THE BITE-SIZED LECTURE

Dr Laura Pritchard-Jones drops into the Bite-Sized Lecture hall to explain her new research: ‘Exploring the impact that COVID-19 has had on adult safeguarding and social care’

“This research looks at the impact COVID has had on adult safeguarding practice.

“It came about from discussions regarding increasing concerns about domestic violence, and about possible neglect in care homes that might not be picked up as a result of the pandemic. What we set out to do with the research was devise a project that put adult safeguarding at the heart of it, which it often isn’t.

“The focus was very much on a lot of different agencies coming together to share their views on what Covid has done in terms of safeguarding; something we were particularly interested in was the impact that Covid has had on legal obligations, such as assessments, and how practitioners felt they were able to navigate those obligations.

“WE’RE CURRENTLY WORKING ON DRAWING ALL THE FINDINGS TOGETHER, BUT THERE’S A COUPLE OF THINGS IN PARTICULAR THAT ARE COMING OUT ALREADY THAT I THINK ARE GOING TO BE REALLY INTERESTING.

“So first of all is the use of remote or virtual assessments. That’s been a real source of frustration for practitioners over the course of the pandemic, from what I can gather.

“Almost all the front line practitioners we spoke to said that they didn’t feel these virtual assessments were always suitable in a safeguarding context. They felt they lacked confidence early on in terms of doing the remote assessments, and that there wasn’t that much guidance.

“THERE’S ALSO A CONTINUING SENSE THAT PERHAPS REMOTE ASSESSMENTS AREN’T THE MOST SUITABLE FOR ADULTS SAFEGUARDING WORK, AS YOU CAN’T ALWAYS SEE WHAT’S GOING ON IN THE BACKGROUND - WHETHER THAT BE A DOMESTICALLY ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP, OR A SITUATION OF SELF NEGLECT.

“The other thing that has posed challenges is interagency working. What’s interesting is that the non-frontline participants tended to report better organisational relationships between different sectors, as it was suddenly much easier to get people around these virtual tables. In the main, however, frontline practitioners reported that - unless there were strong individual relationships there already - it was more challenging to maintain that sort of interagency working beyond just multi-disciplinary team meetings.

“Another thing that’s been really interesting to see is that Covid has actually shifted people’s perception of safeguarding, or shifted their perception of their work. Firstly, it’s made them question if they want to carry on in social work, if it’s going to be taken down the avenue of becoming a more remote profession. But it’s also interesting that it really made them fundamentally question ‘What is abuse and neglect? What is adult safeguarding? Can we effectively look out for abuse and neglect if we’re going to be relying more on remote assessments in the future?’

“Adult safeguarding isn’t something that we usually see at the forefront of research projects, and for that reason I think it was really important to do. There’s a lot of data gathering going on, and there’s been a lot of fantastic sector-led initiatives in adult safeguarding, and - particularly during Covid - there’s been quite a bit of visibility in terms of the national network of safeguarding adults, boards, and managers, but what we were really interesting in getting was the practitioners’ view.

“We wanted to know what adult safeguarding means to them, and what the key lessons are from their perspective that they’ll be taking with them, as we move beyond Covid.”

Dr Pritchard-Jones, lecturer at Keele University, & Programme Director for the MA in Safeguarding Adults.

READ THE FULL RESEARCH: Visit adultsocialcareandsafeguardingduringcovid19.wordpress.com to read what has been published so far.