by Isabelle Trowler

Some of you will have known and admired Sue very much; some of you will have heard of Sue by reputation.

More of you will have heard of the family safeguarding model – the practice framework for children’s social care that Sue tirelessly developed and helped scale up across England over the past 10 years.

‘She knew how intense and emotional the work can be’

Sue cared – a lot – about children and their families, but she also cared a lot about social work. She knew how highly skilled, intense and emotional the work can be.

She knew that social work can be frequently frightening, frustrating, worrying and deeply rewarding. It requires depth of thought and a generosity of spirit, resilience, enormous creativity and an ability to hold extensive power.

It is why she set out to create a practice framework that helped anchor the practitioner within a set of values and skills and which offers clarity of purpose.

The new statutory Children’s Social Care National Framework for England and the government’s reform programme for family help and child protection reflect much of Sue’s ambition for our sector. This is her proud legacy.

‘She had the courage and determination to drive through change’

Sue Williams was recognised for her outstanding contribution to children and families in the 2024 Frontline Awards (photo by Frontline)

I chair the children’s social care national practice group, which is a multidisciplinary, multi-agency group of experts whose role is to set the practice direction for local authority social worker. As a member of the group, Sue was always there banging her drum relentlessly and shamelessly!

Even when Sue became increasingly unwell, she still came because she had a point to make. And this is what I loved about her. Her tenacity and grace for what she believed to be right were second to none.

We have come a very long way since I sat on the Department for Education’s innovation board about 10 years ago and saw that twinkle in Sue’s eye.

Not long after, we took a punt and invested in her family safeguarding framework in Hertfordshire, where she had worked for many years.

Sue had that crucial courage, conviction, energy, insight and determination to drive through these kinds of changes; changes that will stick and make a positive difference for years to come.

‘Sue was a social worker through and through’

Many of us reading this will be deeply affected by Sue’s death because, even though you might not have known her personally, you may recognise her work in your own practice.

You will certainly recognise many of Sue’s attributes – because this is what makes you a good practitioner.

Sue was a social worker through and through. She loved our profession.

Even though her loss will be greatly felt, there is surely solace that Sue lived a purposeful life, making a positive, significant and lasting difference.

I know that Sue’s son will read this – never was there a son more loved – and I hope it offers him and his family some solace too.

Sue Williams died on 5 January 2025 at the age of 69. Her family have shared that donations to the Trussell Trust, Cancer Research UK or Arthur Rank Hospice would be much appreciated in her memory.

Sue Williams, the mind behind the family safeguarding model, has been recognised for her outstanding contribution to children and families in the second annual Frontline Awards.

Her award was presented by chief social worker for children Isabelle Trowler, who described Sue as “a leading light in bringing change and innovation to children’s social care across England”.

“Her incredible tenacity, intellectual clout, creativity and commitment to the sector has made a huge and lasting contribution, not just to every practitioner she’s influenced, but to every child and family that they in turn have supported,” she added.

Sue, now programme director of the Centre for Family Safeguarding Practice, conceived the model in 2015 when assistant director of children’s services in Hertfordshire council. She secured funding from the Department for Education’s (DfE) innovation programme to test it in the county.

Family safeguarding involves teams of children’s social workers and specialist adults’ practitioners using techniques such as motivational interviewing to tackle the root causes of adult behaviours that increase concerns about children, particularly domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health difficulties.

It reduced the number of children going into care and onto child protection plans and was seen by parents as “participatory, supportive and empowering”, found a 2020 evaluation for the DfE, which has subsequently supported its rollout across the country. It has so far been adopted by 23 areas in England.

‘Challenge your biases’

Helena Oatts (photo by Frontline)

The outstanding contribution gong was one of two new additions to the Frontline awards line-up, the other being participant of the year, which recognises a trainee on the charity’s fast-track social work course.

This award went to Helena Oatts, who was praised for being a “fierce advocate for children and families and practising with empathy and passion”.

“I love every moment of [being a social worker] and to be recognised for doing something you enjoy is absolutely amazing,” she said of her win.

“I’ve always been someone who has loved people, I think there’s something in everyone that we can all resonate with.”

Helena’s piece of advice for future social work students was to always believe in themselves but also challenge their biases.

“We all have biases, but you have to be open to challenging the views that you have about the world and about yourself. Keep an open mind. When you’re meeting families, you might have a slight idea of what could be going on, but keep challenging yourself, there could be multiple truths and possibilities.”

‘It’s important for young people to feel seen, loved and wanted’

Addy Siwko, Annie Whitley, and Artur were selected as winners of the award for young people.

Addy Siwko (photo by Frontline)

Addy, who lives with cerebral palsy, set up his own car wash business to raise money for a charity raising awareness for the condition and, more recently, wrote a song, ‘I Can Do Anything’, about his disability not holding him back in life.

Annie has led a consultation on making care experience a protected characteristic, secured a household living fund for care leavers and helped review, reshape and relaunch children’s residential care in her area.

Artur is the chair of a children’s active involvement service and, for the past five years, has worked to improve support for care leavers. He has set up a food and toiletry bank, lobbied for suitable housing for care leavers and managed to increase care leaver allowances from £1,500 to £3.000 in his area.

Speaking to Community Care, he called for better funding towards allowances and housing placements for care leavers and said he would continue to advocate for a “better service so that young people have the best and easiest experience”.

He advised practitioners working with children to do everything “with their hearts and mean it”.

“A young person can always tell when a social worker means what they say,” Artur added. “Social workers do kind of take on the role of a parent so it’s really important for the young people [they support] to feel seen, loved and wanted by them.”

Big night for Islington

Kenneth Atigah (photo by Frontline)

The London Borough of Islington saw two of its practitioners go home with an award – Celia, who won the leadership award for her commitment to improving social work practice, and Kenneth Atigah, who won the award for practice.

Celia has helped deliver multiple initiatives, including the edge of care service, which provides prevention support for children and young people at potential risk of needing to become looked after.

Kenneth left Ghana for England in 2008 and has spent years caring for his autistic cousin, whose social worker inspired him to join the sector.

Other winners included Kasey Thompson, who won the fellowship award for being “an integral part of Frontline’s racial diversity and inclusion steering group”, and Darlington council’s Staying Close team, which won team of the year for their work supporting 22 young people transitioning from children’s homes or supported accommodation to independent living.

‘When we respond to sexual exploitation, we need creative approaches’

The final award, for innovation, went to Jo Ritchie for her decade-long work on sexual exploitation, including setting up ‘Night Light’ with Avon and Somerset Police, which sees professionals partnering with sex workers to support and identify children at risk.

“This award is very much shared with the women. They’ve been so instrumental and we couldn’t do Night Light without them,” she said.

“I think so often sex workers are criminalised, demonised and totally misunderstood. The women I know and love have the biggest hearts, are the bravest people – they keep on surviving. And the fact that they’ve got the strength to safeguard children, it’s phenomenal.”

She said that in the last few months, her team has responded to 12 children and gathered “lots of information on other children at risk and customers that can be dangerous”.

Her advice to professionals working to safeguard young people from sexual exploitation is to be creative in their approaches.

“We need to think about where the gaps are and how we can intervene in a way that will meet people where they’re at and make a difference. I think sometimes the more traditional responses don’t work, so it’s about being creative.”

‘Making space to ‘celebrate social workers’ brilliant work’

Introducing the awards, Lord Tony Hall, Frontline’s chair of trustees, said: “At a time when children and families are experiencing more complex issues and worsening living conditions, it is so important that we make space to celebrate the brilliant work that social workers do day in and day out.

“The endless commitment and support that they give to children and their families can help to provide both the essential tools and hope for a brighter future.”

You can read more about the other nominations and winners on the Frontline website.

The family safeguarding model, pioneered by Hertfordshire County Council from 2014, is one of the big success stories of social work in England in recent years.

The model involves teams of children’s social workers and specialist adults’ practitioners working in a structured way with parents, using techniques such as motivational interviewing to tackle the root causes of adult behaviours that increase concerns about children, particularly domestic abuse, substance misuse and mental health difficulties.

Not only has it been effective in reducing the number of children going into care and on child protection plans, but it was seen by parents as “participatory, supportive and empowering”, found a 2020 evaluation for the Department for Education of its implementation in Hertfordshire and four other authorities.

The model is now being used or implemented by 21 councils across the country, in many cases with the help of Hertfordshire’s Centre for Family Safeguarding Practice.

But more than eight years on, family safeguarding is continuing to flourish in the county of its birth, supporting parents to resolve issues in their lives and keeping children safely within their families.

Praise from care review and social work awards

Its success in Hertfordshire was hailed in the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care’s final report, published last year, and was one of the bases for its recommendation that multidisciplinary family help teams be established in each area to improve the quality of support for children and families.

It was also recognised at the 2022 Social Worker of the Year Awards, where Cheryl Grazette, service manager for family safeguarding, participation team & motivational interviewing practitioners, won the award for team leader of the year   in children’s services. This included her ability to support students and her leadership of the service.

For staff including Kate Berry, who has just been promoted to team manager, senior practitioner Dennie Launay and Keisha Gilbert, consultant social worker, the model is inspiring them in their practice and a key reason why they love working in Hertfordshire . All three have worked in the service for many years and therefore can attest to how family safeguarding has shaped practice.

All three highlight the value of core elements of the  model, particularly the opportunity to work with domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse practitioners, as well as child and adult psychologists, which is underpinned by group supervision.

Value of multidisciplinary approach

When we speak to Dennie, she is about to attend a child protection conference, where her recommendation is to step down to child in need.

Nine months earlier, when the family was allocated to her, the intention was to initiate care proceedings for the child because of extensive and longstanding domestic abuse, perpetrated by the father. He was then recalled to prison, which gave Dennie and the team’s domestic abuse worker the opportunity to work with the mother.

Dennie Launay, Hertfordshire County Council

“Mum, for a long period of time, didn’t feel like there was an impact on the child,” says Dennie. “So, I worked with the domestic abuse worker to focus on the impact on the child. She helped me to create tools, which I used to work directly with the child to look at her experiences, whilst the domestic abuse worker worked with the mother.”

“We’ve reduced the concerns,” says Dennie. “[The father] no longer attends mother’s home, however mother has ensured safe contact, using extended family to support. That’s a massive shift from the start when she was very reluctant to work with us”

She says her work with the family exemplifies the strengths of the family safeguarding model.

“As social workers we have our own skillset in terms of the direct work that we do,” she says. “But having the expertise of others and being able to pull across their knowledge and tools that they use in their programmes enables a whole family approach, that we didn’t really get before family safeguarding.”

Within supervision, the domestic abuse worker “would provide an update on her work and where she felt mother was at on the cycle of change”, she says.

“It enabled us to create an action plan around ongoing support,”  Dennie adds. “It was really important to have not just my view but another worker’s view in those case discussions.”

From section 20 care to successful reunification

Keisha recalls working with a primary school-aged child of a single father, about whom there were concerns about his mental health and alcohol use.

The young girl had been made subject to a child protection plan and Keisha referred the father to the team’s mental health and drug and alcohol workers.

Keisha Gilbert, Hertfordshire County Council

“I felt I built a really good relationship with the child, enabling her to report her concerns and provide us with information about her lived experience,” she says. “Unfortunately, due to ongoing concerns, she had a period of being in care under section 20 [of the Children Act 1989].

“But instead of going to court we continued working with her father.  He engaged really well with the drug and alcohol and mental health workers. He attended a DBT [dialectical behavioural therapy – a form of talking therapy] course and had counselling, all provided from within the family safeguarding service.”

The team started contact between father and daughter and she was able to transition back to living with him. Over time, he stopped seeing the mental health and drug and alcohol workers and the family and status of the plan changed to child in need. The family are no longer open to children’s services.

For Keisha, the key to success was working hand in glove with the mental health and drug and alcohol workers, which helped the father overcome longstanding distrust of children’s services, the result of bad experiences in other areas. The father, Mr M, was happy to share his view (below).

Reducing waits for services

Another benefit of multidisciplinary teams is that social workers do not have to refer families to external specialist agencies, which was significant for a mother Kate has been working with.

Kate’s focus was on supporting the woman to reduce her cannabis use. Initially, she refused drug and alcohol services, but through Kate’s work with her she eventually agreed.

Kate Berry, Hertfordshire County Council

“Previously I would have made the referral and had to wait and wait,” she says. “Now, I’m able to make the referral, have a conversation with the drug and alcohol worker and do a joint visit. Being able to do that really helped mum as I was able to support her in meeting someone new. It was much more comfortable, much more relaxed.”

Besides multidisciplinary working, Dennie, Kate and Keisha also particularly highlight the value of the family safeguarding workbook, which provides a structure for working with families through a series of modules. These cover areas such as family history, parents’ understanding of the impact of their behaviour and the voice of the child.

A structured approach

Kate says the modular approach was particularly important for a family from Slovakia she worked with. The concerns were around sexual exploitation and neglect.

“This family had been open previously to children’s services and, maybe because there was a lack of structure, social workers were telling them what the problem was, without really having an understanding of their culture and any difficulties they may have had understanding what was required” she says.

“The modules help you slow down because you’re not jumping here, there and everywhere. You can go in and explain what the children’s needs are, how to meet them and what would happen if those needs weren’t met – that’s what they didn’t understand.

“We stepped them down from public law outline to child protection to child in need and I’ve very recently ended our involvement because there are no longer any safeguarding issues for the children. Without the focus that the workbook and the modules bring, we may not have got there as quickly, if at all.”

Embedding long-term change

For service manager Cheryl, who was a manager of a family safeguarding team at its birth in 2014, another key strength of the model is its ability to support long-term change in families.

“Every family is going to hit crisis at some point so we help them build up their own mechanisms to deal with crisis,” she says. “So we do our family group conferences earlier, looking at support networks. When we are no longer involved, we have left them with a contingency that reduces the need for a future referral.

“The family safeguarding programme encourages social workers to recognise that they are agents of change; the aim is to support families to first acknowledge difficulties and behaviours and then work alongside them, with our adult workers supporting change. This approach works much better in the long-term, supporting families to maintain changes and not just supporting change at a surface level as change is less meaningful.”

At the same time, the council is promoting the model nationally, through its Centre for Family Safeguarding Practice.

On collecting her award at the Social Worker of the Year Awards, Cheryl says: “When staff from local authorities heard I was from Hertfordshire, they said, ‘you’re the authority that started family safeguarding’. It’s amazing how many asked about it.”

Are you interested in working in family safeguarding or in other roles in Hertfordshire? Check out the latest vacancies here. 

You can also find out more about the family safeguarding model below:

• ‘The family safeguarding model gives families the platform to tell us who they are – not what they are’
• ‘There’s a real sense of price in our work to reunite families’

Inspectors have hailed the impact of the family safeguarding model in helping a council move from ‘good’ to ‘outstanding’, in a report this week.

Ofsted credited the approach for enhancing the quality of practice and supervision, helping parents gain insight into the impact of negative behaviours on their children and enabling families to stay together.

Bracknell Forest implemented the model – pioneered in Hertfordshire – in 2017, with government funding, and a 2020 evaluation found the numbers of child protection plans and looked-after children had subsequently fallen in the Berkshire authority.

The model involves placing domestic abuse, substance use and mental health practitioners in multi-disciplinary teams with children’s social workers, to enable them to work with parents in tackling the root causes of their children’s needs and risks, including through the use of motivational interviewing. The workers also share regular group supervision sessions.

‘Very beneficial direct work by passionate practitioners’

Ofsted highlighted the impact of both specialist adults’ staff and group supervision in the model’s success in Bracknell Forest.

“Meaningful and very beneficial direct work completed by the passionate specialist workers, such as
domestic abuse workers, is having a very positive impact on children and their families,” said the report. “This approach enables children and adults to gain an insight into their challenges and establish ways which help them to manage anxiety and behaviours in a positive way.”

The report added: “This support has been very impactful in enabling more children to return to the care of their parents and remain in their care.”

Inspectors praised the “effective, collaborative” way children’s social workers and adults’ specialists worked together to tackle domestic abuse, parental substance use and neglect.

Group supervision ‘providing clarity on what makes a difference’

This was enhanced by group supervision, which provided “real clarity and understanding about need, risk intervention and what makes a difference to children”, as well as reflection and challenge.

The report also praised leaders’ investment in the model, saying refresher training to strengthen its implementation had “had a significant impact on practice and the effective interventions provided to improve children’s family experiences”.

The impact of the family safeguarding model helped Bracknell Forest earn an outstanding grade for both its work with children in need of help and protection and for leadership – in both cases, an improvement on the good rating it achieved in 2017.

Ofsted also found leaders and managers were “working tirelessly to develop more placement options for children and young people” and had done much to tackle recruitment and retention problems, resulting in improved workforce stability.

While this had led to some social workers carrying higher caseloads than the authority would have liked, leaders had implemented a plan to address this.

The authority, however, slipped back, from outstanding to good, in relation to services for children in care and care leavers.

Creative practice with children in care

Inspectors were generally positive about provision for children in care, who they said generally benefited from permanent homes, found in timely manner.

Social workers saw children as much as they needed, carrying out life story work proactively to help promote their understanding of their identities, and working creatively to communicate with them and ensure their voices were heard.

Sexual and criminal exploitation, and other risks, were well-managed through effective risk assessment, while those placed out of area were well-supported by social workers, who saw them regularly.

Foster carers praised the support they received, with supervising social workers “achieving a good balance between professional vigilance and challenge and providing support”.

Personal assistant caseloads ‘higher than optimal’

The only deficits in practice identified by Ofsted were in relation to care leavers.

Personal assistants were ambitious for young people and supported them well to achieve their aspirations through “tenacious and skilled support”, which young people spoke highly of.

However, their caseloads were “higher than optimal”, sometimes affecting their ability to provide as much support as they would like.

Not enough care leavers were in education, employment and training, with relatively few progressing to higher education, and their influence on service design was “in its infancy”, with the council needing to do much more to enable their participation.

‘Immensely proud’

Grainne Siggins, executive director, people, at Bracknell Forest, said: “I am immensely proud that Bracknell Forest’s children’s services has been rated as outstanding. This is testament to the hard work, dedication and passion in providing the best possible service to improve the lives of children, young people and their families in the borough.

“We will continue to focus on improving our services to ensure that we can provide outstanding services to all of our children and young people.”

Professionals need to engage better with male carers, backed by increased investment in children’s services, to reduce the risk of them harming their babies, government advisers have said.

Systemic weaknesses in how services operated often left fathers of babies “hidden, unassessed and unengaged”, found a report by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel on cases of children under one seriously harmed or killed by male carers.

Poor engagement by universal services, such as midwives and health visitors, set a pattern for how targeted services, such as children’s social care, worked with male carers, found the panel. Too often professionals made “simplistic judgments” casting men as either ‘good’ – and able to be entrusted with their children’s care’ – or ‘bad’, to be kept at arms-length or, if possible, excluded from family life.

By contrast, mothers were generally seen in a more rounded way, with their strengths identified and a focus on enabling them to be the best parents they could be – with a failure to take this approach with fathers having a “catastrophic” effect, said the panel.

Experience of abusive parenting

While there was no “single identifier”, the review found a number of factors that heightened the risk of abuse, including men who had experienced abusive or neglectful parenting themselves, leading to poor mental health. This was often exacerbated by poverty, unemployment, racism, substance misuse, problematic relationships with mothers and domestic abuse, coupled with a rapid resort to violence when men experienced difficulties with others.

“It is in the combination of factors described here that risk occurs and secondly, the fact that too many men are not well engaged by services means that those risks go unidentified,” the review concluded.

The study drew on interviews with eight men serving prison sentences who had been found guilty of killing or causing serious harm to a baby; analysis of 92 cases involving death or serious harm to babies referred to the panel; an in-depth review of 23 of these; discussions with key stakeholders, and a review of relevant literature, carried out by the Fatherhood Institute.

Of the 92 children considered, 45 were known only to universal services at the time of the abuse, 24 were known to early help, 12 were open to social care as children in need and 11 were subject to child protection plans.

“This indicates that a significant proportion of these families and these men do not become visible to more specialist services until the abusive incident occurs,” the report said.

Factors behind dangerous behaviour

Interviews with the men serving prison sentences revealed many had difficulties in their childhoods, poor attachment histories, limited coping skills and problems with anger management. Six turned to substance misuse to self-medicate for mental health problems or to try to diminish the impact of traumatic thoughts and feelings.

“These factors and experiences coalesced to create behaviour that was very dangerous to the safety and wellbeing of the babies for whom they were caring,” the report says.

The report found children’s services often did not know who the fathers were nor the risks they presented to the child.

It quoted background research that fathers were invited to child protection conferences only 55% of the time; known violent fathers were not contacted by social workers prior to meetings 38% of the time and only 68% of completed assessments included contact with the father.

The report said ‘recurrent fathers’ – those who attended multiple care proceedings – were a particularly vulnerable group who had experienced disadvantages in their childhoods and more recently.

“Whilst they may pose a risk, they are themselves also at risk and need to be seen and treated as such,” it found.

Care leaver vulnerability

The report also raised particular concerns about care leavers, whose histories often exacerbated the challenges posed by being a young parent, poverty and social isolation.

It found there was not enough focus in children’s services on preparing care leavers for parenthood, and said it should be routine to carry out pre-birth assessments for all those about to become parents. This was not “to stigmatise them,” but to “ensure that the system responds as good corporate parents and enables them to become the best parents they can be,” it added.

The report found children’s services must be “much more alert” to the risks to children of parents that were angry, frustrated or had poor impulse control, especially when they were drug users.

It said children’s services frequently reported that they were aware of cannabis use in a family’s household but that it was “taken for granted and not seen as a major risk factor demanding assessment”.

“Behaviour patterns associated with addiction seem poorly understood and indicate that much more needs to be done to support children’s practitioners to understand and respond better to patterns of drug misuse, its impact on parenting and on the health and safety of babies,” it said.

Exclusion from adults’ services

The panel also found that adult mental health and substance misuse services often excluded these men from services through tight eligibility criteria, meaning issues around personality disorder, anger management or depression were not addressed.

“However, those are often the very factors that can present serious risks to children and often warrant statutory intervention” in children’s services.

“These adults can therefore represent an enormous financial and service demand on the system as a whole, let alone create the havoc, harm and sometimes tragedy that affects some children,” it added.

 ‘More investment in children’s social care needed’

The panel recommended that the government funds a mixture of local areas with different socio-economic, ethnic and cultural characteristics to develop models of good practice in working with fathers and then disseminate the learning.

This should include applying the family safeguarding model – in which specialists in domestic abuse, mental health and substance misuse work alongside children’s social workers to tackle the root causes of families’ problems – to practice with fathers. Pioneered in Hertfordshire and now being adopted by local authorities across the country, an evaluation last year found the model was “replicable and effective” in preventing children coming into care and reducing child protection plan numbers.

The panel also urged the government to pilot several areas to provide an “end-to-end, multi-agency integrated” service to tackle the issues identified in the review.

It said these schemes would need to:

• Integrate children’s services more with adults’ services, particularly mental health and substance misuse.
• Ensure that children’s social care services developed practice that improved their engagement and assessment of men involved in children in need, child protection and children in care services.
• Develop their leaving care services to ensure they addressed the need for preparation and support for parenthood.
• Develop their ante- and post-natal health provision to include fathers fully, provide extra support to those who need it and identify risk factors earlier.
• Integrate their response to the Domestic Abuse Act 2021, and identify how they would ensure a focus on the risks to babies and children and how they would work with perpetrators.

The report also called for the government to commission further research to improve understanding of the psychology and behaviour patterns of men who had physically injured babies, particularly around fathers’ backgrounds, characteristics and trigger factors for the abuse.

“Part of this research should be to explore the gender issues raised in this report, including why some of the experiences and factors described and which are experienced by men and women alike, can result in more men harming babies than women,” it added.