Recognition of risk and prevention in safeguarding of children and young people: a mapping review and component analysis of service development interventions aimed at health and social care professionals

Background

The term ‘safeguarding’ covers the protection of health, wellbeing and human rights. Effective safeguarding enables people (particularly children, young adults and other vulnerable people) to live free from fear of abuse, harm or neglect. The UK Children Act 2004 required key agencies, including health and social care providers, to consider the need to safeguard children and promote their welfare. Within a larger evidence synthesis project, we sought to identify and map service development interventions (excluding provision of training) aimed at improving awareness of safeguarding and identifying at-risk children and young people in health and social care settings.

Methods

We searched fourteen health and social care databases from 2004 (date of Children Act) to October 2019 and updated the review via a citation search in March 2021.

Studies of any design were eligible if they described or evaluated an intervention (other than training) aimed at health or social care professionals in the United Kingdom and designed to improve recognition of risk in the context of safeguarding children and young people. Studies with no intervention (e.g. qualitative studies) were included to explain why interventions work or fail to work. Included studies were summarised using narrative synthesis. Risk of bias of included studies and overall strength of evidence were assessed using standard methods. We used a 5-item checklist (“TIDieR-Lite”) to map intervention components.

Results

Thirty-nine publications were included, of which 31 dealt with service developments, six with use of data and two with other initiatives. Promising service development initiatives include liaison nurses, assessment clinics, secondment, joint protocols and a ‘hub and spoke’ model. Initiatives involving use of routine data appeared promising and unlikely to generate significant additional costs. However, the quality of the evidence was generally low, with a shortage of controlled and long-term studies.

Conclusions

Health and social care services wishing to improve awareness of child safeguarding issues may benefit from looking beyond high-quality training provision. Future research should focus on service-relevant outcomes and ensure the active involvement of young people and their families/carers.