Signs of Safety

There is little to no evidence to suggest that Signs of Safety is effective at reducing the need for children to be in care. This reflects a limited evidence base, with few studies and none of a high quality for drawing conclusions about the impact of Signs of Safety on this outcome. Lack of evidence is not the same as evidence that Signs of Safety does not work to reduce care. Nor does it establish that Signs of Safety does not have other possible positive outcomes.

Evidence suggests that Signs of Safety can lead to positive engagement with parents, children, wider family and external agencies. The most commonly assumed mechanism through which Signs of Safety improves child safety is the development of shared understanding of and responsibility for minimising risk to children, primarily through the development and use of safety plans and safety networks. A programme theory drawn from the literature outlines the mechanisms that enable and follow from this main mechanism to improve child safety.

Key moderators of the development of a shared understanding of and responsibility for improving child safety relate to the contexts that enable relationship building and collaboration between children, parents, and social worker. A key moderator emerging from the review is that parents need to trust and collaborate with social workers if they are to develop a sense of shared responsibility for minimising risks to children.

Signs of Safety recognises the importance of whole organisation change to create a culture that supports social workers to practice with families. The review identifies key barriers and enablers of implementation. There is huge variation in how Signs of Safety is implemented and limited specification of how it is possible to be sure high quality Signs of Safety is being delivered. In part as a result of this, it is not possible to identify from the research evidenced examples of successful and sustainable implementation.

The review found no evidence of sufficient quality to analyse for cost effectiveness.

The evidence base for Signs of Safety urgently needs developing. The approach is currently widely used with little evidence of positive impact.

A clear and practicable specification of what high quality Signs of Safety looks like in practice is a first priority. Without it, implementation and evaluation are difficult.

Evaluations of the impact of high quality Signs of Safety compared to normal service or other models would then be possible – and given the substantial public money being spent on the approach such evaluations are a priority.

Once evidence for the impact of high quality Signs of Safety is established, research evaluating the implementation of the approach is crucial. Currently there is little evidence about the contribution of different elements that purport to be necessary to deliver Signs of Safety well.

Lack of evidence does not mean Signs of Safety does not work – but it does suggest that practitioners and service leaders need to think carefully about what they understand the model to involve, how they would know it was being delivered well and whether it is delivering the outcomes they seek to achieve.

In this respect, our programme theory is intended to make a constructive contribution by describing in some detail what is thought to be necessary to allow Signs of Safety to be effective in working with families. Our Practice Guide and Implementation Briefing are intended to share the programme theory in ways that can support those seeking to practice, lead or evaluate services based on the principles of Signs of Safety.