Safeguarding 2.0

By FutureGov

The safeguarding of children at risk of physical or mental abuse is arguably a public service in crisis. Following a number of high-profile deaths, unfilled vacancies for care professionals in this sector are high, morale is low and the requirement to log and communicate highly acute and sensitive data has led to social workers feeling over-burdened by systems, reducing their available time with families.

Safeguarding 2.0 aims to find a better way of working. The project is a design partnership led by FutureGov that seeks to understand how children's safeguarding services might be made more responsive to both frontline workers' and families' needs by using features of web social networks. Tools that allow the quick distribution of information across networks and highlight the amount of activity surrounding the child may act as an early warning system to carers in order to enable earlier and better intervention.

Phase One of the project, which ended in May 2010, has researched and scoped potential solutions in partnership with Westminster Council, Headshift, ThinkPublic and the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU). Research was carried out to understand the needs of frontline workers, children and safeguarded families. A review was also carried out of the systems and tools in use, with some recommendations for using simple web tools to link data to show a better picture of each family case.

These tools aim to create much greater practical value out of data that frontline workers already gather and use.

1. Better visualisation of case information to surface problems,allowing rapid absorption of information, identifying hotspots more quickly, and freeing up time for social workers to spend with families.

2. Development of tools that allow comparisons of data, to rapidly check progress or deterioration.

3. Tools that better connect the network, and connect earlier, to allow the sharing of key information.

4. Technology that can be extended to other platforms - such as mobile - to make best use of frontline workers'time.

FutureGov is now looking to partner with a local authority to pilot these solutions in a live environment.