Revised Safer Me assessment and referral forms

The Safer Me Assessment, MACE submission forms and Context Conference Referral Forms have now been revised following a multi-agency review and are available on the Devon SCP website (Adolescent Safety Framework (Safer Me) and Child exploitation information for professionals).

The Safer Me Assessment has been streamlined to reduce the amount of time they take to complete. This has also been done to enable a continued focus on the strengths, vulnerabilities and contextual influences that impact on a young person’s safety outside of the home and risk of harm through exploitation.

Safer Me Assessments should be completed with any young person where there are concerns in relation to exploitation. Assessments should clearly reflect the voice of the young person and should be directly informing the wider plan of support and safeguarding activity. They should be seen as dynamic risk assessments and reviewed at regular intervals and when significant changes occur in the young person’s life. Additional guidance on completion of Safer Me Assessments has been produced with the input of young people.

In addition, separate referral forms have now also been created for the following.

• Context conferences (peer groups, schools, neighbourhoods)
• MACE (persons and locations of concern)

These forms, along with guidance on completion and where to send them, are available on the Adolescent Safety Framework (Safer Me) page and the Child exploitation information for professionals page, respectively.

The forms support a professional focus on specific contexts, i.e. peer groups, schools, neighbourhoods, persons of concern and locations of concern. Once completed and forwarded to the relevant place, they will be triaged for consideration of next steps in terms of a contextual response. Please note that contextual responses do not replace any individual safeguarding pathways and where individual young people are identified due to risk or harm or wider support needs, professionals still need to ensure that the relevant individual safeguarding responses are triggered.

For more information regarding the new assessment and referral tools, or if you have any further queries that are not answered on the Devon SCP website, please contact one of the Links Team Managers: Jen Harris-Nelson (jen.harris-nelson@devon.gov.uk) or Nick Meller (nick.meller@devon.gov.uk)