Good practice and Achievements
Signs of Safety – a collaborative approach to care
Safeguarding children and vulnerable adults is always our number one priority, and Signs of Safety is our model of service delivery. This innovative, strengths-based, solution-focused approach encourages social workers to work collaboratively with families. It encourages parents and carers to take an active role, providing them with the tools to shape their own solutions and the flexibility to adapt to changing situations.
Signs of Safety is now widely recognised as a leading approach to safeguarding practice. As the first local authority in Wales to develop the Signs of Safety approach as an adult practice model, we are proud to be setting the standard in Wales as leaders in implementing Signs of Safety across both services.
'The Signs of Safety model fits well with all of our existing person-centred approaches in adult substance misuse service. It has proved particularly effective working with family members to promote their own wellbeing. This enables them to establish boundaries so that they do not take responsibility for their loved one’s alcohol and/or drug use, often resulting in positive changes to the substance misuse.'
Alex Panter, Senior Social Work Practitioner in the Community Drug and Alcohol Team.
As well as training employees across a variety of settings in the use of the Signs of Safety model, we receive enquiries about our approach to Signs of Safety and it’s implementation from across the UK. In 2018 and 2019 we hosted two national showcase events with multi-agency attendees from home and abroad. This is what Viv Hogg, a keynote presenter in major child protection conferences worldwide and co-author of several papers on the Signs of Safety practice had to say about our work in Pembrokeshire:
'Seeing evidence of Whole Service Implementation – rare as hen’s teeth.'
'Great example of involving partners, training the right people and doing it early.'
'To implement Signs of Safety you need to create a culture of appreciation and here you are sharing stories of success.'
'The most important factor in successful implementation is Leadership and I am seeing that in abundance.'