No decision about me without me - making safeguarding personal

Reads: No decision about me without me

Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is about professionals working with adults at risk to ensure that they are making a positive difference to their lives. It is about ‘No decision about me without me’ and that interventions focus on their outcomes and desires and what they wish to achieve. When looking at Safeguarding it is crucial that we ensure that we not only consider how to keep a person safe, but we consider their wellbeing.

When undertaking a Section 42 Safeguarding Enquiry, as per the Care Act 2014, practitioners must start with asking the adult their view and wishes which will often determine what next steps to take. Practitioners should consider these questions when working with a person:

What does the person want to happen?
How can we work with people to enable that to happen?
How do we know their outcomes have been understood and our intervention has made a difference?
Does the person feel safer and protected, at the start and throughout the process?

Using the six safeguarding principles to support making safeguarding personal

When working with adults it is important to consider the process from their perspective and ensure that you consider the following for the adult:

1 Empowerment - people being supported and encouraged to make their own decisions and informed consent SHOW

2 Prevention - it is better to take action before harm occurs SHOW

3 Proportionality - the least intrusive response appropriate to the risk presented SHOW

4 Protection - support and representation for those in greatest need SHOW

5 Partnership - local solutions through services with their communities. Communities have a part to play in preventing, detecting and reporting neglect and abuse SHOW

6 Accountability - it is better to take action before harm occurs SHOW

The following PDF explores the Six Safeguarding Principles and person centred practice:

No decision about me without me

For many safeguarding enquires the person's wishes regarding the outcome of the enquiry may reduce but not completely eliminate the risk that they face in their lives. This may be due to a number of factors, but may include, for example, the person wanting to continue a relationship with the person alleged to have caused them harm. It is for this reason that practitioners practice must encourage positive risk taking and risk management rather than solely focusing on removing risk completely, to ensure that the aim of the enquiry remains on making safeguarding personal and ensuing 'no decision about me without me'.

Taking a risk management approach

The importance of a risk management approach was highlighted by Mr Justice Munby in his judgement in the case Local Authority X v MM & Anor (No. 1) (2007). He stated:

The fact is that all life involves risk, and the young, the elderly and the vulnerable, are exposed to additional risks and to risks they are less well equipped than others to cope with. But just as wise parents resist the temptation to keep their children metaphorically wrapped up in cotton wool, so too we must avoid the temptation always to put the physical health and safety of the elderly and the vulnerable before everything else. Often it will be appropriate to do so, but not always. Physical health and safety can sometimes be bought at too high a price in happiness and emotional welfare. The emphasis must be on sensible risk appraisal, not striving to avoid all risk, whatever the price, but instead seeking a proper balance and being willing to tolerate manageable or acceptable risks as the price appropriately to be paid in order to achieve some other good – in particular to achieve the vital good of the elderly or vulnerable person’s happiness. What good is it making someone safer if it merely makes them miserable?