Think Family

Everyone has a responsibility to take a ‘Think Family’ approach in the context of safeguarding children and adults and should be at the heart of practice across all partner agencies within the partnership.

What do we mean by ‘Think Family’?

A Think Family approach refers to the steps taken by children’s, young peoples and adult practitioners to identify wider family needs which extend beyond the individual they are supporting.

For example, in relation to safeguarding, if you work primarily with adults, you still consider the safeguarding needs of children, and if you work with children you still consider the needs of the vulnerable adults. Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility.

As part of the Mental Health Priority Group within Wolverhampton Safeguarding Together (WST) partnership a short video has been developed as a prompt for all agencies to consider within their day to day practice. It’s important to recognise that neither adults or children exist in isolation and Think family aims to promote the importance of a whole family approach.  

Think family means securing better outcomes for adults, children and families by coordinating the support and delivery of services from all organisations. We all need support at different times in our lives and support can be sourced in many different ways. 

Working together effectively will help improve lives, so ‘Think Family’

Useful links:

• SCIE - Think Family