of place. And develop interventions that target contexts and not just individuals affected by extra-familial harm.

The paper presents original research into the use of geographical assessment methods to be used within a child protection framework.

This paper aims to explore the possibilities in using such national, statutory data sets for evaluating change and the challenges of understanding service patterns and outcomes in complex cases when only a limited view can be gained using existing data. The discussion also explores how methodologies can adapt to an evaluation in these circumstances.

This paper examines the use of data routinely collected by local authorities (LAs) as part of the evaluation of innovation. Issues entailed are discussed and illustrated through two case studies of evaluations conducted by the research team within the context of children’s social care in England.

The quantitative analysis of LA data can play an important role in evaluating innovation but researchers will need to address challenges related to: selection of a suitable methodology; identifying appropriate comparator data; accessing data and assessing its quality; and sustaining and increasing the value of analytic work beyond the end of the research. Examples are provided of how the two case studies experienced and addressed these challenges.

• Quasi-experimental methods can be beneficial tools for understanding the impact of innovation in children’s services, but researchers should also consider the complexity of children’s social care and the use of mixed and appropriate methods. • Those funding innovative practice should consider the additional burden on those working with data and the related data infrastructure if wishing to document and analyse innovation in a robust way. • Data, which may be assumed to be uniform may in fact not be when considered at a multi-area or national level, and further study of the data recording practice of social care professionals is required.

The paper discusses some common issues experienced in quasi-experimental approaches to the quantitative evaluation of children’s services, which have, until recently, been rarely used in the sector. There are important considerations, which are of relevance to researchers, service leads in children’s social care, data and performance leads and funders of innovation.

The purpose of this paper is to set out the similarities and differences between the legal frameworks for safeguarding children and adults. It presents the case for developing a Transitional Safeguarding approach to create an integrated paradigm for safeguarding young people that better meets their developmental needs and better reflects the nature of harms young people face.

This paper draws on the key principles of the Children Act 1989 and the Care Act 2014 and discusses their similarities and differences. It then introduces two approaches to safeguarding: Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP); and transitional safeguarding; that can inform safeguarding work with young people. Other legal frameworks that influence safeguarding practices, such as the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and the Human Rights Act 1998, are also discussed.

Safeguarding practice still operates within a child/adult binary; neither safeguarding system adequately meets the needs of young people. Transitional Safeguarding advocates an approach to working with young people that is relational, developmental and contextual. MSP focuses on the wishes of the person at risk from abuse or neglect and their desired outcomes. This is also central to a Transitional Safeguarding approach, which is participative, evidence informed and promotes equalities, diversity and inclusion.

Building a case for developing MSP for young people means that local partnerships could create the type of service that best meets local needs, whilst ensuring their services are participative and responsive to the specific safeguarding needs of individual young people.

This paper promotes applying the principles of MSP to safeguarding practice with young people. It argues that the differences between the children and adult legislative frameworks are not so great that they would inhibit this approach to safeguarding young people.

This paper aims to report on findings from action research undertaken in response to the Covid-19 pandemic by the Tackling Child Exploitation Support Programme (TCESP), a Department for Education funded programme that provides support to local areas in improving their strategic approach to child exploitation and extra-familial harm.

The research included a scoping review of the literature, and focus groups with programme staff, strategic leaders and professionals from different services across England. To provide a strategic lens, findings were then considered in relation to TCE’s “Joining the dots” framework, which encourages examination of the relationships between different forms of child exploitation.

The action research highlighted the emerging and tentative nature of the knowledge base relating to child exploitation and extra-familial harm in the context of Covid-19. Findings revealed that there had been innovation in the use of digital methods and direct working, integration of practical support with other forms of service delivery and in partnership working, and also considerable variation in approach across different local areas.

Strategic leaders need to use the evidence emerging from lockdown as a basis for further interrogation of emerging data alongside the views of young people, families and communities and their wider workforce. This includes new information about changing patterns of exploitation. Digital delivery and innovation need to be supported by clear strategic guidance, based on review of the evidence regarding increased digital communication and its impact. New partnerships developed between services, data sharing and innovative ways of working that have taken place during lockdown need to be monitored and evaluated for quality and impact.

The action research findings offer a snapshot of practice regarding child exploitation and extra-familial harm at a mid-point in the Covid-19 lockdown in England and Wales.

This study aims to explore how local authority child and family practitioners understood and implement the contextual safeguarding approach focusing, in particular, on what practitioners felt supported and hindered implementation.

This qualitative study drew upon semi-structured interviews and focus groups to explore the perspectives of 18 frontline workers, team managers and senior managers in a London authority. The transcribed accounts were analysed using thematic analysis.

Participants reported that the strain on services because of sustained budget cuts was overwhelming, even without the additional challenge of implementing this new approach. Further challenges in relation to implementation included parental-capacity focused legislation and conflicting perspectives between stakeholders. This study recommends that proper funding must be committed to safeguarding partnerships if contextual safeguarding is to be successfully implemented. Additionally, child protection practitioners should aim to develop a collaborative and child-welfare focused network of community agencies and organisations if young people are to be safeguarded in their communities.

As the sample required specialist knowledge to participate in this study, this study cannot claim that the findings are generalisable to all social workers.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first external evaluation of the implementation of the contextual safeguarding approach in a local authority independent of the contextual safeguarding team at the University of Bedfordshire since the evaluation of Hackney.

This paper aims to consider the opportunities for embedded methodologies for research into children’s social care and the ethics of this method.

This study draws upon embedded research from a two-year study into developing children’s social work approaches to extra-familial risk. Findings draw upon personal reflections from field notes, case reviews, practice observations and reflections.

Two findings are presented. Firstly, that embedded research provides numerous opportunities to develop child protection systems and practice. Secondly, a number of ethical questions and challenges of the methodology are presented.

This paper draws upon personal reflections from one study and is not intended to be representative of all approaches to embedded research methods.

Two practical recommendations are presented. Firstly, this paper outlines a number of recommendations to university researchers and host organisations on the facilitative attributes for embedded researchers. Secondly, questions are raised to support university ethics boards to assist ethical frameworks for embedded research.

This paper contributes original empirical data to the limited literature on embedded research in children’s services.

This paper aims to present an analysis of a “county lines” safeguarding partnership in a large city region of England. A critical analysis of current literature and practice responses to “county lines” is followed by the presentation of an analytical framework that draws on three contextual and social theories of (child) harm. This framework is applied to the partnership work to ask: are the interconnected conditions of criminal exploitation of children via “county lines” understood?; do interventions target the contexts of harm?; and is social and institutional harm acknowledged and addressed?

The analytical framework is applied to a data set collected by the author throughout a two-year study of the “county lines” partnership. Qualitative data collected by the author and quantitative data published by the partnership are coded and thematically analysed in NVivo against the analytic framework.

Critical tensions are surfaced in the praxis of multi-agency, child welfare responses to “county lines” affected young people. Generalising these findings to the child welfare sector at large, it is proposed that the contextual dynamics of child harm via “county lines” must be understood in a broader sense, including how multi-agency child welfare practices contribute to the harm experienced by young people.

There are limited peer-reviewed analyses of child welfare responses to “county lines”. This paper contributes to that limited scholarship, extending the analysis by adopting a critical analytic framework to a regional county lines partnership at the juncture of future national, child welfare responses to “county lines”.

This paper aims to present a mixed methods study of child criminal exploitation (CCE), particularly in the form of “county lines”, in three local authorities in southeast England. The data is analysed using a framework constructed from two relevant contextual and relational theories to understand experiences of CCE and the safeguarding responses undertaken to protect young people from harm.

Data were drawn from a survey (n = 118); interviews (n = 5) and focus groups (n = 15) with professionals; interviews with parents (n = 4); and from secondary analysis of eight interviews with young people affected by criminal exploitation. The analytic framework was applied to the data to answer two research questions: what is the role and significance of young people’s interactions with peers, parents and professionals in their CCE trajectories; and how do professionals understand and address risks within contexts in which young people are exposed to CCE? The mixed methods data collected by the authors were coded and analysed using this framework.

Although professionals were aware of contexts and relational power dynamics, the situated and temporal nature of CCE remained overlooked within safeguarding systems. Professionals required more space, time and support to fully and flexibly engage with young people and their families to increase safety.

There is limited research available that critically examines safeguarding responses to CCE in diverse geographic and cultural contexts. This paper contributes a critical account of how professionals might create connections and opportunities for change with young people, identifying structural constraints within practice systems alongside emerging examples of effective practice.

What makes a child vulnerable to harm? What is it about how we conceptualise vulnerability that draws us to thinking about individual traits and characteristics rather than broader systems and structures of power? In this chapter, we consider these questions by exploring student experiences of vulnerability in schools. Drawing on a case study of two student experiences of harmful sexual behaviour, we explore harm, abuse and vulnerability as spatial. In doing so, we present school responses to forms of harm, drawing a division between responses which focus on vulnerable individuals and the potential of responses which target the systemic, spatial and contextual causes of harm. We conclude by offering Contextual Safeguarding as an approach for addressing the social conditions of harm.

Substantial government investment has accelerated innovation activity in children’s social care in England over the past decade. Ethical concerns emerge when innovation seems to be propelled by a drive for efficiency and over-reliance on process output indicators, as well as, or even instead of, improving the lives of children, families and societies. No ethical framework exists at present to act as a check on such drivers. This paper reviews the literature with the aim of considering how best to address this gap.

This paper draws on a review of innovation in children’s social care, conducted as part of an Economic and Social Research Council-funded project exploring innovation in services for young people exposed to extra-familial risk and harm.

This study proposes a new conception of “trustworthy innovation” for the sector that holds innovation in children’s social care to the standards and principles of the code of ethics for social work. This study offers an ethical framework, informed by the interdisciplinary school of organisational ethics, to operationalise this extended definition; the analytic framework guides policymakers and the practice sector to question at every stage of the innovation process whether a particular model is ethically appropriate, as well as practically feasible within a specific context. Implications for local decision-making and national policy are set out, alongside questions raised for future research.

This paper is the first to offer an ethical framework for innovation in children's social care. The conception of “trustworthy innovation” offers a guide to policymakers and the practice sector, which they can use to ethically test every stage of the innovation process and make decisions about whether a particular model is ethically appropriate, as well as practically feasible within a specific context.