How to consider equity, equality, diversity and inclusion in Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews

Hello, in this vlog, I will tell you about our equity, equality, diversity and inclusion journey, which I will now refer to as EEDI and invite you to reflect with us on potential next steps for the project and your local partnerships.

So gaps in evidence and understanding of EEDI in reviews. Early in the project we conducted a rapid evidence review. We wanted to understand what we know about improving the CSPR process or Child Safeguarding Practise Review process and what defines a high-quality review. We found that while there's a strong evidence space around improving review processes, there are significant gaps, particularly in addressing EEDI in reviews. And with regards to EEDI. Specifically, we found that there's a lack of clarity on how structural and systemic discrimination is considered in reviews, as well as insufficient recording of protected characteristics and consideration and exploration of intersecting identities.

So we completed the evidence review and as a team that got into the rhythm of working together, we also found that EEDI was understood and applied differently by all of us as a multidisciplinary team, but also as partner organisations delivering this project and later on in field work. We actually also found that this is the case across safeguarding children partnerships, well, the ones participating in this research at least. So while there's a basic grasp of the Equality Act and protected characteristics, it seems that EDI [Equality, Diversity and Inclusion] is being used as a catch all term to refer to lots of different things, including very different frameworks and principles such as cultural competence and anti-racism.

So this realisation then triggered a lot of thinking and questions in the team about essentially, you know, how can we ensure that EEDI is prioritised by the research team and partner organisations in this project? How can we prompt shared ownership of issues and, and, and responsibility for the issues or EEDI more generally? And for me personally, you know, how can we deepen understanding of EEDI in the research team so that we can stimulate and enable greater depth of inquiry and discussions.

So it became really clear, it was very obvious that we needed some sort of tool or framework, something that's actionable to support a consistent and meaningful approach to EDI or EEDI being implemented by all team members involved in this project. So we began liaising with the team, consulting with the team, we worked closely with the National Panel and we drew on a range of evidence, including the National Panel's 2022/23 Annual Report. And we developed a framework that really served 2 purposes. 

1, a clear stance. It serves as a clear stance on the project's EEDI approach, giving the team confidence and guiding good practise when they're engaging in in the research activities, but also other project activities like just interacting with other people on the team. Given how diverse the team is personally and professionally. And also provides an approach for mainstreaming EEDI across all aspects and levels of the project so that we can enhance the quality, the depth and the relevance of the work and the partnership.

Developing an EEDI framework for a multidisciplinary multi partner team. So the framework prioritises key areas as lines of enquiry that follow the National Panel's 22/23 annual report findings. And these findings include the fact that there's an over representation of children from mixed and multiple ethnic groups and Black, African, Caribbean and British backgrounds in rapid reviews. That there's a need to deepen understanding of how race, systemic racism, culture and ethnicity, and intersecting social identities impact children and systems. That ecological factors affect the parenting capacity of children with disabilities and health needs. That there's a high prevalence of teenagers with mental health conditions who also identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer or questioning. And that there are inconsistencies in considering a child's identity, say for example, their race or their gender during rapid reviews and its impact on practise and their experiences.

So with all of this in mind, the EEDI framework has been developed to really underpin and guide and prioritise an intersectional investigation of how EEDI plays out for children and families with protected characteristics of race, of gender reassignment, of sexual orientation and disability. And at the heart of the framework is the concept of cultural humanity. That is an ongoing lifelong process or self-awareness, openness and mutual respect. And the framework really encourages everyone involved in the project, the team, but also other stakeholders to really critically examine their own biases, their privileges, their positionality, which is really important for a multidisciplinary team like ours. In particular, you know, in the team there are people with decades of experience and significant expertise in their respective areas and arguably they are quite far removed or we are quite far removed from the experiences of children and families that feature in rapid reviews. So it's really important that as a team, we have sufficient awareness to ensure diverse voices are meaningfully included in the project, not only in the project team, but also with other stakeholders. But also that structural and cultural EE… EDI dynamics in safeguarding, in review, in learning processes are properly explored for what the data you know, reveals to us for what they are, rather than through our professional and personal lenses and exclusively through those lenses.

So we actually have had an example of how important cultural humility is and the impact of it, the positive impact of it in the in the project, we did a focus group with a partnership that included a reviewer and after the focus group, the reviewer that then emailed one of the researchers to say that they have been reflecting on the focus group. And actually, if they were to revisit their review, they would adopt a different approach. It kind of highlighted various things to them and they drew lots of insights from the focus group. So, you know, that really demonstrates that the design and the approach and the questions of the focus group prompted that critical reflection by that reviewer to the extent that they came full circle and sent an e-mail to let us know.

So from our field work with safeguarding partnerships and reviewers, we found there's a significant confidence gap around EEDI in child safeguarding practise reviews. This is raised concerns, you know, it raised concerns for myself, it raised concerns for the whole team about, you know, later on in the research when we would be probing more deeply into EEDI and EEDI issues, might we trigger a fear or defensiveness from participants. So we began to think about this and recognise this and we wanted to explore how we might be able to provide a bit more support to everybody involved in the project. So we began exploring the EEDI in that Child Safeguardng Practice Review using the Child Safeguardng Practice Review process map that had been that has been developed in this project and… and that's a tool that provides guidance on the review process.

So we began to reflect on how EEDI might be embedded throughout the CSPR process. So for instance, during the determination of whether a rapid review is needed stage, we ask whether the review protocols explicitly promote EEDI and whether partners are aware of these expectations. So an example of what this might look like in practise or on the ground, it could be that, you know, the partnership ensures that local protocols not only define how EEDI is understood within the partnership, but provides clear examples such as using translation services when there are families with additional English as an additional language.

And you know, that additional example and a bit of a prescriptive element of the protocol ensures that people who aren't necessarily as familiar with EEDI or the application of what might be quite abstract information within a protocol have delivered the ambitions of the partnership. It might involve clarifying EEDI related roles and responsibilities of either the partnership as a whole or key partners. So for example, it might be that the business unit, who often are the… the team commissioning reviewers have a responsibility of ensuring that well-being support is clearly outlined and identified within the contract or the commissioning process. So thank you for tuning in.