Today’s guest speaker is my friend Carly. I remember the day I met Carly; it was my first day at work, and she was delivering training on contextual safeguarding. At this point in my working life, I had met few people who fully embraced contextual safeguarding, and I found this very frustrating. So when I sat at my screen for the “Contextual safeguarding” training, I remember thinking, right here we go… textbook nonsense.

After that training, I became a fan of Carly’s work. Her dedication and understanding of contextual safeguarding are truly admirable.

Listening to Carly speak about contextual safeguarding is an enlightening experience. She articulates it in a way that resonates deeply, as if she’s delving into your thoughts. Her profound understanding, a rarity in many, will undoubtedly captivate you.

If I had to use a word to describe Carly, it would be ‘Safe ‘. Her work in contextual safeguarding has had a profound impact on my professional life. As a social worker, I often wonder how different my life would have been if someone like Carly had been my social worker growing up.

But she also makes me feel safe as an adult, what my mum would describe as the salt of the earth.

Having had the opportunity to work closely with Carly, I can attest to her caring nature and her commitment to making a difference. It’s a privilege to be part of whatever she creates, and I’m saddened that I no longer have the chance to work with her.

So sit back and breathe in the very epic Carly Adams Elias.

Where is the love?

I’ve found it hard to get going with writing this blog. I’m gonna be real with you, it starts a bit heavy and it’s a teeny bit sweary, but that’s not my fault: the world is pretty fucked right now. And I know it’s not me who finds it hard to deal with the daily onslaught of violence and destruction. Trump as the incoming President of the United States, the devastating genocide of Palestinians, the unprecedented global impact of climate change; the rising epidemic of violence against women and girls, the continued institutional violence against the black community, the marginalisation of and violence against the trans community, the staggering amount of people plunged into poverty by the corrupt governments and the greedy mega rich minority who are literally letting the NHS crumble and allowing our rivers and seas to be filled with shit. The list of daily horrors is long and doesn’t stop there. It’s all pretty fucking scary, and it makes me so angry. If this is the present, then the future feels pretty apocalyptic and I’m often left grappling with questions about how we are supposed to function in such violent and harmful social conditions, let alone thrive.  

But none of this is new. I’ve lived a life intercepted with violence, heartbreak and trauma, and then, when I grew up, I decided to become a social worker. Lol.  I was a child protection social worker for a few years before spending the last 15 years or so working in the voluntary sector delivering, developing and managing services for children and young people impacted by exploitation and violence.  I’ve worked alongside children who’ve had some of the most devastating and unimaginable abuse perpetrated against them, often having to fight a broken system to get them the support they deserve. And frankly, the systems themselves are often either causing or contributing to the abuse and pain experienced by so many. In the UK, a policy and practice landscape saturated by narratives of risk and deviance manifests in child protection systems, with research arguing that our approach to child protection has arrived at a shaming and punitive system that views need primarily through a risk lens (Featherstone, 2016). 

During the pandemic, I took an assessment to better understand my resilience characteristics, particularly in times of crisis. Reading this introduction, you probably won’t be surprised to learn that leading with positivity isn’t my strongest resilience characteristic; but hey, in my defence, it can be hard to focus on the possibilities, and love, and hope, when things feel so bleak, and I’ve been conditioned by the systems that have been designed this way.  Don’t get me wrong, I know it’s there, it’s always there, but sometimes it just takes some of us a little longer to see it; we need to wade through all the shit before we can truly appreciate the positives.  However, whilst I might naturally lean towards a slightly more negative lens, the characteristic I scored highest on was connection. This means that I tend to reach out to others for help or support, and this allows me to open up a wider range of possibilities and resources rather than limiting myself to the familiar.

When I saw this in my resilience overview, it felt like an instantly comfortable reflection. Throughout my life I’ve been privileged enough to experience many connections which have helped me to grow and flourish and feel brave enough, and safe enough, to take up possibilities and pathways that I didn’t even know were available to me. And I’m particularly lucky because most of those connections were with my friends or people who have become my friends because of the connection we’ve made. One of them recently shared a clip from Women’s Hour of the actor Amy Lou Wood talking about the transformative nature of her friendships and how ‘expansive’ they can feel, sharing that “when I’m with my friends, I just feel totally beyond, like anything is possible”. Isn’t that beautiful? Isn’t that what we want everyone to feel when it feels like the world is falling apart; to have a connection that makes you feel like anything is possible.

I say all this because I think there’s a real opportunity to consider this in the context of safeguarding. So much so, that I’m attempting to complete post graduate research on this very issue. Having worked in the sector for a long time I’ve seen an increasing attention on work with peer relationships. Sadly, during my time in practice and with the Contextual Safeguarding research team at the University of Bedfordshire, I saw that when children and young people experience harm outside their home, such as exploitation and violence, their friendships and other peer relationships are often seen by the adults in their life, as the ‘problem’. This can sometimes result in friendships being disconnected, disrupted or even criminalised, rather than nurtured and supported. But knowing how connection can have such a positive impact on our experience of safety and resilience, is there a better way to approach this? It is possible that the power of peer relationships can be used to create safety for young people who experience harm outside their home? But if our current child protection system in the UK is set up to focus on risk and harm, do we risk missing opportunities to see the love and protection present in those peer relationships?

Peer relationships play such an important role in our lives, but never more so than during adolescence. Adolescence is all about identity development, fitting in and setting us up for increasing independence as we move into adulthood. But it’s not always straight-forward; our experiences of friendship differ hugely according to gender, neurodiversity, appearance, culture, socio-economic status and a whole load of intersecting issues. And this means then that our opportunities to form connections that can impact our safety and resilience, will be impacted too. If we are not supported to harness the positive power of friendships then we limit the opportunities for connection, protection and love, which are so important in our recovery from trauma and quite simply, navigating the world in its current state.

To undertake the research, I’m working alongside a small group of children and young people who have been affected by and/or care about this issue to influence and shape how we do this research and make sure it is guided by their views and experiences. As a team we want to influence safeguarding professionals to take a strength and rights-based approach to help children and young people navigate their safety and peer relationships. Exploring the role of love and protection in peer relationships and focussing on how this can contribute to keeping young people safe when they experience harm outside their home might help tip the lens towards the positives, towards a system that prioritises love and protection rather than risk and deviance.

It’s a tough time to be working in safeguarding, and to be honest, it’s a tough time to be alive. So, if you take nothing else from this blog, maybe take it as a little nudge to reach out to your people, show the love and make the connections.

If you are a professional working in the safeguarding sector or know a young person who might be interested in participating in the research, please contact me on:

carly.a.adams-elias@durham.ac.uk

Latimer, K., Adams Elias, C. & Firmin. 2020, Opportunities for peer safeguarding intervention, A briefing following fieldwork with Safer London. Contextual Safeguarding Network.

Adams Elias, C., Thornhill, L. & Millar, H. Peer assessment and systems change, learning from test sites in Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter, publication pending.

https://www.contextualsafeguarding.org.uk/toolkits/scale-up-toolkit/peers/