2015 International
Signs of Safety Gathering
(REVOLUTION
)
20–22 October
Oak Ridge Hotel & Conference Center
Chaska, Minnesota, USA
Is a revolution in child protection services possible?
signs
safety
OF
®
Revolution:
a dramatic,
wide-reaching change
in the way
something works,
is thought about
or is organised.
(REVOLUTION
)
To make a real difference for children and their families nothing less than a
revolution is necessary. The history of incremental change hasn’t done the
job of putting children and families back in the centre of their own lives when
child protection gets involved.
(REVISION
)
Revolution is a big word, but in the end any revolution has to be grounded in
a clear vision of a complete transformation of child protection services alongside the practice and organisational detail of how to realise that vision.
(REalise
)
The Signs of Safety is the most comprehensive practice approach currently available to the child protection field. It has been refined by thousands
of practitioners across 17 countries since 1988. While the Signs of Safety is
completely grounded in what works in practice, the model alone will not
change how child protection work gets done. Practice decisions are always
shaped by myriad factors including organisational anxiety, leadership, workload levels, workforce experience and stability, cultural confidence, political
vulnerability, information recording systems and compliance – not to mention
the actions of courts, police, mental health services, non government collaborators, politicians and many more.
To transform practice requires a sophisticated, whole of system approach to
implementing the Signs of Safety. That’s the revolution.
www.signsofsafety.net
2015
Signs of Safety
Gathering
REALISING A REVOLUTION
This year’s Gathering
will, as always,
be completely
focused on practice
as well introducing
a revolution, covering:
signs
safety
OF
®
Organisation
Organisational culture and climate, information
recording and app development that actually
supports practice, implementation and planning,
leadership, policy and practice guidance, managing risk and anxiety, fatalities, audit and compliance.
Principles
Of heart, soul, culture, community, vision and spirit.
Signs of Safety Research
Theory of change, results logics and outcomes,
fidelity and meaningful measures.
Practice
From the first call to case closure, foster care,
residential care, permanency and reunification,
assessment, conferencing, children’s participation,
safety planning, skilful use of authority, individual
and group supervision.
Sister Approaches
As Signs of Safety continues to evolve it is vital
to build strong links to sister approaches. At this
Gathering we will include practice focused presentations about Family Finding, Sanctuary and
Solution-focused Brief Therapy.
Some Presentations
Susie Essex is the architect of the Signs of Safety safety planning repertoire. Since her retirement she has been focused on passing on her expertise by consulting on high-risk cases
with child protection teams in Australia, Europe and North America. Susie will present examples and describe the lessons she has learned about assisting Signs of Safety practitioners
to build rigorous safety plans in disputed cases.
Kevin Campbell, the creator of Family Finding, will challenge us about the absolute urgency
and necessity of finding those naturally connected to the children we work with. Kevin will
give a live demonstration of the Family Finding search methods showing how to find 30 or
40 people naturally connected to a child or young person in 15 minutes.
Michael Thomas from the Sanctuary Institute will present the child-focused Sanctuary model
design to transform residential care facilities into communities of care. Like Signs of Safety,
this transformation can only be genuinely implemented through whole of system organisational change.
Professor Eileen Munro, who led the 2010 Munro Review into the English Child Protection
system, will together with Dr Frank Thomas provide the concluding reflections at the Gathering. Professor Munro will engage all participants in reflecting on their learning and struggles
and will connect messages of the Gathering presentations to the bigger issues that always
swirl around, intersect and drive child protection practice.
Dr Frank Thomas, clinician, author, academic and close colleague of all the creators
of solution-focused brief therapy (on which Signs of Safety is founded) will offer reflections,
compliments and ideas drawing upon his intimate and extensive experience of the brief
therapy tradition.
Dr Mary Salveron, Professor Leah Bromfield and Mike Caslor will present on the Signs of
Safety fidelity and results logics research to date.
For Signs of Safety to fulfil its potential to transform child protection practice it requires
whole-of-system implementation; integrating practice, organisational culture, measurement
of meaningful outcomes and effective information management. In several brief presentations Dr Andrew Turnell will detail a practical vision of how the Signs of Safety can deliver
this revolution for children, families and the child protection community.
www.signsofsafety.net
Other Events
Power of Partnership DVD and Workbook
In 2014 our Dutch colleagues at Bureau Jeugdzorg
Drenthe developed a professionally produced film that
captures their Signs of Safety practice (see http://youtu.
be/w_c6K0omiec). Joke Wiggerink and Marieke Vogel
have now also completed an extensive workbook to
accompany the video. The workbook and video
combination will be released at the 2015 Signs of Safety
Gathering and all participants will receive a free copy as
part of their registration.
Gathering Dinner and Party
On the evening of Wednesday 21 October beginning at
6.30pm we will hold a dinner and party at the Oak Ridge
Conference Center. This event has been a real highlight
of past gatherings and will include a band to get us on
our feet dancing. The dinner can be paid for as an option
during the registration process.
Call for Presentations
Closing date for submissions is 12 June 2015
Submissions are invited for presentations of either 30 or
45 minutes in length. Presentations should focus on the
actual impact that the Signs of Safety has made on direct
practice. Presentations involving supervisors/practice
leaders, front-line practitioners and those that capture
the experience of families will Presentations involving
supervisors/practice leaders, front-line practitioners and
those that capture the experience of families will form the
backbone of the Gathering program.
We are looking for presenters to communicate the detail
of their practice in applying the Signs of Safety and to
describe the differences and significance of the work for
practitioners, service recipients and the agency. We’re
particularly looking for presentations that capture the
enthusiasm and energy of yourself, your colleagues and
your agency for this work.
Presentations are encouraged in all aspects of applying
Signs of Safety ideas and practice to the child protection task; from intake and investigation to ongoing work
through to case closure including areas of practice such
as assessment, safety planning, involving children and
parents, conferencing, fostercare, court work and building
collaboration among professionals. Presentations describing organisational processes, including training, supervision, management and implementation strategies and
research endeavour that support and sustain constructive
safety-organised practice are very welcome.
Enquiries
Marita Sealey
Resolutions Consultancy
marita.sealey@resolutionsconsultancy.com
Karen Sazdoff
SafeGenerations
karen.sazdoff@safegenerations.org
Presented by:
To submit a presentation application go to:
www.signsofsafety.net/presenter-application-form.
How to Register to Attend the
2015 Gathering
Register online at:
www.signsofsafety.net/event/?ee=32
• Full 3-day Registration: AUD$1,100.00
• Gathering Dinner and Dance
(Wednesday 21 October): AUD$70.00
Accommodation
The Gathering is being held at the beautiful Oak Ridge
Hotel & Conference Center. All available accommodation
at Oak Ridge has been reserved for Gathering participants and those who stay at the Oak Ridge will best
placed to enjoy the community that forms during
this event.
To secure accommodation at Oak Ridge go to
www.oakridgeminneapolis.com and use the group code
“SOS”. Other accommodation is available nearby in
Chaska and Chanhassen.
Please note that all accommodation enquiries and bookings are to be directed to the hotel you wish to stay at.
Signs of Safety Gatherings are inspiring events!
We’ve created a short video celebrating the
excitement that comes from hearing practitioners
present practice they are proud of. Click here:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=ybdHRInL2V0
Special Pre-Gathering Practice
Workshop with Susie Essex:
This skills-based workshop will focus on the four
key components of safety planning with disputed
cases: engagement, building a safety network,
words and pictures explanation for the children
and building the safety plan itself.
Safety Planning with
High-risk Disputed
Child Protection Cases
Monday 19 October 2015
9.30am to 4.30pm
Oak Ridge Conference Center
Cost: AUD$350.00
Register online at:
www.signsofsafety.net/event/?ee=35
“
“
Nobody I know knows more about
safety planning in contentious
child protection cases than Susie Essex.
Andrew Turnell
Susie will present examples from recent work
she has done consulting on high-risk cases with
child protection teams around the world, looking
particularly at the lessons she is learning about
how to best assist Signs of Safety practitioners to
build rigorous safety plans in contentious cases.
Susie will also provide direct consultation on cases
brought by workshop participants and will involve
all attendees in the consultation process.
Susie Essex is a Consulting Family
Therapist with over thirty years
experience. She is the principal
co-creator of the Resolutions Approach to working with disputed
Situations where parents reject serious child
abuse allegations made against them are often
deemed impossible or untreatable.
Professionals usually struggle with questions like:
• How can I create safety when the parents
won’t admit to the problem?
• Aren’t the children constantly being
re-traumatised by the parents’ ‘denial’?
• When is reunification a reasonable risk to take?
• How can we involve the children in the process
of building a safe future?
• In building up a safety plan, when is it enough?
child abuse and is the architect of
the child-focused, safety planning
methods that have been incorporated into the Signs of Safety
approach. Susie and Andrew Turnell have worked closely
together since 1996 in both clinical practice and training. They
have collaborated on numerous writing projects including
their book, Working with ‘denied’ child abuse: the Resolutions
Approach. Since her retirement Susie takes on occasional
work alongside licensed Signs of Safety trainers providing indepth case consultation on complex child protection cases.
Book early as this pre-Gathering workshop
is limited to 60 places and will fill quickly.
signs
safety
OF
®
www.signsofsafety.net