Mutually-Constructed Danger Statements

Mutually-Constructed Danger Statements 

In my blog last week, I introduced the family roadmap process, which is a process to help elicit the views and ideas of family members, in preparation for collaborative safety planning. In describing the family roadmap process, I talked about the importance of working with families to develop mutually-constructed danger statements and safety goals.  I’ve received a number of inquiries about how to best do that, and so that's going to be the focus of the next few blogs. Today’s blog is all about danger statements and then next week’s blog will explore safety goals.

First a little bit of background. If you are familiar with safety planning, you will know that an essential first step in the creation of a comprehensive safety plan is the identification of the danger statements (what everyone is worried might happen to the children in the care of the family if nothing changes) and the safety goals (what everyone would need to see happening within the family to be confident that the children will be safe in the future). With family and safety network members, these danger statements and safety goals provide a structure for important but difficult conversations to occur.  With skilful questioning, they also help family members and professionals begin to move toward joint understanding and agreement about the nature and purpose of our work together.  


It is these danger statements and safety goals that provide direction for the safety plan.
  
And the following point is one that I can’t emphasize strongly enough (see it in bold and flashing text): For families to meaningfully participate in the creation of a detailed safety plan, they need to have participated in the development of the danger statements and safety goals that provide this direction to the safety planning process. 

In my work with organisations and workers, I am always being asked for more detail about how to best do this with families. Below is an overview of the process I usually use to develop mutually-constructed danger statements and the safety goals with families. 

Process to Develop Mutually-Constructed Danger Statements and Safety Goals

In written form, this process can be broken down into a number of steps:

1. Clarify and record your views on the danger statements and safety goals, based on what you know at this point, before meeting with the parents/family.
   
2. Use a questioning approach with the parents/family to explore their views on the future dangers and the safety goals and record this (either in the family roadmap or the PFS framework, or the Signs of Safety framework if that is what you are using). 
   
3. Share the danger statements and safety goals that you wrote earlier with the parents/family members.
   
4. Use a questioning approach with the parents/family to develop mutual-constructed danger statements and safety goals that include everyone’s views and that use the family’s language as much as possible.
   

As I mentioned above, in this blog I will focus on the process of developing mutually-constructed danger statements, looking in detail at steps 2 – 4 above. If you would like to read further background information about danger statements and how to write danger statements that capture your own view (step 1 above), the “Partnering for Safety Assessment and Planning Framework Booklet” (which is available from the bookshop section of my website) contains extensive information on this.


Eliciting the family’s views (and the safety network if they involved at this point)

Below is a questioning approach that you can use to elicit the parents’ views on the future dangers and to share the agency’s views:

For new cases:

• “We’ve talked about some things that are not going so well in your family at the moment.  If these problems were to continue, what are you worried might happen in the future that could lead to your children being hurt?  What else are you worried might happen? What else?”
  
• “If your children were here (were old enough to talk to me) what do you think they might say they are worried might happen to them in the future if these problems were to continue?”
  
• “What do you think ____ (grandparents, siblings, neighbours, child health nurse, school etc) might say they are worried might happen to your children in the future?”
  
• “What do you think I would be worried might happen to your children in the future if these problems were to continue?”
  
• “What else do you think CPS are worried might happen to your kids in the future?”
  
• “Can I show you now the danger statements that I wrote down before I came to see you and we can see if there is anything I included that we haven’t talked about yet?”
  

For ongoing cases/children in care:

• “We’ve talked about some things that are not going so well in your family at the moment.  If these problems were to continue (or reoccur), what worries do you have about what might happen to your children if they were to come back home to live with you? What else?”
  
• “What worries do you think your children might have about what might happen if they were to come back home to live with you?”
  
• “If _______ (grandparents, child health nurse, school etc) was here, what worries do you think they would have about what might happen to your children if they were returned to your care?”
  
• “What do you think are my biggest worries about what might happen to your children in the future if they were returned back home to live with you?  What else do you think I am worried might happen?”
  
• “Can I show you now the danger statements that I wrote down before I came to see you and we can see if there is anything I included that we haven’t talked about yet?”
  

Developing mutually-constructed danger statements:

Once you have elicited the parents’/family’s views about the future dangers and shared your views, the process is then one of working together to create one set of danger statements that can be used in working together to build future safety for the children. Again, we are using a questioning approach to involve family/safety network members in the process of combining everyone’s views to create one set of danger statements.  Try to make this process as visual as possible, with everything being written down in a way that everyone can see and work through together (eg. whiteboard or large sheets of paper).

• “Looking at what we have written down today about your worries and your thoughts about other people’s worries, and looking at my danger statements that I wrote down before, can we look now at what we have in common? What future dangers have we both identified?”
  
• “So you and I are both worried that if Tasha is left alone with Uncle Greg, that he might try to touch her private parts and ask her to touch his, and that Tasha would be distressed and confused by that and might start to feel bad about herself. Let’s write that down as the first danger statement.”
  
• “You said that you thought Tasha and your mum might also be worried that this might happen. If we find out that it is a worry for them, we can include their names at the beginning of the danger statement. Who do you think is the best person to talk to Tasha and your mum to check if this is a worry for them?” 
  
• “What other future dangers have we both identified?”
  
• “Can we look now at the future dangers that I am worried about but that may not be a worry for you?  I am worried that you might get into a relationship in the future with someone where you are doing things like hitting, punching and screaming at each other in front of Tasha, and that Tasha will be frightened by seeing and hearing that happen and that she could even be hurt if she gets caught up in the fighting. So let’s write that down as a danger statement that at the moment is just my worry and then we can explore if there is anyone else who is also worried about this.”
  
• “Can I check to what extent this might be a worry for you? So on a scale of 0 - 10, where 10 is you are 100% confident that you won’t be in a relationship in the future where there will be any hitting, punching and yelling in front of Tasha, and 0 is that you think that it is pretty certain that that will happen in the future, where are you on that scale?”
  
• “You’re at a 7, okay, so can I include you as being a bit worried about this particular future danger, or would you prefer that your name wasn’t included in this danger statement?”
  
• “Is there anyone else who you think might be worried about this? Who would be the best person to talk with them to find out if this is a worry for them?”
  
• “So once we have talked with the other important people in your and Tasha’s life, we can then be clear about who shares some of these worries with yourself and with CPS and we can include their names if that is appropriate.”
  

As you can see from the suggested questioning process above, while the danger statements can be developed collaboratively with parents/family members, this doesn’t mean that everyone has to agree on all of the statements of future danger. What is important is that everyone understands each other’s views about the future dangers and can recognise that addressing these identified dangers is the purpose of the child protection intervention.  What is also important is that the parents (and safety network members if they are involved at this point) have participated in constructing the danger statements so that they are more likely to feel able to fully participate in the development of a detailed safety plan to address these dangers.

I hope that this blog has been useful and please feel free to leave a comment or send me an email if you have any questions or comments. Next week’s blog will focus on developing mutually-constructed safety goals.

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Wishing you all the best in your work with families.

Sonja