Safeguarding Adults Week Bulletin: Monday 18 November 2024

West Sussex County Council sent this bulletin at 18-11-2024 10:00 AM GMT
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Monday 18 November 2024
Look, listen, ask - developing professional curiosity

This week is Safeguarding Adults Week. During this week, we'll be sharing daily bulletins with you, related to the Ann Craft Trust themes. 

Today's theme

Today's theme is 'look, listen, act - developing professional curiosity'. Professional curiosity is the capacity and skills of communication to explore and understand what is happening for a person, rather than making assumptions or accepting things at face value. It requires skills of looking, listening, asking direct questions, and being able to hold difficult conversations.

It's important that, no matter what our role, we are all professionally curious. Doing so can help to ensure that we are recognising the signs of abuse and neglect as early as possible, and taking action.

What might this mean for you and your organisation?

Professional curiosity, or the lack of professional curiosity, is a recurring theme amongst our Safeguarding Adult Reviews (SARs). In this bulletin, we are going to take a look at what our SARs have said about professional curiosity in practice in West Sussex, and the key recommendations that have been made in relation to this issue.

Professional curiosity and information-sharing

Our SAR in respect of Tom noted that there was, “limited evidence of professional curiosity from all agencies involved”, alongside a “lack of appropriate information sharing”. Throughout this SAR there were concerns that professionals didn’t engage directly with Tom, instead communicating with his then-wife, and accepting her views and comments as fact. In response to this, the SAR advised that, “Professional curiosity means not taking a single source of information and accepting it at face value and triangulating information from different sources to gain a better understanding.”

In this instance, had professionals demonstrated more professional curiosity, and shared any concerns or patterns of behaviour (such as missed appointments) with other organisations, they may have gained a better understanding of Tom’s circumstances. In this regard, the SAR recommended that the Board ensured that organisations were aware of, and understood, the Sussex Information Sharing Guide and Protocol:

Professional curiosity and trauma-informed practice

Our SAR in relation to Clare notes that, "involved professionals did not exercise sufficient professional curiosity and active listening to better understand Clare’s underlying experience of trauma, as well as her strengths and hopes for the future. A more professionally curious approach may have unearthed details on why Clare was hearing particular voices at particular times, including those relating to her knee pain, rather than interpreting what she was saying and potentially developing hypotheses within a medical model perspective" (2023, pg. 21).

The SAR highlights the connection between being professionally curious, and adopting a trauma-informed approach to working with individuals. You can read about adopting a trauma-informed approach, and the benefits of this approach for the outcomes for individuals like Clare, in our learning resources:

The SAR recommended that a review of risk management and training programmes should focus on developing professional curiosity skills amongst professionals (2023, pg. 23). You can access the learning materials that we have produced in relation to this topic on the Safeguarding practice learning resources | Professional curiosity page of our website.

Professional curiosity and defensible decision-making

Our SAR in respect of John notes in the key findings that there was, "limited evidence of professional curiosity resulting in significant information not being known by professionals which could have changed decision making and outcomes" (2023, pg. 16). The SAR suggested that, given the lack of professional curiosity, this could call into question whether there was defensible decision-making.

The SAR documents that, "As professionals when we make a decision, we don’t have the benefit of hindsight. We do not know what will happen. We may, in the light of later events or evidence, have made a decision that had an untoward outcome. However, it will be a defensible decision if we can justify our decision-making by demonstrating an evaluation of all available information has taken place, which includes information gathered from family members, professionals, and other teams involved in the care and support of that person." (2023, pg.17).  

As professionals, we often speak about the link between risk-management, record-keeping, and defensible decision-making. Here, though, the SAR highlights the importance of employing professional curiosity as one of the key defences in decision-making.

Look listen ask clarify

Summary

All of these SARs have highlighted key considerations when it comes to embedding professional curiosity in our practice, and the potential consequences of not doing so. We are therefore asking that you continue to develop your understanding of professional curiosity, and to engage in the following during the course of your practice:

  • Look; Consider if there is anything about what you see when you meet with the adult, their family and/or carers, including their environment, that makes you feel uneasy or prompts any questions. 
  • Listen; This means being actively interested and fully engaged in what you are being told and also, considering if you feel that the adult, their family and/or their carers are trying to tell you something but finding it difficult to express themselves or speak openly.
  • Ask; This means asking direct questions where you have concerns. Research suggests that those who experience abuse, including coercion and control find it is easier to respond to a direct question rather than them offering information independently. 
  • Clarify; This means considering and checking out the information you have. This could require consulting with other professionals on what information they have, to find out if they have seen/feel the same as you or, have the same or different concerns.

References

Safeguarding Adults Review in relation to Clare (PDF, 254KB) (2023) West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board

Safeguarding Adults Review in respect of John (PDF, 370KB) (2023) West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board

Safeguarding Adults Review in respect of Tom (PDF, 545KB) (2024) West Sussex Safeguarding Adults Board

What are we doing to support your practice?

We have a number of resources related to professional curiosity on our website. Don't forget, to support your Continual Professional Development (CPD) we have created a CPD Reflective Log (Word, 2.3MB) for your use. Please feel free to use this to track, and reflect on, the professional development that you complete using our resources. 

Key documents:

Further reading

Find Out More icon

For more information about professional curiosity, take a look at these resources:

Ann Craft Trust

For more information on today's theme, or any of the themes from this week, visit the Ann Craft Trust website.