Speakers 

Dr Mary Baginsky, Dr Carl Purcell and Dr Nicole Steils (King's College London)

Overview of the webinar

The failure of public agencies such as children’s social care (CSC), health and the police to share information about children and families has been repeatedly identified as a factor contributing to missed opportunities to protect children from harm in England. Specific failings relating to information on men in children’s lives who may pose a danger have also been highlighted, including in the Myth of the Invisible Men report published by the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel in 2021. Successive governments have sought to address these failings by mandating the reform of local multi-agency governance structures and by seeking to influence day-to-day interactions between agencies including CSC, health, the police, schools and others with child safeguarding responsibilities. This seminar will consider these ongoing national reforms by drawing on previous research on the barriers and facilitators to information-sharing and the findings from four cases studies that examined local initiatives to improve inter-agency information sharing. It will be argued that three key themes need to be carefully considered in the design and implementation of multi-agency structures and working practices: (1) resources and organisational commitment to multi-agency working; (2) communication between professionals; and (3) competing perspectives on sharing information without consent.

The seminar will draw on the recently published article:

Purcell, C., Baginsky, M., & Steils, N. (2025). No quick fixes: multi-agency working to improve information-sharing on men and keep children safe. British Journal of Social Work. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1093/bjsw/bcaf249

Please book on MS Teams for this online-only event.

This event is part of Contemporary issues and debates in social work education, research and practice.