It takes a place: multi-agency safeguarding in Family Hubs

Key findings

Professionals recognise the importance of information sharing but face multiple barriers

Practitioners face technical, procedural and cultural barriers to effective information sharing. These barriers include system incompatibility, unclear consent rules and access restrictions. Parental trust in practitioners highlights these practice barriers, with parents reporting lower levels of trust in some professionals due to worries about information sharing and receiving inconsistent advice.

Crisis-focused systems don’t meet the needs of early years safeguarding

Current safeguarding systems designed around crisis intervention don’t align with the preventative nature of early help and early years pathways. Practitioners reported holding disproportionate responsibility for identifying early risk and thresholds for help were applied inconsistently between agencies.

Relationships drive safeguarding

Trusting, consistent relationships are vital for effective safeguarding practice. Strong working relationships between professionals support constructive challenge and promote shared decision-making, while trusted relationships with families help to identify needs and concerns earlier. Data shows that help-seeking is relational, with parents reporting feeling more comfortable approaching GPs, health visitors, early years staff and midwives than social workers and the police.

Professional confidence and strong leadership are key to effective safeguarding

Safeguarding roles and responsibilities are often unclear within and between agencies, leading to poor communication and practice. Practitioner training is also often generic rather than context specific or multi-agency. This leads to practitioners feeling less confident in identifying need, making referrals and navigating thresholds.

Awareness of Family Hubs and consistency in their delivery needs to be improved

Family Hubs currently operate inconsistently across England and parents are often unaware of the services available locally. Parents reported hearing about local services through health visitors, midwives and GPs, suggesting that health professionals can potentially help to raise awareness of Family Hubs.

Recommendations

The Government should:

1. Clearly explain how Family Hubs link with local services that keep children safe, including social workers, health workers, teachers and early years practitioners, so everyone knows their roles and how they fit together.
2. Make sure Family Hubs have strong, stigma‑free links to children’s social care, offering advice to staff and quick referrals when needed, while still staying open and welcoming to all families.
3. Make it mandatory for all professionals in Family Hubs to follow a joined-up approach to safeguarding, ensuring everyone uses the same language, understands risk levels and can make informed decisions.
4. Strengthen evaluations to measure how well children are being kept safe, by using shared data across the system.
5. Prioritise a coherent national and local approach which makes Family Hubs easier to find and understand as well as more embedded into communities.