The Educator Magazine U.K. September - December 2025 issue. - Magazine - Page 60
Supporting parents to participate in decisions
about safeguarding – a relational approach
doing – leads to little motivation for
individuals to change
• High challenge and low support – Doing
to – without sufficient support individuals
feel overwhelmed and withdraw
• High support and low challenge – Doing
for – the support is affirming for
individuals but without challenge this
• High support and high challenge –
Doing with - individuals are encouraged
and supported to problem solve and find
solutions themselves
engage with parents about safeguarding
concerns, it is critical that we support them
to feel in control of any agreed actions, so
that they have ownership.
Key questions to consider about a
successful approach are:
• How is the involvement of parents i
discussions about safeguarding concerns
perceived? Is their role participatory and
collaborative?
• How do we action plan with parents as
a result of a safeguarding concern – are
the plans empowering, supportive and
challenging?
Alex Dave, Safeguarding Education Officer
at ed-tech charity, LGfL-the National Grid for
Learning, shares advice on supporting parents
to be part of the decision-making process in
safeguarding their children.
It’s important to understand that if we have
concerns about the parenting of a child, we
cannot make that parent change. As
Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) it’s
usual to have an altruistic drive to resolve
situations - sometimes by telling people
what to do, or else by doing it for them.
However, this approach is rarely successful,
and can de-skill people, creating
dependency. Instead, we should try to
achieve a balance between support and
challenge to help parents better
understand the situation, and enable
them to make decisions about how they
can protect their child.
By providing parents with practical and
emotional support - within our
professional boundaries - and challenging
them to explore their understanding and
behaviour through open-ended questions,
parents can find solutions that work best for
them and their family.
Laurent Daloz’s model of mentoring
relationships (1986) illustrates this balance
between challenge and support. Challenge
without support is overwhelming and creates anxiety, while support without
challenge leads to complacency and
dependency - true learning and transformation occurs when there is balance.
Laurent Daloz (1986)
Daloz observed that:
• Low support and low challenge – Not
By acknowledging the autonomy and power that parents have, we can help to empower them, and help build their capacity,
self-awareness and motivation. It’s also crucial that when we are discussing safeguarding concerns with parents, we help them
understand why we are concerned, and the
impact - or potential impact this could have
on their child. Often this is not as obvious to
parents as you may think.
A parent’s knowledge may be limited for a
variety of reasons, so rather than making
assumptions about what they already know,
it’s best to utilise our professional curiosity
skills to explore and further this.
Our role is as an enabler - if the parents
aren’t engaged, change is unlikely. Using
the fundamental skills of relational practice
- empathy, authenticity, unconditional positive regard and curiosity - we acknowledge
that the solutions parents decide upon
themselves, will nearly always be more effective and sustainable than any handed to
them by professionals. Therefore, when we
• Is a summary of the decisions provided
for the parents to help support them and
ensure they are aware of what actions have
been agreed, and what they are
responsible for?
• How do we follow up and support parents
on the agreed actions, reflect on their
progress and celebrate successes?
• How do we signpost support services,
so parents can self-refer and access these
independently as required?
These are some ways in which we can help
parents to engage more effectively with
safeguarding decision making processes
at school, but the impact of adopting a
relational approach can create much wider
positive ripples across school life and the
whole community.
For free information and resources on
relational practice with parents, please
visit https://lgfl.net/Safeguarding/
Relational-Practice.
