Key takeaway

Effective safeguarding requires understanding the whole family context and how adult needs, relationships and circumstances impact the child – not viewing concerns in isolation.

Why this matters

Reviews consistently show that serious harm often occurs where children are living with multiple, interacting pressures, including domestic abuse, parental mental ill-health, substance use, relationship difficulties, financial hardship and wider socioeconomic pressures.

Reviews also highlight that adult and children’s services do not always work together effectively to understand how adult needs and circumstances affect children. This can limit understanding of family relationships, changing risks and the support children and families may need. 

Understanding the whole family is not simply about understanding adult needs. It is about understanding how family relationships, experiences and circumstances affect each child individually. This includes recognising that children within the same family may experience family life differently depending on their age, identity, characteristics, relationships and individual circumstances. 

What this looks like in practice 

Professionals can become focused on individual concerns or incidents without fully understanding the wider family context. This can make it harder to recognise how adult needs, family relationships and changing circumstances are shaping a child’s lived experience and influencing their safety and wellbeing. 

Across reviews, important adults in a child’s life, including fathers, partners, ex-partners, non-biological parents and wider family members, are not always identified, understood or involved. As a result, practitioners may have only a partial understanding of the factors affecting the child. There are also examples where adults are known to professionals but their influence, caregiving responsibilities or potential risks are not fully assessed or understood. 

Some reviews have highlighted situations where mothers are viewed primarily as protective factors despite experiencing domestic abuse, coercive control or other vulnerabilities themselves. This can lead to an overestimation of a parent’s ability to manage risks posed by others within the family and an underestimation of the support needed to keep children safe. 

Risk can also be underestimated when adult and children’s services work separately, or when practitioners rely too heavily on one person’s account rather than considering patterns, family dynamics and the cumulative impact of multiple and interacting vulnerabilities over time. Fragmented assessments, limited information sharing and a lack of shared analysis can make it more difficult to understand how adult needs and vulnerabilities affect children and family life. 

What practitioners and managers can do   

• Take a holistic view of the family, including parents, carers, siblings, significant adults, relationships and wider support networks.  

• Consider how adult needs, behaviours and circumstances affect the child’s safety, wellbeing and lived experience.  

• Bring together multi-agency information from adult and children’s services wherever possible, ensuring assessments reflect the whole family rather than separate parts of it.  

• Explore family history, relationships and patterns over time, including both risk and protective factors across the wider family network.  

• Stay curious about adults who are less visible, resistant to involvement or not currently part of the assessment, and consider how they may affect the child’s experiences.  

• Consider each child’s experience individually and avoid assumptions that siblings are experiencing family circumstances in the same way, ensuring assessments reflect both current circumstances and historical context.  

• Ensure all significant adults are visible in assessment and planning, and act when adult needs or risks are impacting the child, even where services are already involved.