February | Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership

In this issue:

Professional curiosity survey, Child safeguarding practice review panel annual report 2023 to 2024, Child exploitation practice guidance, LSCP safeguarding training, External training and dates for your diary.

Professional curiosity survey

Reviews undertaken by the three safeguarding Boards; Leeds Safeguarding Adults Board, Leeds Safeguarding Children Partnership and Safer Stronger Communities over recent years have consistently highlighted learning themes about ‘professional curiosity’ in a range of differing situations. The three Boards are working together to raise awareness about the importance of professional curiosity and to establish how practice can be supported.

Our first step is to discover what professional curiosity means to practitioners and what could support curiosity in practice.

To help us with this task could you please complete this short survey, that will take between 5 -10 minutes to complete. The deadline is 7 March 2025.

This short and confidential survey will tell us what’s important and what could make a difference for all practitioners.

Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel Annual Report 2023 to 2024

The Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel's (the Panel)’s fifth annual report covers their work from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

The report aims to share evidence and learning from their national oversight of rapid reviews and Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews (LCSPRs), as well as the Panel’s reviews of national issues.

In addition to key data about the children and their families who are the focus of reviews, they spotlight three themes in this year’s annual report:

Safeguarding children with mental health needs
Safeguarding pre-school children with parents with mental health needs
Extrafamilial harm

They have established learning that can inform the practice and policies of strategic leaders, managers and those working directly with children, young people and families. They have also considered the role of strategic leaders and the organisational conditions that will best enable and sustain the embedding of recommendations that will drive long-term change.

The aim of the annual report is to capture and share evidence, good practice and learning with safeguarding partners, senior and middle managers, and practitioners working in child safeguarding and protection.

Please make sure that you are familiar with this report and are aware of the highlighted key messages, learning points and reflective questions to inform your practice.

Child Exploitation Practice Guidance

This new Child Exploitation Practice Guidance aims to support practitioners and managers through information and upskilling in relation to contextual harm; thereby achieving consistent practice across Leeds. This aim is to help children who are at risk of exploitation, receive the right support at the right time. The guidance is an overview of good practice and information. It is not intended to replace procedures or internal processes.

Working with children who may be being exploited is a challenging task for any practitioner. We know that children are unlikely to see themselves as victims of exploitation and may be resistant to working openly with professionals. We also recognise the complexity of the work, in that children can be victims of exploitation, but also present a risk to themselves or others. At times, the work can feel crisis led and without a clear solution. Conversely, we know that children often need consistent and tenacious workers who will build their trust through relationship-based work, therefore allowing them to feel able to talk openly. Again, this can be challenging in the context of caseloads and timescales. This guidance hopes to support workers who may feel unsure about processes or best practice. It also aims to provide links to relevant research and guidance.

LSCP safeguarding training

We provide a series of multi-agency safeguarding learning and development opportunities for Leeds practitioners. New dates for 2025 have now been published. Register your place on: