Multi-agency policies and guidance

This document is designed to guide staff on how to manage cases relating to adults where there is a high level risk of the circumstances of which sit outside the statutory adult safeguarding framework but for which a multiagency approach is needed to manage these risks in the most effective way.

You will find links below to the overarching 4LSAB Framework and additional tools which have been developed for SSAB:

• 4LSAB Multi Agency Risk Management Framework
• SSAB chronology recording guidance
• SSAB chronology recording template
• SSAB multi agency risk assessment form
• SSAB risk assessment and management guidance
• Southampton quick guide to multi agency risk management
• MARM meeting guidance
• MARM meeting invite example
• MARM generic meeting invite example
• MARM meeting minutes proforma
• MARM meeting agenda proforma

For a more in depth look at the MARM please listen to this podcast created by Portsmouth SAB which aims to:

• Provide an overview of the MARM framework
• Provide a refresh on safeguarding concerns
• Identify the criteria for a MARM meeting
• Consider your role as part of the MARM framework

Southampton MARM webinar

This webinar held in January 2024, is aimed at all professionals working with adults in Southampton and shares information about the updated Multi-Agency Risk Management Framework. The webinar supports practitioners to identify when a MARM is appropriate and how to initiate or participate in a MARM meeting. There is discussion around case studies and practice guidance.

The purpose of the Safeguarding Concerns Guidance is to support the decision making and reporting of adult safeguarding concerns, in order to impact positively on outcomes for people with a need for care and support, who are at risk of or experiencing abuse or neglect. This framework sits alongside the 4LSAB Multi-Agency Adult Safeguarding Policy, Process and Guidance 2020 and draws on the Care Act 2014 and accompanying statutory guidance and connects to the LGA and ADASS framework ‘Making decisions on the duty to carry out safeguarding enquiries’. This multi-agency framework promotes:

• Personalised approaches which balance well-being with safety and prevention
• Engagement with the adult about how best to respond to their safeguarding situations in a way that enhances their involvement, choice, and control
• An adult’s rights, ensuring that those who lack mental capacity (as well as those who have capacity) are empowered and included within safeguarding support
• Empowering people so that they are partners in understanding and managing risk in their own lives
• An emphasis on the need for transparency and openness in managing conflicting outcomes (both of the adult and between the adult and professional organisations)
• The role of advocacy in all of the above

This shared multi‑agency guidance on Safer Recruitment has been produced to support agencies to check their recruitment process is robust and safe when recruiting staff or volunteers to work with adults at risk. It provides a ‘checklist’ of key areas to consider when reviewing/updating organisations’ internal procedures and guidance.

4LSAB Safer Recruitment Guidance.

When an adult who may have needs for care and support appears to be at risk of self-neglect, and may be refusing care and support or whose self-neglecting behaviours pose a risk to others, it can be difficult for practitioners or concerned carers, friends/family members, to understand how statutory duties and legal powers could be applied to improve the Adult’s situation. The following policy and resources have been developed to provide guidance for practitioners on how to work with individuals who are identified as suffering from self neglect:

• 4LSAB guidance on responding to self neglect and persistent welfare concerns
• 4LSAB self neglect learning briefing
• One minute guide to self neglect
• SSAB professional curiosity and challenge one minute guide
• Self neglect guides

This Escalation Protocol should only be used within safeguarding practice, not for other matters, such as assessment for more general care and support needs, eligibility for care and support and funding of care and support needs are outside the scope of this process. Individual practitioner performance is also outside the scope of this document. Also, the adult subject to the safeguarding concern and/or their representative should, wherever possible, be aware of the dispute and have an opportunity to express their views and wishes, in particular, that in raising a dispute, the worker has full consideration of the adult’s wellbeing.

4LSAB Multi-Agency Safeguarding Adults Escalation Protocol July 2018

Southampton SAB also works closely with the partnerships which work together to safeguard children in the city and across Hampshire. The pan Hampshire Local Safeguarding Children and Adults Boards have together developed a ‘Family Approach’ Toolkit. This is in response to learning that local services need to see the whole family in terms of responses to ensure assessments and actions are effective in responding to improve safeguarding outcomes for children, families and adults with care and support needs.

Access the Family Approach toolkit.

Nationally Skills for Care provide practical tools and support to help adult social care organisations and individual employers in England recruit, develop and lead their workforce. Find out more at Skills for Care.

This guidance is designed to provide a clear framework with which to respond to safeguarding concerns occurring in regulated NHS and social care settings. This framework recognises that promoting wellbeing and protecting safeguarding adults against abuse and neglect is an integral part of the commissioning and contracts processes.

4LSAB Guidance on Safeguarding Adults in Commissioned Services

The Care Act 2014 describes 'financial abuse' as a type of abuse which includes having money or other property stolen, being defrauded, being put under pressure in relation to money or other property and having money or other property misused. This guide gives examples of financial abuse and the impact it can have, suggests how to identify it and what steps can be taken to prevent and address financial abuse.

4LSAB Quick Guide to Financial Abuse

This is a multi‐agency guidance document for agencies and organisations to use with cases or suspected cases of Honour Based Abuse in Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight. This  explains how pan Hampshire agencies respond to incidents, (crime and non‐crime) where ‘Harmful Practices’ - Honour Based Abuse (HBA), Forced Marriage (FM) and Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), Breast Flattening may be a consideration.

It should be noted that Honour Based Abuse does not and should not stand alone. It is inexorably linked with domestic abuse and is part of the wider Government strategy to reduce violence against Women and Girls (VAWG). This guidance should be used in conjunction with existing domestic abuse guidance, policy and procedures.

4LSAB and 4LSCP Multi-Agency Guidance on ‘Honour’ Based Abuse, Forced Marriage and Female Genital Mutilation

Predatory marriage is the practice of intentionally targeting and marrying a vulnerable (often older) person in order to gain access to their estate and assets upon their death. 

Predatory marriage relies on grooming and coercion to exert control over another person to persuade them to marry for financial, material or other gain. 

4LSAB predatory marriage - 7 minute briefing.

The Multi-Agency Framework for Managing Risk and Safeguarding People Moving into Adulthood has been developed as a collaboration between the Local Safeguarding Adult Boards (4LSAB) covering the Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Portsmouth and Southampton (HIPS) area and is fully supported and endorsed by the Local Safeguarding Children’s Partnerships covering the HIPS area.

The Framework aims to strengthen the safeguarding support available to young adults aged 18 years with pre-existing vulnerability and risk factors as they move into adulthood. It is recognised that safeguarding arrangements for young adults need to take account of their distinct safeguarding needs. This Framework is designed to enhance and build on existing safeguarding arrangements ensuring these are relevant to safeguarding at risk young people. The Framework is designed to support effective partnership working and good practice in this complex and challenging area of safeguarding work.

4LSAB framework for managing risk and safeguarding people moving into adulthood 2022

Transitional safeguarding

This short animation sets out what Transitional Safeguarding is and why it matters.

The Multi-Agency Fire Safety Framework has been developed to provide all frontline staff and other professionals who are responsible for delivering care and support services with support and guidance for the effective management of fire risks within the home or residential setting.

How can the Fire Safety Framework help you?

This tool will help to provide an awareness of:

• The key risk factors for individuals who have an increased vulnerability towards fire
• An understanding of the impact this vulnerability to fire can have on the individual, neighbouring occupants or other residents
• The early interventions and control measures available to ensure such risks can be managed in the most effective way

Vulnerability risk factors include:

• The person (an individual’s physical abilities/cognitive impairments)
• Their behaviours
• Their living environment

You can download the 4LSAB multi agency fire safety framework.

Hampshire Fire & Rescue Service (HFRS) offers free home safety visits.

You can watch the multi agency fire safety training event and view the presentations and Q&A below.

• Framework event presentation - 14 October 2021
• Q&A 4LSAB fire safety training - 14 October 2021

Watch the Fire Safety Framework launch video:

The Care Act 2014 sets out the Local Authority and partner organisations' responsibility for protecting adults with care and support needs from abuse or neglect. All Large Scale Safeguarding Enquiries are carried out under the statutory framework of section 42 of the Care Act 2014. This involves working in partnership with individuals and with organisations. The implementation of the 4 Local Safeguarding Adults Board Protocol for Managing Large Scale Safeguarding Enquiries (LSSE) is a collaborative responsibility for which all agencies are accountable. This protocol complements and supplements The Multi-Agency Safeguarding Policy and Procedures (2023) and the Safeguarding Concerns Guidance. The purpose of this Protocol is to promote a consistent and proportionate response to Large Scale Safeguarding Enquiries.

4LSAB Large Scale S42 Safeguarding Enquiry Protocol

Where concerns are raised about someone who works with adults with care and support needs, the employer (or student body or voluntary organisation) must assess any potential risk to adults with care and support needs who use their services, and, if necessary, to take action to safeguard those adults. This framework must have clear recording and information-sharing guidance and timescales for action and be mindful of the need to preserve evidence. This will be whether the allegation or concern is current or historical. In order to develop a consistent approach and to promote best practice across Southampton, Portsmouth, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight, the four Local Safeguarding Adults Boards have established a joint framework and process for how allegations against people in positions of trust should be notified and responded to. The Allegations Management Framework is an overarching framework setting standards around the management of allegations against people in a “position of trust” (see Glossary), supported by clear reporting requirements and arrangements across the whole system – this includes clear information-sharing arrangements and explicit timescales for action. This is an overarching Framework and so individual organisations will be expected to develop its own business process detailing how it will implement this framework internally. This document replaces the 4LSAB framework published in October 2018.

4LSAB Multi-Agency Framework on Managing Allegations Against People in a Position of Trust - August 2021

Notification guidance and form

This form has been designed to help all agencies working with adults with care and support needs record and refer information and concerns where the Person in a Position of Trust is known or alleged to have acted in a way that has posed a risk or caused harm to a person with Care and Support needs.

Managing allegations against people in positions of trust guidance and notification form.

Please submit your completed form to safeguarding.servicequality@southampton.gov.uk

Modern Slavery encompasses human trafficking, slavery, servitude and forced or compulsory labour. The Modern Slavery Act 2015 became law on 26 March 2015 and is designed to tackle slavery in the UK and consolidates previous offences relating to trafficking and slavery. The Modern Slavery Act (2015) put statutory requirements onto all statutory bodies to work together to tackle modern slavery. No single agency can eradicate modern slavery alone and so it is vital that organisations collaborate, work together and share information, both with domestic partners and internationally.

4LSAB Multi-Agency Guidance on Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking

The Care Act 2014 places a duty on Local Safeguarding Adults Boards to develop and implement a clear strategy around the prevention of abuse or neglect of adults at risk. Prevention is one of the core principles of safeguarding and as such forms a fundamental part of local adult safeguarding policy framework and arrangements. This guidance has been agreed by the four LSABs in Hampshire, Portsmouth, Southampton and the Isle of Wight and provides an overarching framework for the prevention and early intervention in safeguarding. Member organisations are encouraged to use this framework, alongside other 4LSAB documents, to inform the development of local plans and guidance to support this work.

4LSAB Multi-Agency Guidance on Prevention and Early Intervention in Adult Safeguarding

• 4LSAB seven-minute professional curiosity
• 4LSAB one-minute guide - this one-minute guide discusses the importance of being professionally curious and offers guidance around professional curiosity in practice

An abuse of position is any attempt, by a person serving with the police, whether on or off duty, to inappropriately or illegitimately take advantage of:

• Their position as a person serving with the police
• The authority their position as a person serving with the police affords them
• Any powers conferred on them by virtue of their position as a person serving with the police

Abuse of a position for sexual purpose and how to report it.

The Herbert Protocol is a national scheme which has been adopted by Hampshire Police. The scheme encourages carers, family and friends to provide and put together useful information, which can then be used in the event of an adult at risk going missing such as adults with dementia or Alzheimer’s, using the form available below. Carers and / or relatives and friends can complete a form in advance, which includes detailing important information, such as:

• Medication required
• Mobile numbers
• Places previously located
• A recent photograph

The Herbert Protocol Form

Use your professional opinion as a carer or your knowledge as a family member to decide whether a person is at risk of going missing.

Who completes the form?

• In a care setting, the care provider, the person at risk or their family can fill in the form
• Please seek permission from the person at risk or their next of kin. If neither is possible, the care provider should make a ‘best interests’ assessment
• Update the form regularly to make sure the information is always accurate
• Filling in the form can be a valuable way of communicating with a relative because it causes them to think about where they used to live and work. This triggers memories that they like to talk about, and can enrich your visit

When should the form be given to the police?

• The police only need the form at the point the person is reported missing
• There is no need to hand it to police before then and the form will be returned once the person is found

What happens if the adult at risk goes missing?

• If you discover a person is missing, conduct a brief ‘open door’ search of the address, grounds and outbuildings, to see if you can find them
• If they’re still missing, call 999 immediately. Don’t worry – you won’t be criticised for calling the police if you are worried about a person’s safety. The sooner the police know someone is missing, the sooner officers can start looking for them
• When you ring the police, tell them you have the Herbert Protocol profile available
• If you have an electronic version of the form you can e-mail it to the Force Control Room so that the information can be shared to the searching officers. If you have a paper copy, have it ready for the attending officer when they arrive

The Herbert Protocol initiative is named after George Herbert, a war veteran of the Normandy landings, who had dementia and sadly died while he was ‘missing’ on his way to his childhood home.

The Care Act 2014 states that local authorities must cooperate with each of its relevant partners, as described in section 6 (7) of the Care Act and those partners must also cooperate with the local authority in the exercise of their functions relevant to care and support including those to protect adults. The statutory guidance to the Care Act (2014) highlights the need for organisations to work together to prevent and reduce abuse and neglect of adults. Good partnership working along with adhering to individual professional codes of conduct and your own agency’s values and behaviours supports good outcomes for adults at risk. This guide is aimed at further supporting these multi-agency working practices through greater understanding of each area’s roles and responsibilities. It is recognised that action or inaction of agencies can cause delays and misunderstandings.

Multi-Agency Guidance on Adult Safeguarding Roles and Responsibilities