Latest resources
You can find our latest resources on this page, but please go to their individual pages to find more themed resources on Innovation, Extra-familial Risks and Harms, Trauma-informed Practice, Transitional Safeguarding, Contextual Safeguarding and Consultation with young people.
Access all our publications
A complete list of free-to-access books and journal articles published through the Innovate project, can be found here
Access all our practice tools
A complete list of practice tools to support innovation, published through the Innovate project, can be found here
Audio-visual learning resources
Our blog
Resources from recent events
Our slides from the webinar on 27.3.25 on 'new directions in youth safeguarding' can be downloaded by clicking on the image
All of the slides from our project conference on 7th Nov. 2023 can be found here
Consultation with young people
We have a great new set of resources, co-developed with young people, to promote more respectful and inclusive practice with young people at multi-agency safeguarding panels. This includes video and textual resources to run a training workshop with professionals, plus a facilitator's guide to run consultation workshops with young people about local practices.
Resources on Innovation
Our latest book‘ Innovation in Social Care: New Approaches for Young People affected by Extra-Familial Risks and Harms’ sets out the key findings from our research in six sites around the country. The digital e-book can be freely downloaded here.
Want to know more about the stages of innovation? See our article 'Towards a synthesised directional map of the stages of innovation in children’s social care' and its related infographic of the ‘Stages of Innovation Framework’. Together, they support planning and review by those leading and implementing innovation in social care and related agencies.
The main findings of our article on‘Towards a framework for ethical innovation in children’s social care’ are set out in a video on ‘trustworthy innovation'. We also have two related infographics to support innovation practice: Promoting Ethical Innovation in Social Care (the PEISC framework); and Doing Ethical Innovation in Social Care (the DEISC tool).
We have provided a pack of tools to guide organisations in assessing their system-readiness for innovation, and help them create the kind of system conditions more likely to lead to ethical and effective innovation.
Extra-Familial Risks and Harms
Our 2022 book, Safeguarding Young People Beyond the Family Home: Responding to Extra-Familial Risks and Harms, reviews the effectiveness of current approaches to addressing extra-familial harm and provides a typology of promising and effective practice and system responses. You can freely download the digital version here.
This short recording outlines why we think innovation is needed in the field of extra-familial risks and harms. It was originally presented at the EUSARF conference in September 2023
Trauma-Informed Practice
These two infographics use findings from the Innovate Project to raise awareness of the importance of implementing a trauma-informed approach while we write/ record/communicate information about (on the left) young people experiencing extra-familial risks and harms or (on the right) service users of any age or of varied service need.
This animated video explores the use of trauma informed practice in response to young people affected by extra-familial risks and harms. It is based on the fictional story of Lily – a 15yr old girl, elicited from the study findings.
You can download slides from a webinar led by Kristi Hickle and Roni Eyal-Lubling in October 2023 entitled: Introducing a trauma-informed approach across an organisation: what to do and why a whole-system approach matters.
Transitional Safeguarding
Click to download full resource
Practice resource: This ecocyles resource was developed through our research findings on the dynamics of early-stage systems change innovations relating to Transitional Safeguarding, and also on the wider literature, which indicates that it's not uncommon for innovation developments to encounter unexpected obstacles. This may bring about a pause in activity and progress, before a way is found of addressing challenges, refocusing and regaining momentum. Drawing on complexity principles and the Ecocycles perspective on change and development, we mapped this looping back and forth between innovation stages as initiatives emerge, grow and mature. This resource includes key questions for planning and reflection which may help organisations and local multi-actor partnerships to navigate these recursive processes during various stages of innovation journeys towards whole-systems change. The illustration was created by designer Michi Mathias.
Webinar: In this Webinar, Dr Nathalie Huegler and Professor Gillian Ruch from the University of Sussex and Dr Susannah Bowyer from Research in Practice talk about findings from Innovate Project research with local areas seeking to develop Transitional Safeguarding approaches.You can watch it here: Transitional Safeguarding – how can young people’s safety needs be better supported during transition to adulthood.
Article: You can freely download our 2021 paper here, by Nathalie Huegler and Gillian Ruch, on ‘Risk, vulnerability and complexity: transitional safeguarding as a reframing of binary perspectives’, published Practice: Social Work in Action, 34(1): 25-39.
Blog: What was moving to adulthood like for you? Getting to grips with the concept of transitional safeguarding.Find out why transitional safeguarding is so fundamental to the way in which we interact with young people, and how we can implement and innovate it in future.
A short video introducing Transitional Safeguarding has been produced by Dez Holmes and Susannah Bowyer, from Research in Practice.
In this Webinar, Dr Nathalie Huegler and Professor Gillian Ruch from the University of Sussex and Dr Susannah Bowyer from Research in Practice talk about findings from Innovate Project research with local areas seeking to develop Transitional Safeguarding approaches.You can watch it here: Transitional Safeguarding – how can young people’s safety needs be better supported during transition to adulthood.
You can freely download our 2021 paper here, by Nathalie Huegler and Gillian Ruch, on ‘Risk, vulnerability and complexity: transitional safeguarding as a reframing of binary perspectives’, published Practice: Social Work in Action, 34(1): 25-39.
What was moving to adulthood like for you? Getting to grips with the concept of transitional safeguarding. Find out why transitional safeguarding is so fundamental to the way in which we interact with young people, and how we can implement and innovate it in future.
A short video introducing Transitional Safeguarding has been produced by Dez Holmes and Susannah Bowyer, from Research in Practice.
Contextual Safeguarding
Contextual Safeguarding – does it work and how would we know? This blog, by Michelle Lefevre, reviews some of the Innovate Project learning about Contextual Safeguarding.
This open access article explores the synergies between relationship-based practice and contextual safeguarding when working with young people experiencing extra-familial risks and harms. It's by Jenny Lloyd, Kristine Hickle, Rachael Owens and Delphine Peace, https://doi.org/10.1111/chso.12787.
The independent evaluation of the first pilot of Contextual Safeguarding reported in 2023, led by Michelle Lefevre, working with Lisa Holmes, Kristine Hickle and Nathalie Huegler. The key messages and implications for policy and practice can be found here and the full evaluation report can be downloaded here.