Event Durham

Contexts of Contextual Safeguarding - Creating safety for adolescents beyond their homes across sectors and geographies

The conference will bring together practitioners, researchers, service-users and policymakers to share knowledge on three broad topics:

• ​​​​​​​Abstract Submission Deadline: 16th June 2025

  • Valuing contextual responses to harm: including ‘community guardianship’, ‘relational safety’ and the application of Contextual Safeguarding in non-traditional safeguarding setting

   

  • Addressing system/service features that undermine the effectiveness of responses: the impact of harms from systems and services; balancing justice and welfare responses; meeting need in services focused on risk management; engaging with rights to participation, privacy, family life and association, alongside rights to protection

   

  • Identifying and filling gaps in knowledge; shared definitions of harm across countries and sectors; the relationship between familial and extra-familial contexts; and measuring the scale and nature of extra-familial harm and the impact of responses to it.

   

  We invite proposals for breakout sessions that help us explore these topics in one of three formats:

   

  Breakout option:

  1. Oral paper presentation (15 minutes – plus 5 minutes for questions) – will be grouped with others under a similar theme
  2. Symposium (60 minutes – three papers on a shared theme identified by the submitting authors with time for questions)
  3. Practice workshop (60 minutes) – interactive session exploring the practical application of Contextual Safeguarding

   

  We ask that breakout sessions consider at least one of the following sub-themes:

  • Maintaining care for young people in systems that often see them as a risk rather than in need of support
  • Using welfare-orientated responses to harm
  • Responding in ways that build safety for and around young people
  • Generating and valuing community guardianship
  • Developing creative and collaborative approaches to understanding harm and safety
  • Working with parents as partners in child welfare and child protection
  • Resourcing responses to extra-familial harm that meet young people’s needs
  • Understanding social work and its leadership in responding to extra-familial harm
  • Applying Contextual Safeguarding in new sectors or to address new topics

   

  Guidance for submitting abstracts:

  When submitting your abstract, on the 'Type of Presentation' option, click 'Talk'.

  When prompted, please specify whether this talk is a 'paper', 'symposium' or 'practice workshop'.

   

  For paper submission:

  Title:

  Abstract (250 words maximum) including: background, methodology (if research), findings or key arguments, recommendations or insights

   

  For Symposium

  Symposium Chair – name and email address

   

  Title:

  Abstract for Symposium (200 words) including: background to theme, summary of each paper being presented:

   

  Paper 1

  Title:

  Abstract (200 words maximum) including: methodology (if research), findings or key arguments, recommendations or insights

   

  Paper 2

  Title:

  Abstract (200 words maximum) including: methodology (if research), findings or key arguments, recommendations or insights

   

  Paper 3

  Title:

  Abstract (200 words maximum) including: methodology (if research), findings or key arguments, recommendations or insights

   

  For Practice Workshop:

  Title:

  Abstract (250 words maximum) including: practice challenge or goal, approach being described, method of workshop, learning objective for participants