The Family Safeguarding Service

The Family Safeguarding Service works collaboratively to provide a service to the whole family, working with you to make changes in your day-to-day life.

We work in many different ways, offering advice and support to help you set your own goals and work towards achieving changes that will improve your life, to allow children to grow and develop within your own family.

All our workers are trained in working with families and helping them understand why we are involved. We help support you to make the necessary changes in the various issues families can face, such as: domestic abuse, substance and alcohol misuse or mental health difficulties.

Our aim is to keep families together safely, improve the health and educational achievements of children and reduce emotional, sexual and physical harm and neglect.

Sometimes the Family Safeguarding workers may talk to other members of the family who may be able to support you to make the necessary changes. This may be directly by the social worker or by a Family Group Conference.
 

Our Commitment to Families

We are committed to working with children and families to help you achieve your goals and make lasting changes that will improve the quality of your and your child's lives. 

We are committed to providing you with an excellent service and to treating everyone fairly and with respect. In doing so, we may ask you questions about issues such as ethnic origin, sexuality and religion. This will assist us in considering all aspects of your family's needs as part of our work with you.
 

Our Family Safeguarding Service

All our Family Safeguarding teams are made up of different professionals. These are:

• Social Workers, who work directly with parents and children to support them to make changes in their lives to keep their children safe
   
• Family Support Workers, who work directly with children and parents, and provide support to social workers
   
• Domestic Abuse Practitioners, who work to support victims of domestic abuse, helping them to recognise domestic abuse and identify the impact it has, and supporting them to make changes to safeguard their children and themselves
   
• Domestic Abuse Officers, who work with perpetrators of domestic abuse to support them to recognise the impact of their actions, achieve change to stabilise their relationships and keep their children safe
   
• Recovery Workers, who support parents who are experiencing difficulties with either drugs, alcohol, or both, supporting them to make positive lifestyle changes and enabling them to care for their children
   
• Mental Health Practitioners, who work with parents who are experiencing mental health difficulties that are impacting on their parenting capacity
   
• Psychologists, who work with parents on different aspects of parental behaviour that may affect their children

See our Family Safeguarding leaflet [184KB] for more information.