Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement

Randomised controlled trial & implementation and process evaluation

Supporting parenting
June 23, 2025

Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement

Highlights

ISAFE showed promising results, suggesting the father-focused intervention improved participants’ self-reported confidence and competence in engaging with fathers.
The programme also led to improvements in perceptions about organisational practices concerning father engagement, suggesting a shift in participants’ team culture around father inclusion.
While the evaluation found statistically significant effects, it is important to note that the magnitude of each effect was very small. Overall, these findings suggest that ISAFE is effective in achieving small benefits in the short-term.
ISAFE was found to be a relatively low-cost option to achieve small but significant improvements in social workers’ confidence, competence and organisational practice relating to father engagement within children’s services.

Report

Summary

Evidence suggests that practitioners in children’s social care services fail to adequately and consistently engage, assess, support, and challenge men in families involved with their services, despite the fact that fathers’ involvement can have a positive impact on children’s development and wellbeing. Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement (ISAFE) is a training and organisational development intervention that was developed by the Fatherhood Institute and CASCADE to address incidents of service failure to routinely engage men in families.

ISAFE is the first intervention of its kind that intends on better equipping social work practitioners to improve child protection by better identifying the risks that some fathers pose to children and families, as well as the resources they offer.

The intervention addresses two key components within children’s social care:

Practice pathways involving two training sessions for social workers on father engagement techniques
System pathways involving training sessions for middle management and senior leaders to better monitor father engagement and embed and sustain associated learning.

In order to assess the intervention’s impact on father engagement practices by social workers, we commissioned Ipsos to conduct an evaluation of ISAFE.

Aims

This study was commissioned in order to fill the gap in the evidence base on father-focused interventions in children’s social care. The study aimed to:

Assess the impact of ISAFE on father engagement practices compared with business as usual.
Examine the process of implementing ISAFE in children’s services across multiple local authorities and the factors that supported or challenged delivery.
Estimate the costs of delivering ISAFE.

Method

This evaluation was made up of three strands: An impact evaluation, an implementation and process evaluation, and a cost analysis.

Impact evaluation: This was conducted using a non-blinded, two-armed cluster randomised controlled trial (RCT). A total of 63 teams across seven local authorities were randomised, resulting in 31 teams in the treatment group and 32 teams in the control group. Outcome data using surveys was collected at baseline and at a 2-month follow up.

Implementation and process evaluation (IPE): This assessed the feasibility of delivering ISAFE, the intervention’s reach, explore the fidelity and quality of its delivery, and assess the interventions’ expected mechanisms of change and any variation in outcomes.

Cost analysis: This assessed the cost of delivering ISAFE per local authority and participant.

Key Findings

ISAFE showed promising results, suggesting that the father-focused intervention improved participants’ self-reported confidence and competence in engaging with fathers.
The programme also led to improvements in perceptions about organisational practices concerning father engagement, suggesting a shift in participants’ team culture around father inclusion.
There was no significant change in the perceived effectiveness or frequency in using father engagement strategies. Similarly, the study did not find changes in the number of fathers’ contact details recorded in participants’ case-files.
This could be due to the practical application of acquired knowledge and skills taking longer to become observable in real world practice. In contrast, confidence, competency, and organisational practices are more closely linked to attitudinal shifts, which can be influenced more rapidly, particularly within a light-touch intervention such as ISAFE
Differences in outcomes were found based on age, experience as a social worker, and local authority. Social workers with more experience in their role showed greater improvements in their confidence to work with fathers.
While the evaluation found statistically significant effects, it is important to note that the magnitude of each effect was very small. Overall, these findings suggest that ISAFE is effective in achieving small benefits in the short-term.
The implementation and process evaluation also found positive results with the intervention having reached 80% of its total intended audience and 79% of survey respondents that took part in the programme reported being fairly or very satisfied with the training they received. The intervention was described as a helpful reminder to think more about how social workers could improve their relationships with fathers.
ISAFE was found to be a relatively low-cost option to achieve small but significant improvements in social workers’ confidence, competence and organisational practice relating to father engagement within children’s services.

Linked Project

You can view the project linked to this publication here:

ISAFE: Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement

Related Publications

Report

Supporting parenting

Southwark Fathers Group

Learn More

Supporting parenting

Interventions for parents experiencing multiple and complex needs

Learn More

Improving Safeguarding through Audited Father-Engagement