Bridging Boundaries

Bridging Boundaries resources aim to help us ask what existing expertise are there in this broader context that we are ‘sitting on’? 

What might have transferable learning that we could draw on to tackle issues across child exploitation and extra-familial harm and unlock capacity?

How are we thinking about safeguarding beyond just statutory intervention?

How are we able to move away from binary understandings of people, their experiences and our responses in our system design?

How are distinctions between ‘child‘ and ‘adult’ or ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ affecting our ability to tackle and extra-familial harm? Could service and geographical boundaries be aligned or integrated to offer easier access?

How can we deliberately model, at a policy and strategic level, approaches that have been developed at a practice level?

These resources draw heavily on ecological approaches and expertise from non-statutory agencies who work closely with children and young people and/or in community contexts. They challenge us to think about safeguarding beyond just statutory intervention and highlight the value of community-based support.  

What change can we achieve by working to understand and provide a strategic response that reflects the wider system that children and young people operate within? 

How can we better design systems aligned to what we know about what keeps young people safe or increases their exposure to risk, rather than rigid boundaries and definitions?