Radical safeguarding

Introduction

Radical Safeguarding - A Social Justice Workbook for Safeguarding Practitioners is designed

for practitioners working with children and young people, particularly in school contexts, who

might be wondering how to start doing things differently when it comes to safeguarding.

Our understanding of a radical approach to child safety is one that traces the root cause of

harms to children. This resource looks at some of the cultures and structures that underpin and

enable this harm and suggests some models for understanding child safety and a range of

practical approaches and activities that we hope can support practitioners in fostering

alternative, resistant, safeguarding practices.

The Need

We created this resource because we know that ‘safeguarding’ often actively causes harm to

the most marginalised young people, particularly young people of colour, and that ‘safeguarding’

training and structures often leave practitioners feeling fearful, lacking in agency and resigned to

responding in ways that they know will cause young people and their families further harm.

The resource explores cultures and structures of UK schooling that can cause harm to young

people, and problematises current safeguarding strategies and practices that pathologise,

criminalise and harm children, particularly those from oppressed communities.

What We Did

We worked in partnership with Transforming Together to produce and write the Radical Safeguarding workbook. We worked with a range of partners in the development of the workbook including families and young people, the Contextual Safeguarding Network, No More Exclusions and the Radical Education Network.

While the workbook has been written with a focus on safeguarding practice in education, we invite practitioners and groups with safeguarding responsibilities in any sector to adapt and apply what is useful in the contexts that you are working in.

The Radical Safeguarding workbook was written by Alex Johnston and Latifa Akay and designed by https://www.soofiya.com/.

You can download the workbook here.