ABSTRACT
Building on the previous one, chapter 14 further interrogates the suitability of child protection as a home for Contextual Safeguarding with reference to the role of social workers. Drawing upon evidence from testing to date, the author outlines three areas of social work practice that seem well-suited to the delivery of Contextual Safeguarding systems – that of advocacy, brokerage and coordination. The author further reflects on how these three activities can be integrated into key ideas shaping social work such as ‘relationship-based’ practice and further aligns them to social justice models of social work by valuing community and peer relationships as well as those between individuals and practitioners. Grounding her arguments in wider contextual theories of social work, Firmin argues that while much test work drew upon practices familiar to social work more generally, they also required practitioners to undertake activities that were not commonplace in their standard child and family social work practice. As such, Contextual Safeguarding is both familiar and foreign to social workers, and both elements will require further consideration as testing continues.
