Contextual safeguarding is a critical approach to protecting children and young people from harm, both inside and outside of the school environment. Education settings and schools play a crucial role in identifying and responding to risks of harm that may arise from a wider societal context, such as gang activity or online grooming, which may affect the safety and well-being of students. The implementation of contextual safeguarding approaches helps to understand the situated nature of safeguarding risks and prioritize safeguarding measures for each individual child based on their lived experiences. In this way, education settings and schools can work more effectively with other external agencies to integrate and coordinate effective multi-agency responses to new safeguarding situations, ultimately promoting the safety and protection of young people beyond the classroom.
Definition of Contextual Safeguarding (Firmin, 2017): Contextual Safeguarding is an approach to understanding, and responding to, young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. It recognises that the different relationships that young people form in their neighbourhoods, schools and online can feature violence and abuse. Parents and carers have little influence over these contexts, and young people’s experiences of extra-familial abuse can undermine parent-child relationships.
Please site the Keeping Bristol Safe Partnership's webpage on Safer Options, Contextual Safeguarding and Extrafamilial Harm to find out about the partnership’s vision and plan for improving safeguarding children in our communities.
Safer Options Team Bristol City Council – The co-ordinated whole system response to prevent serious youth violence and exploitation in Bristol.
Find out more about the Safer Options Team and contact them here.