What do you do when you're not going to do anything?
Bored of spending hours typing out why you're closing a concern? Or worried that you don't do this enough? This week I'm thinking about what us DSL's do, when we're not actually going to do anything.
Sometimes when I'm filing a safeguarding concern that has been recorded by one of my colleagues, I just make a quick note on the system that says ‘I don't really care about this, or maybe I do care about it but I'm not going to actually do anything about it anyway’.
Really you ask?
No, not really.
That would be stupid. And to be fair the first option (that I don’t care about what they’ve written) is virtually never true. But the second option (that I am interested, but that I’m not going to do anything about it on this occasion), is very often true.
Whatever your local context - and the thresholds you work to – you are always going to get some concerns from colleagues that just go into the file. A lot of safeguarding is ‘just’ sharing information, because we know that sharing information helps us to build a picture, which in turn helps us to realise which actions we need to take and when. So people reporting concerns that don’t trigger an immediate action is not a waste of time or a sign that something’s gone wrong. It’s part of the way that the whole system works: it’s what’s supposed to happen.
But those concerns - even the ones that you’re not going to do anything about - have still got to be dealt with. You’ve got to deal with them on your recording system: put that piece of paper in the filing cabinet, or click that button that says FILE THIS CONCERN. And deal with them in your head: read them, think about them for a bit, and then at some point stop thinking about them and move onto the next thing. And so, the question here is: ‘How exactly do you deal with those concerns? What do you do? And just as importantly, what don’t you do?’
Maybe you are a DSL that honestly and meticulously explains every little decision that you make on your school’s safeguarding system. Maybe every single time that you decide that a concern does not require a response, you make sure that you have left a really detailed record in the chronology, showing in great depth how you came to this conclusion. This thorough approach will mean that you’ve got gold-star chronologies. It has the slight disadvantage of probably meaning that you’ll never get any sleep, because you’ll need to spend every single hour of every single day hammering away at your laptop.
Or maybe you’re at the other extreme: you never write anything about these decisions. Just a quick click and it's gone. FILE CONCERN. Next. The most obvious advantage of this approach is that it is extremely efficient. And it might not always be as awful as it sounds. After all, in reality we all dismiss things all of the time in our heads: notice things that we decide don’t warrant recording or sharing. Whether we like it or not, we can’t write down everything all of the time. But if someone else has gone to the effort of recording a safeguarding concern, then it feels like we at least need to go to the effort of dealing with it adequately. And it still feels like a bit of a moment when you click your mouse and send it away forever. So I suspect we’ll all have found ways of filing concerns that try and strike a balance, between explaining everything and explaining nothing.
A common option is to write NFA (No Further Action). This has a nice professional ring to it that conjures up the police or the army. People love acronyms. NFA sounds slick and effective. ‘File closed, NFA’. But do not be deceived by NFA folks. When you write NFA what you mean is ‘I’m not going to do anything’. Which might often be fine, but let’s recognise it for what it is. It’s similar to the way in which the phrase DNA (Did Not Attend), can mask the fact that what we’re actually saying is ‘the parents did not bring their child to this appointment’. Or likewise ‘DV incident’ can mask the fact that we’re talking about a man punching his wife in the face. I’m not saying all acronyms are evil or that you should never write NFA. I’m just saying don’t forget what NFA stands for, and instead ask yourself whether it’s enough of an explanation in this instance.
Another thing you might write is ‘Continue to Monitor’. I love that one. Because to be fair, usually you really are going to continue to monitor. But if you think about it, it’s not quite as simple as it sounds. In fact, ‘continue to monitor’ is such a commonly used - but rarely thought about - phrase, that I could go off on a massive tangent about it, and so I will do: I’ll return to the theme of monitoring in my next blog piece in two weeks time. For now, it’s just worth noting that saying you’re going to monitor something is potentially an action of sorts, but it’s really rather a limited one. No one ever said “It looks like there’s quite a big fire in the kitchen people, we really must continue to monitor that!”.
And then there’s ‘Social worker notified by email’. We’re all happy when we’re able to write that one before closing a concern aren’t we? Again though, be wary of feeling like that’s job done. As a DSL, I’m almost certain you’ll have experienced times when just telling a social worker about something hasn’t been enough to safeguard one of your pupils. In those situations we can’t just write ‘Social worker notified by email’ and forget about it. Are the things that need to happen now definitely going to happen? Who is going to do what? What communication have you had around this? Unfortunately none of these questions are answered by just writing ‘social worker notified’ on your system. [NB I recognise that most DSL’s that I know would say that trying to get the right response from ‘Social worker notified by email’ is actually the most frustrating part of their job, so that’s definitely something we’ll be coming back to one day.]
Aside from writing NFA, or ‘Continue to Monitor’, or ‘Social Worker Notified’, the other thing that you might do when you’re not actually going to do anything is to justify your decision. To write down the reasons why on this occasion you’re going to remain idle. I’m loathe to tell anyone how to operate their safeguarding recording systems in their own unique settings, and we all have to work within our own capacities. But I am willing to highlight some situations where I think some sort of written rationale or statement on your safeguarding system is necessary, before you consign a recorded concern to the ‘filed’ tray. So, for me, these are some of the main times when I think recording a high quality rationale is necessary and useful:
- Recorded injuries (especially if there is anything concerning about them)
- Concerns that hint at low frequency high impact issues (such as FGM or County Lines)
- Any situation where you have at least considered a referral to the MASH or police, but then decided against it
- Situations where there appears to be a logical or expected action that has not been completed for some reason (most commonly in my experience it’s that parents or carers haven’t been spoken to)
They are all examples of situations where I feel like ‘NFA’ or ‘Continue to Monitor’ just won’t do. Your list might be different, and that might be something you want to discuss with other DSL’s in your school. When do you want to make sure that you have rationales recorded, and what do you want those rationales to say?
Whatever the reason you’re doing it, I think it’s possible to outline three basic things you want to cover when explaining an NFA decision:
1) Why this concern seems potentially significant or worrying. Doing this will also demonstrate in the chronology that you have at least noticed that this thing needed attention and thought.
2) What process you have been through to get to your NFA decision. Examples might include: have spoken to class teacher; have completed chronology review; have discussed with parent, have discussed with senior DSL or colleague; or have read through relevant guidance document such-and-such.
3) Having identified this concern and looked at it in some detail, why you have nevertheless decided not to do anything about it in this instance. This is probably the most important bit. You should have good reasons here (if you haven’t then you might want to rethink your decision!). And you can state those reasons. But we shouldn’t feel obliged to overstate them either. All too often I think safeguarding professionals can fall into the trap of deciding they’re going to file a concern or close a case, and then just look for all of the best evidence to support this decision. And when we do that, we’re slipping from safeguarding into arse covering.
Please forgive me a rant here: often people say that the reason you need to record your decision making is so that if there’s a Child Safeguarding Practice Review, people will be able to see why you made the decisions that you did. I am really not a fan of this line of thinking. I get it, but I don’t like it. I’m sometimes horrified by the way in which people seem to describe good safeguarding as almost entirely about preparing for the worst thing that could happen, rather than about trying to prevent it happening in the first place. I can admit that I sometimes read a concern without an action or an outcome attached to it and think that it looks bad in the chronology. And I’m definitely not above reading a chronology and thinking “well that bit would look very embarrassing in court, I think I need a rationale there”. But I know that these are definitely not the best reasons for recording rationales for an NFA decision.
No, in my experience there are much better reasons for doing it than covering your backside or making your chronologies look nice. Writing down a rationale – if done well - can really help you to crystallise your thinking. It can be a way of making yourself feel accountable for your decision making, and therefore improving it. It can provide an opportunity for colleagues to really digest your thinking, and then offer a different perspective, or point out if they think you’ve made a mistake. And it can help you in the future, to look back at incidents and recall what you did or didn’t do, and why, and then potentially make better informed decisions going forward. These are all really good reasons for recording a good rationale, even if TBH the end result is still going to be NFA. IMO at least. BRB folks.