Welcome to Day 2 of National Safeguarding Adults Week.  Today will focus on how to effectively work in partnership with the people you support, ‘Making safeguarding personal’, ‘Person-centered practice’ and ‘Co-production’ are all approaches that support working in partnership with people who use services.        Co-production is a collaborative approach and means involving those who receive support, along with their family, friends and carers, in the planning and delivery of support.

The focus is to ensure that we hear the voices of those who are at the centre of the support. It’s about respecting their views, wishes and beliefs in order to make their support the best it can be.

Co-production features in the Care Act (2014) for England, the Social Services and Wellbeing Act (2014) for Wales and the Care Quality Commission (CQC) assessment framework. It is something all organisations should incorporate into their practice.

Read the blog from Ann Craft Trust to learn more about co-production, click here.

Cumbria Safeguarding Adults Board (CSAB) are hosting a virtual conference today for multi-agency professionals, to raise awareness of important safeguarding topics. 

The full day event will be delivered as 2 sessions, participants are invited to book to attend the morning session, afternoon or both.  It is not too late to join, you can do so via the links below.  

Morning session

You can join the morning session, starting at 9.20am- using this link 

During the morning we will acknowledge and explore the impact of bearing witness to trauma on our workforce, recognise the cost of bearing witness and identify ways to protect ourselves professionally.  It will support participants to recognise the signs in themselves and others.

Afternoon session

You can join the afternoon session, starting at 12.25pm- using this link

This session will explore local and national learning identified from SARs relating to self-neglect.  It will share local learning and best practice identified through a thematic self-neglect SAR.

There will also be a focus on 'care and support needs', identification of needs and interpretation from legislation, The Care Act 2014, ensuring adults at risk are safeguarded.

The day will conclude with a session exploring Modern Day Slavery and the forms of exploitation this umbrella term covers.  The session will explore sexual exploitation, how to recognise and reporting mechanisms through the National Referral Mechanism (NRM).  There will also be a short presentation regarding Exploitation in the Care Sector, as nationally and locally this is a growing safeguarding concern.

Safeguarding must take into account the individual choices and requirements of everyone involved.  So we must operate on this abiding principle:

“Nothing about me, without me.”

Making Safeguarding Personal means ensuring that adults are more involved in the safeguarding process. So when making decisions, we must take into account their views, wishes, feelings and beliefs.

In this episode of Safeguarding Matters, Laura Thorpe talks to Ann Craft Trust's Adult Safeguarding Lead, Lisa Curtis, about Making Safeguarding Personal. They explore the thinking behind the concept, and talk about how these principles might work in practice.  You can listen to the short podcast and also access a detailed guide to Making Safeguarding Personal on the Ann Craft Trust website, Making Safeguarding Personal - Safeguarding Matters - Ann Craft Trust

There are a range of resources intended to support frontline practice in relation to Making Safeguarding Personal.

The Local Government Association (LGA) published a series of tools to support MSP, measure effectiveness and improve safeguarding practice, find out more here.

Included on the LGA's website is the Making Safeguarding Personal Videos which were developed by Research in Practice for the safeguarding adults workstream of the Care and Health Improvement Partnership. They are tools for practitioners, trainers and anyone else, to be used to promote a person centred, outcome focused and strength based approach to safeguarding adults.

The LGA website provides a learning resource on Making Safeguarding Personal in Self-Neglect, produced by Research in Practice, which draws on evidence from research and safeguarding adult reviews (SARs), to identify how making safeguarding personal can make a difference to the health, wellbeing and safety of people who are self-neglecting.

You can view further resources on Making Safeguarding Personal on the 'Learning Zone' page of the CSAB website here.

If you have concerns about an adult in Allerdale, Carlisle or Copeland contact Cumberland Council on 0300 373 3732