Research activities

SRIM

Agencies working together to keep children safe and share the right information: Working with men (SRIM)

For years, policy reports have highlighted the need for better information sharing between agencies and professionals to improve child safeguarding. Despite advice from the Department for Education (DfE), there is still confusion about when to share information.

The project has been designed to take account of the fact that information sharing is just one aspect of multiagency collaboration and is intimately connected with the structures and arrangements that are in place.

Dates: 1 July 2024 - 30 April 2025
Funder: National Institute for Health and Care Research

Project description 

Over the years policy reports and guidance documents have indicated the importance of information sharing across agencies and between professionals to improve safeguarding arrangements. The Department for Education (DfE) produced advice for practitioners providing safeguarding services to children, young people, parents and carers, but there continued to be evidence that professionals were not clear when they should be sharing information.

Aims

The aim is to evaluate the effectiveness of models of information sharing in order to provide guidance to local authorities and other agencies.

The objectives are to:

  • explore whether specific service configurations across early help and family support contribute to improved information sharing about fathers
  • provide blueprints and lessons for local authorities and practitioners on transfer of an information sharing initiative from one locality to another
  • identify factors that may improve the awareness of and confidence to share information
  • capture views on revised guidance from the DfE, published in May 2024.

Methods

Document analysis, observations, interviews and focus groups.

Further project information

Principal Investigator: Mary Baginsky (KCL)

Research team: Carl Purcell (KCL), Nicola Steils (KCL)

Countries: England

Keywords: information sharing, fathers/significant men, multi-agency, harm, co-production