All children need to be safe and well taken care of. Almost all children want to be with their own family. Rigorous safety planning gives children what they need and want; the opportunity to grow up safely with their own family whenever possible.
Imagine a world where all children grow up safe and secure in their own family without scars that interfere with their health, their ability, and their potential.
The ideas for safety planning on this site are taken from Andrew Turnell's books and teachings. His books include Signs of Safety: A Solution and Safety Oriented Approach to Child Protection Casework and Working with 'Denied' Child Abuse: the Resolutions Approach. For help in implementing this approach, please check out the Signs of Safety website or reach out to one of the people around the world whom Andrew Turnell has approved to train others in the Signs of Safety.
Questions based on Solution Focused therapy are integrated into the Signs of Safety. The Solution Focused approach moves people away from focusing on problems in order to build on strengths and find solutions. Steve de Shazer and Insoo Kim Berg developed it by studying Milton Erickson's work and realizing that Erickson was skilled at staying on the surface of things. Steve de Shazer wrote many books to explain the approach including Putting Difference to Work, Words Were Originally Magic, and Clues among many others. Andrew Turnell often recommends reading an American Healer to gain an understanding of Erickson's life and work.
For many child protection agencies around the world, removing children from danger and placing them into situations thought to be safer is still a large part of their practice. When this happens, some children completely lose track of their own families. Kevin Campbell has developed a family finding approach to reconnect these children with their families. In doing this work he has created many tools and ideas for bringing safe, committed people around children and for getting child protection systems to include these people in the work. Many of these ideas and tools can be used to help find safety network members and help keep children from being taken from their family.