Introduction

This chapter explores what is meant by whole systems change and argues that this is an important paradigm for the development and implementation of a Transitional Safeguarding approach. As such, Transitional Safeguarding requires systems leadership which explicitly attends to complexity. Consideration is given to how change can be embedded, drawing on theoretical frameworks of innovation and implementation, and an example of a whole system change approach to reducing violence. Understanding Transitional Safeguarding as a whole system change brings some challenges for implementation and impact measurement; the key principles offer a way to think about these difficulties and so take small steps in the right direction. A discussion follows about how to frame Transitional Safeguarding in ways that enable helpful policy solutions. Finally, in an effort to model reflexivity and congruence, the endeavour of whole systems change is explored using the key principles of Transitional Safeguarding as a framework. Each key principle is considered in terms of what embodying the principles means for those seeking to develop Transitional Safeguarding at a local or national level.

Why Transitional Safeguarding is a ‘systems’ issue

A system can be broadly defined as a number of elements connected or linked together by dynamics which in turn influence or affect other elements or systems; some systems are complex because they involve unpredictability and emergence (OECD 2017). The concept of Transitional Safeguarding could be construed as a simple change proposition: young people who need support to be safe should receive this irrespective of their eighteenth birthday. However, the underlying problems and the required actions to address these are not simple at all; they are deeply complex issues that engage multiple aspects of the personal and professional system/s and wider society as a whole.

There are two key systems that are relevant to Transitional Safeguarding. The first, as noted in Chapter 2, relates to understanding individual young people's lives as complex ecosystems (Bronfenbrenner 1977). Young people are not simply elements within a system; their lives can be understood as a complex system, with each level of the system influencing the others.

When asked to write a foreword for a book on Transitional Safeguarding, I was initially cautious. I expressed as much to two of the co-authors, Dez Holmes and Professor Christine Cocker. The three of us were sitting on a picnic bench outside the EuSARF Conference 2023, where much discussion had taken place on this very theme.

‘To be honest I’m not really a fan of the term Transitional Safeguarding,’ I said.

Much to my surprise, Dez apologised.

‘What for?’ I asked. ‘It's not as if you invented it, is it?’

‘Actually, yes,’ she said, and I felt the ground beneath me open up. ‘But I welcome any challenge!’

At this point, I realised I could not back-peddle my way out. So I outlined my concerns directly.

‘Children in contact with social care experience enough instability as it is,’ I said. ‘I mean, how would you feel if your environment, family life, and the services you rely on were described as transient? Wouldn't it make you feel anxious?’ Both agreed.

‘You should put that in the foreword!’ they said in unison.

Within the first few pages of reading this book, it was clear my assumptions were false. Transitional Safeguarding (excellently outlined in Chapters 2 and 7) is entirely at odds with placing children on the proverbial conveyor belt towards the cliff edge of care. In fact, it advocates for more, not less support during the critical crossover years between childhood and adulthood. If you are reading this with a view to streamlining services, you may as well stop here.

Practice and policy are culpable for shoe-horning young people's voices as an afterthought. But what makes this book so refreshing – so needed – is that co-production is the golden thread running from cover to cover. Young people are the researchers at the heart, not just the periphery.

Transitional Safeguarding is at once ambitious – advocating for entire system change underscored by relational, evidenceinformed, and rights-based support – while being grounded in the realities of austerity, the cost-of-living crisis, and a postpandemic landscape.

Introduction

This chapter provides an overview of the legal and social policy frameworks that govern safeguarding practices for children and adults in England. It explores some of the drivers as well as implications of these frameworks. As we set out in the Introduction and Chapter 2, safeguarding practices use a binary notion of childhood and adulthood (Holmes and Smale 2018). This binary approach within safeguarding is in part driven by increasingly divergent social care policies and practices which operationalise the different legislative, policy, and conceptual frameworks for children and adults. Ultimately, this perpetuates the gaps through which some young people fall. These are outlined and explored later.

We also identify the key principles that underpin safeguarding practice with children and with adults. Many of the principles underpinning child and adult safeguarding are similar, but there are also some differences and these are outlined and discussed. This is further explored in Chapters 5 and 6, which examine learning from innovation and promising practice in children's and adults’ safeguarding, respectively. Importantly, neither safeguarding system is specifically designed with adolescent developmental needs or behaviours in mind. Legal and social policy frameworks provide the architecture for safeguarding practice, and they can promote or inhibit ways of working. This chapter explores the implications for developing Transitional Safeguarding.

An overview of safeguarding in children's and adult social services in England

Safeguarding practices in children's and adult social services in England have developed in accordance with different legislative, policy, and conceptual frameworks. The Local Authority Social Services Act 1970 led to the creation of social services departments and established the framework for local authority social work that is still in place today (Carr and Goosey 2017). However, the legal frameworks and statutory guidance development for safeguarding of children and adults are completely separate.

Children's safeguarding and the role of child death inquiries

The first Act of Parliament for the prevention of cruelty to children was passed in 1889 (Batty 2005). In the following 100 years, until the Children Act 1989, further legislation that specifically addressed child protection across the UK included: Children Act 1908; Children and Young Persons Act 1932; and the Children Act 1948.

This book captures what we have learned about Transitional Safeguarding over the past six years. We began with the voices of young people – it is their experiences that lie at the heart of this book. All young people need support moving into adulthood and this can include support to be safe. There remain significant gaps in safeguarding services for too many young people; this is something we have known about for some time, and so many of the ideas behind Transitional Safeguarding are not new. Over the past 25 years efforts have been made to address some of the issues that young people face. However helpful these changes have been in addressing specific issues, the evidence shows that making fragmented changes to various parts of the system does not achieve what is needed. Young people tell us this; colleagues tell us this. What is new is our argument that nothing short of whole systems change will do.

We cannot wait for the revolution – and evolution is slower still. We need to think about the ways in which change is possible now and in-so-doing, build on small steps as well as tackle some of the big issues. However, there is no silver bullet here. Whole systems change can mean a great many things. The key to this is clarity about how the small steps contribute to the systems change and understanding how efforts across different services or disciplines fit together to achieve the broader vision of a Transitional Safeguarding approach.

Various systems and structures govern and influence this work; at a macro level we have explored in the book some of the differences and similarities in existing legal and policy drivers in children's and adults’ safeguarding that contribute to (but are not solely responsible for) gaps in safeguarding practices with young people. We have taken time in the book to explore the legal and social policy contexts in which we work in England in Chapters 3, 5, and 6. While challenging to navigate, the legal frameworks do not prohibit Transitional Safeguarding.

Introduction

As explored in more detail in Chapter 2 and referenced throughout the book, there are six key principles that underpin Transitional Safeguarding. One of these argues that the design, development, and embedding of Transitional Safeguarding must be evidenceinformed, which means drawing on research, practice wisdom, and expertise from lived experience. Another of the principles asserts that Transitional Safeguarding must be developed and delivered in ways that are highly participative. Young people and those who care about them are experts within their own lives and are an essential source of wisdom, critique, and challenge. For Transitional Safeguarding to be congruent with the aims it seeks in practice – that is, a rights-based, relational, and empowering approach to help young people be and feel safe – then the design process must mirror these tenets.

In keeping with this recognition that young people's expertise is a vital part of the Transitional Safeguarding knowledge base, this chapter is co-authored by four young people, each with experience of being in care and of being supported by other professional services. These young people are active members of the Care Leavers National Movement, a participation and influencing group attached to the National House Project. Their ages span 17 to 22. This group explored a number of issues relating to the transition to adulthood and changes they feel would help young people make this transition well. Their insights are drawn from their own experiences; however, this chapter does not focus on their individual personal stories.

These young people make a powerful argument for holistic support services and structures which afford young people not only practical skills development, but also a sense of relational and psychological security. Their insights highlight the importance of ensuring that needs and risks do not escalate in later adulthood, and that this requires an approach which is preventative, personcentred, and non-stigmatising.

What adulthood means

As mentioned earlier, taking an evidence-informed approach is one of the six key principles that underpin Transitional Safeguarding. These sources of knowledge do not exist in separate siloes, but rather interact with each other and may co-exist within individuals.

Introduction

Transitional Safeguarding is often confused with transitions and transitions planning. They are not the same thing. However, there are connections between the two – not least that poor transitions/transfer can create or worsen risks for a young person. We will explore the differences and intersections in this chapter, using case examples to show good practice in local authority transitions work, and discuss the potential safeguarding risks that can occur in this work. In particular this can happen when young people are struggling with issues like homelessness, poor physical or mental health, substance misuse, and financial (in)stability.

The chapter begins with a brief overview of definitions of ‘transitions’ and how they differ from Transitional Safeguarding. This is followed by an exploration of the legislative landscape around transitions planning. This is substantial, which is why it is included in this chapter and is not part of Chapter 3. The case studies we include later in the chapter demonstrate the differences between Transitional Safeguarding and transitions work and how these approaches, concepts, and practices interact with each other.

What is the difference between ‘transitions’ and ‘Transitional Safeguarding’?

A transition refers to a process an individual goes through to move from one situation, state, condition, or age to another (Johansson 2021). The word ‘process’ is important here, as a transition is not a single event. Munro and Simkiss (2020) describe transitions as ‘the process of moving from a child focused system to an adult orientated system’ (p 175) and there are clear legislative and social policy frameworks in place to assist with transitions planning for young people. There are various life stage transitions which are often referred to in the child development literature, such as moving from primary school to secondary school (a life stage event); moving from childhood to adulthood (a life stage that in many western nations is defined legally at age 18 years); or moving from school or university into employment (another life stage event). Other disciplines also reflect on transitions, for example education, child and youth studies, geography (Valentine 2003), and sociology (Giddens and Sutton 2021), noting that the boundary between childhood and adulthood is difficult to define (Valentine 2003), and context is important to understanding the meaning of transitions for individual young people (Johansson 2021).

Introduction

This chapter will critically review the material of Arnett (2000) and others who have spearheaded the development of ‘emerging adulthood’ as a new developmental stage. Arnett argues that ‘emerging adults can pursue novel and intense experiences more freely than adolescents because they are less likely to be monitored by parents and can pursue them more freely than adults because they are less constrained by roles’ (2000, p 475).

A key feature of adolescence is taking risks. This is about trying new things, learning new skills, having new social and emotional experiences, and finding out more about who we are as we move into adulthood. Enabling young people to take risks safely is not a contradiction in terms. However, not all young people experience risk taking in the same way. Beckett and Lloyd (2022) highlight that adolescent behaviour and harmful experiences are often wrongly viewed by practitioners as ‘lifestyle choices’; this is underpinned by the idea that young people freely choose to engage in activities viewed as ‘risky’ and ‘harmful’. Often in these circumstances, practitioners and services treat adolescents as having the same agency as adults (Beckett et al 2017), not appreciating that they may be influenced inappropriately or incurring abuse or neglect. These contradictions and tensions will be explored in this chapter and their implications in relationship to Transitional Safeguarding are addressed. This includes providing examples of two different services that address these issues.

Human development and life course theory

Since the early twentieth century, social scientists have been interested in exploring and explaining the complexities of what it is that makes us human, including identifying commonalities in experience across cultures and societies. Humans are multifaceted complex beings. We are all individuals with idiosyncrasies living within a specific historic, social, and cultural context relative to us, and yet there are some commonalities of experience that all humans share across these contexts. Most health, education, and social care practitioners will be familiar with the key psychoanalytic theories that have shaped much of the thinking about development over the last 100 years: Freud's psychosexual development theory; Piaget's theory about cognitive development; Pavlov's behavioural theory; Skinner's theory of conditioning; Erikson's theory of psychosocial development; and Bowlby's theory of attachment.

Becoming an adult is a process, not a single event. Having the ‘official’ date of this marked as turning 18 is a social and legal construct. There are many other points at which young people can legally take part in activities that are seen as adult. A child is legally accountable for a crime at age 10 in England. The age of consent for both heterosexual and same-sex relationships is 16 years. Joining the armed forces is possible at age 16. A young person can have a driving licence from age 17. A young person is presumed by law to have the capacity to make decisions about any area of their life from age 16, unless they do not have mental capacity (as defined under the Mental Capacity Act 2005). However, in safeguarding and protection, someone's eighteenth birthday is the key date when the safeguarding approach that they experience, should they meet eligibility criteria, changes from being underpinned by the Children Act 1989 (affecting children under 18) to the Care Act 2014 (affecting anyone over the age of 18). This means young people often fall off a ‘cliff edge’ at 18 as the available services do not meet their developmental needs or circumstances and the majority of young people turning 18 will not be deemed eligible for those services. For young people who have safeguarding needs as 17-year-olds, it is increasingly apparent, the more we know about extra-familial harms, that these needs do not disappear on their eighteenth birthday. It is the agencies who are tasked with supporting and protecting these young people that often disappear.

Harm does not stop at 18, nor do the traumatic effects of harm; young people continue to develop until their mid-twenties and many other areas of policy and legislation recognise the fluidity of adolescence and early adulthood. It makes little sense for the professional safeguarding response to be so rigidly age bound. Yet that is the current situation, with two wholly distinct safeguarding systems for those over and under 18 years old – and neither is designed with teenagers and young adults’ needs in mind.

Introduction

One of the key tenets of the Transitional Safeguarding approach is that local areas use the key principles to develop their response according to local needs. We have been encouraged to see the proliferation of responses in relation to Transitional Safeguarding and the many ways in which local areas have developed their own Transitional Safeguarding workstreams. This shows how they have had to think deeply, juggling this development activity among a plethora of demands and priorities across organisations and partnerships in their own areas.

This chapter describes a range of examples from localities across England where Transitional Safeguarding is being taken forward through initiatives aiming to improve the safeguarding experience of young people. These are showcased to prompt and inspire others to consider how their local area or service might be able to do things differently, in order to ensure that young people can be and feel as safe as possible. No one area has the complete solution, and all are on a journey with this work. Some of these examples have been able to access modest funding to augment existing resources; others have reconfigured their resources. The current pressures on public sector services needs to be acknowledged; people are driving and creating change using whatever power and influence they have in their professional roles, because ‘doing nothing’ is not an option. They are creating solutions, working together across boundaries, and leading change with young people.

These examples provide a picture of what is emerging locally to put the principles of Transitional Safeguarding into action. The way in which change happens is a process, not a single transformative event. To try to make sense of the range of initiatives that currently exist, we have developed four typologies which help situate and understand each of the examples within the system transformation that needs to be achieved. There are common themes, blocks, and barriers as well as enablers, that come from reviewing these initiatives, which we discuss towards the end of the chapter. Chapter 10 then explores the aspirational whole systems change that Transitional Safeguarding aims to achieve; the examples in this chapter help us begin to visualise what this might look like.

Introduction

This chapter will explore the ways in which binary notions are impeding safeguarding efforts at both a practice and policy level and will consider the human and economic cost of the current approach. The six key principles of Transitional Safeguarding will then be outlined, with an explanation of how each principle is deliberately intended to respond to and redress identified problems. In keeping with the theme of boundary-spanning, this chapter will then describe how each of the principles exemplify the ‘both/and’ ethos of Transitional Safeguarding at practice level and at the level of leadership and wider policy.

At its heart, Transitional Safeguarding is concerned with boundary-spanning, and as such is an issue of systems leadership that supports practice change. This fundamental characteristic is precisely because Transitional Safeguarding seeks to redress the binaries and inflexibilities within the current safeguarding systems, whether these are related to age, service siloes, or professional disciplines, and/or the wider way in which citizens are conceptualised. There have been significant efforts in recent years, including new statutory duties, to ensure a more fluid transitional experience for some young people – notably, those with special educational needs and disabilities, and those leaving care. However, within the safeguarding arena, a binary notion of childhood and adulthood has endured, with safeguarding responses for those over aged 18 and those aged under 18 operating to wholly different thresholds, legislation, and policy paradigms (Cocker et al 2021). This divergent approach, with little fluidity between adult's and children's safeguarding systems, means that some older adolescents and younger adults are not receiving the support they need to be safe and feel safe (Holmes and Smale 2018). As argued elsewhere (Holmes 2022a), the transition to adulthood is a process, not an event, and this process varies depending on a young person's experiences, environment, and context. While many harms facing young people under 18 continue into adulthood, and although young people's brains continue to develop until their mid-twenties (Sawyer et al 2018; Prior et al 2011), the current safeguarding approach operates to a rigid notion that adulthood suddenly occurs on a person's eighteenth birthday.