Mutually-Constructed Safety Goals

Mutually-Constructed Safety Goals

Hi everyone,

This blog focuses on the process of developing mutually-constructed safety goals (goals that are developed collaboratively between the parents/family and the child protection agency) and follows on from my earlier blog about danger statements. If you haven’t read that blog (22/9/13), you might want to read that first so that you have sufficient context for the information contained in this blog.

Safety goals are clear, behavioural statements that describe WHAT the parents will be doing differently in their care of the children in the future to protect the children from the identified dangers and for the child protection agency to be willing to close the case. The safety goals provide a vision for future safety and the focus and direction for the creation of rigorous safety plans.

One of the most common pieces of feedback from families who are involved with child protection systems is that professionals constantly “shift the goal posts” or fail to define the “goal posts” in the first place. The process described in this blog is designed to directly address this issue so that child protection practitioners are able to work with families to collaboratively define the safety goals and then maintain this safety focus in their work with the family.

Just as with the danger statements, the process of developing mutually-constructed safety goals starts with workers initially thinking through and identifying their own views on the safety goals. Once workers have developed their own version of the safety goals, they can then put these aside and use a questioning approach with family members and other significant people to elicit the family/safety network’s views on the safety goals. In this way, workers can move from professionally-created safety goals to safety goals that are mutually-constructed with the family and the safety network (if they are involved at this stage).

Identifying and writing clear safety goals is one of the aspects of collaborative assessment that child protection workers typically find most challenging. If you would like more information about safety goals and how to write clear and comprehensive safety goals, please see the “Partnering for Safety” framework booklet in my bookshop.

This blog will assume you have that understanding about safety goals and will work forward from the point where you have already identified your own version of the safety goals.

Eliciting families' views on the safety goals

When I am ‘mapping’ with a family, the safety goals element is the part of the framework that I frequently start with, particularly with families where we have or could get stuck in arguments about what happened in the past. Asking parents to describe their ideas and hopes and dreams for keeping their children safe in the future enables our conversation to focus on a vision for future safety, rather than getting stuck arguing about the past. And what I have learnt is that when families are able to talk with us about their visions for the future, hope and energy enters the room and enables us to start to build a platform for working together to create future safety.

Time after time, when I have used careful questioning with parents to elicit their safety goals for their children, parents usually come up with most, if not all, of the desired changes that child protection services have identified within their safety goals. The key in eliciting specific and safety-focused goals with parents is using specific, purposeful and safety-focused questions that invite the parents to reflect on future safety for their children and to create a vision for future safety. 

In asking parents about their safety goals, the initial question I ask is usually something like one of the questions below:

• “I don’t want to get into an argument with you about whether the things that were reported to the department actually happened or not, but instead I want to find out your ideas about the future that you want for your family. So let me ask you this question: Imagine that it is a few months in the future and that you have managed to sort out all of the problems that led to child protection services becoming involved with your family. What would I see you doing in the way you were looking after your kids if all the problems had been sorted out?”
  
• “I understand that having child protection services in your life might be the last thing you want, but imagine if having us involved in your life was actually a useful thing and made a positive difference for your family and your children. I know that might sound like a crazy idea, but if our involvement was actually a good thing and we were helpful to you, what would be different for you and for your children?”
  
• “For child protection services to be able to get out of your life and let you get on with being a family, we need to see that you are looking after your children in ways that make sure that none of the things we are worried about will happen to your children in the future. And we need to talk together about your ideas of how you would be looking after your children and our ideas about what we would need to see you doing, so that together we can come up with some really clear goals. I want to start off by asking you for your ideas and finding out what you want your future with the kids to look like. So if you were able to be the parent you have always wanted to be and were able to look after your kids in ways that you think is important for them, what would you be doing?”
  
• “I understand that you don’t agree with all of the worries that we have, but what do you think you would need to be doing in your care of your children in the future to show us that the things we are worried about are not going to happen?”
  

I usually choose one of these questions (usually relying on my instinct about which will be most effective) and if that question isn't one that the person connects with, then I try another. The question you ask is likely to elicit only some of the parent’s ideas, so you will need to ask (and continue asking) “And what else would you be doing?” until parent/family member has identified all of their ideas. 

As parents are identifying their safety goals, you can use follow up questions to help parents refine their safety goals to ensure that they are focused on the children, that they describe the changes in their behaviour and that the safety goals cover all of the identified concerns. The “Partnering for Safety” framework booklet contains a large number of suggested follow up questions that you can use with families to help focus and refine the safety goals.

Asking parents to reflect on the agency safety goal

After eliciting the family’s safety goals, you can then move into asking the parents to consider what the agency safety goals might be. I usually do this only after I have used careful and extensive questioning with the parents to elicit their own safety goals and we have worked through the danger statements together, so that parents can reflect on what future actions they think the child protection agency would need to see them take to protect the children from the dangers.

The place that I usually start is by first acknowledging the ideas that the parent has provided, and then asking them to consider which of these ideas or safety goals they think would be most important for child protection to see in place. I usually ask a question such as:

• “We’ve talked about your ideas and thoughts about what you would be doing in the future to make sure that your children are safe and getting everything that they need and you’ve come up a whole lot of ideas that are helping me to feel a lot more confident. Which of these ideas do you think would be important to child protection services?” 
  

Once we have explored the parts of the parent’s safety goals that would be important to CPS, we then move to identifying any additional safety goals that CPS would need to see.

• “What else do you think CPS would need to see you doing, in your care of the kids, for us to be willing to close the case?  What else do you think we would need to see you doing?”
  
• “Looking at the statements of what CPS are worried may happen to your children (danger statements), what do you think you need to be doing with your children so that CPS are no longer worried?”
  
• “One of the things that we are worried about is that your dad might try to touch your daughter’s private parts. What do you think we would need to see you doing to protect your daughter to make sure that this doesn’t happen?”
  
• "Another thing that we are worried about is that when you and David get angry with each other in the future, that you might yell and hit each other in front of the children and that the children might be really scared and could even get physically hurt if they get caught in the fighting. So when you get angry with each other in the future, which all couples do, what do you think we would need to see you doing to make sure that the children aren’t at risk of being hurt or scared in this way?” 
  
• “Can I show you now the safety goals that I wrote down before I came to see you and we can see if there is anything else I included that we haven’t talked about?”
  

Developing mutually-constructed safety goals

Once you have elicited the family’s safety goals and asked the family to reflect on the agency safety goals, you can then use a questioning approach to combine the different safety goals into one set of safety goals that are reflective of both the family’s ideas and the safety requirements of the agency.  Combining the safety goals will often involve incorporating the family’s language or adding goals that are important to the family, but does NOT involve diluting the safety focus.

I usually introduce this next part of the process by saying something like:

• “The next step we need to take in working together is to come up with one set of safety goals that include both the things that you want to be doing in the future to keep your children safe and the things that CPS need to see you doing to make sure that the things we are worried might happen to the children in the future don’t happen.” 
  

Then to develop one set of mutually-constructed goals, I use questions such as:

• “So looking at your safety goals and the safety goals I wrote down before, let’s look first at what we have in common? What safety goals have we both identified? What other safety goals have we both identified? Let’s write all of those down under the ‘Safety Goals’ heading.”
  
• “Can we look now at the safety goals that are important to CPS but that you haven’t included as part of your safety goals. I have included a safety goal that says: ‘Kerry has ways of sorting out any conflict or arguments with future partners or other adults that are safe for Tasha and that doesn’t involve anyone hitting, punching or screaming at each other in front of Tasha’. I understand that you feel pretty confident that you won’t get into relationships like this in the future, but as you know it is still a worry for me and is still one of the danger statements, so I need to include this as a safety goal so that we can build our confidence that you have ways of sorting out any conflicts with people in the future that are safe for Tasha. Is this something that you are prepared to work toward and to show us that it is achievable for you? Yes? That’s great!  Are you happy with the way I have written this safety goal or do we need to change the way this is written?”
  
• “Let’s look now at the safety goals that you have included but that are not in the safety goals I wrote.  Which of these do you think have to be included in the safety goals for you to be confident that the children will be safe in the future?  If the kids were here/able to talk, which of these goals would they say were important and needed to be included? Let’s add those to the safety goals.”
  

Working collaboratively to develop safety goals does not mean that everyone needs to agree on the safety goals. As discussed in my previous blog in relation to the statements of future danger, family members, safety network members and even other professionals may not agree with the concerns held by the statutory agency and so may not agree that all of the safety goals are necessary. But at a minimum, everyone needs to be involved in the process of thinking through the care and protection for the children that the statutory agency would need to see in place to be prepared to close the case.

Introductory statement at the top of the safety goals

At the top of the safety goals, I usually include a statement that helps everyone to understand the process of involving a safety network and working from the safety goals to develop the detailed safety plan (for more detail on this, see the “Partnering for Safety” framework booklet). To introduce the introductory statement, I usually say something like:

• “You can see at the top of my safety goals that there is a bit of an introduction. We usually write this at the top of the safety goals to explain to everyone about having a safety network for the children and about all of us working together to come up with a detailed safety plan that will explain how you are going to make sure these safety goals are achieved for Tasha.” 
  
• “What I’ve written is:  ‘Kerry will work with CPS and a safety network for Tasha to develop and put into place a safety plan that will show everyone that: ...... ’.   Do you think it would be useful to include something like this at the top?  How would you like to word it?  Do you want to start to put the names of some of Tasha’s safety network in here?”
  
• “So we’ve got: ‘Kerry and her mum, Debra, and her sister, Elaine, as well as other people who will be invited to join Tasha’s safety network, are going to work with CPS to come up with a safety plan that is going to show everyone that the safety goals beneath are always going to happen for Tasha’.  That’s great!”
  

Exploring a time frame

Once we have talked through all the details of the safety goals that need to be in place to address the danger statements and have come up with a mutually-developed set of safety goals, I then introduce the idea of these safety goals needing to be demonstrated over time. I usually say something like:

• “I think that we have come up with a pretty clear and comprehensive set of safety goals. If you have developed a safety plan that is achieving all of these safety goals, that will be enough for CPS to be confident that your kids will be safe enough and that we are able to close the case and let you get on with being a family. Are you satisfied with these safety goals?” 
  
• “Can we now talk about how long we would need to see you achieving these safety goals (and having the safety plan working) for CPS to be willing to walk away? How long do you think I would need to see you doing all of this, for me to be confident that it had now become part of the way your family life is organised and that it was going to keep happening?  Do you think one week would be long enough for me? One month? One year?”
  
• “The way we usually write this is something like: ‘CPS will need to see the safety plan in place and working for a period of ____ (eg. 6 months) so that everyone is confident that the safety plan will keep working once CPS withdraw’.” 
  

Final thoughts.... 

Hopefully the suggested process above will help you develop more confidence and capacity in moving from professionally-created safety goals to safety goals that are mutually-constructed with the family and the safety network (if they are involved at this stage). It is these mutually-constructed safety goals that then provide the vision and direction for our future safety planning work with the family.

I've tried to keep this as brief as possible (truly; you should see how much I left out!), but I'm conscious that it's still pretty long for a blog. Hope you've been able to sit and relax with a cup of tea while you were reading it :)

Feel free to get in touch if you would like to discuss this process in any more detail and for further information about danger statements and safety goals, please see the "Partnering for Safety" booklet in my bookshop. And if this is one of the first of my blogs that you are reading and you would like to subscribe to future blogs, please return to the top of the page and subscribe by entering your email address in the right hand column.

Wishing you all the best in your work with families.

Sonja