1.5 Making Safeguarding Personal

1. Introduction

Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is a person-centred and outcome focused way of safeguarding adults. It emphasises that the adult concerned must always be at the centre of adult safeguarding, and that their wishes and views should be sought at the earliest opportunity.

MSP requires practitioners to see adults as experts in their own lives and to work with them in order to identify strengths-based and outcome focused solutions. Practitioners must work in a way that enhances individual involvement, choice and control as part of improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety. The Principles of Adult Safeguarding contained in the Care Act 2014 are key to Making Safeguarding Personal.

MSP seeks to achieve:

• a personalised approach that enables safeguarding to be done with, not to, people;
• practice that focuses on achieving meaningful improvement to people’s circumstances (outcomes) rather than just the process of ‘investigation’ and reaching a ‘conclusion’, with the ultimate aim of improving outcomes for people at risk of, or experiencing, abuse or neglect.

MSP is about shifting the emphasis from processes to a commitment to improving outcomes for people at risk of harm.

The Care and Support Statutory Guidance states:

‘…it is vital that all organisations recognise that adult safeguarding arrangements are there to protect individuals. We all have different preferences, histories, circumstances and life-styles, so it is unhelpful to prescribe a process that must be followed whenever a concern is raised …. Making safeguarding personal means it should be person-led and outcome-focused. It engages the person in a conversation about how best to respond to their safeguarding situation in a way that enhances involvement, choice and control as well as improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety.’

2. Putting Making Safeguarding Personal into Practice

• person-led and person centred: being safe and well means different things to different people, this means the safeguarding process should be person-led and recognise that adults as the experts in their own lives, with different abilities, interests and experiences – do not make assumptions.  At the earliest opportunity, the adult should be asked what they want to happen now, and what their desired outcomes so that the response to any safeguarding concern enhances involvement, choice and control as well as improving quality of life, wellbeing and safety. Professionals should be interested, curious, and look for the full picture of a person’s experience.
• focused on outcomes, not process: safeguarding adults is not about undertaking a process but is a commitment to improve outcomes by working alongside people who may be experiencing or at risk of abuse or neglect. The key focus is on developing a real understanding of what people wish to achieve, agreeing, negotiating and recording their desired outcomes, working out with them (and their representatives or advocates if they lack mental capacity) how best those outcomes might be realised and then seeing, at the end, the extent to which desired outcomes have been realised. This approach involves adults being encouraged to define their own meaningful improvements to change their circumstances and then to be involved throughout the safeguarding investigation, support planning and response.
• supporting the voice of the person: to help adults feel listened to it is important that practitioners build relationships with people over time, find ways to communicate effectively with them, listen to what they have to say and act on this, keep them informed about what will happen next (including when it might be necessary to take further action) and show them care and compassion at all times.