Section 4.3: Tone and Methodology

Good Practice Advice 

The way in which the SPR is conducted should form part of the ToRs, and needs to be completed before a Reviewer can be appointed.  However, there needs to be scope to amend the detail of the ToR once the Reviewer is appointed, as they should be advising on the best way to conduct the Review.

Learning does not start and end with the SPR, and the purpose of the exercise is not to produce a report. The SPR is merely one part of the process designed to facilitate discussions to produce learning and improvement.

Adopting an appropriate tone and methodology is essential if the Review process is going to help to deliver learning which results in actual change. This is particularly the case if change in beliefs, values, behaviours and culture are needed.

An approach which:

• treats all involved (that is victims, survivors, respondents, clergy and staff, volunteers) with empathy, respect and compassion as valuable and complex human beings who matter;
• is dialogical, seeing all those involved as partners in the development of understanding and solution finding;
• is marked by genuine curiosity and transparency;
• is marked by creative ways of exploring issues relevant to the circumstances;
• prepares those who will be involved to address anxieties and fears,
• is more likely to help bring about genuine change than one marked by fear, threat, fixed and strongly held positions, and inflexibility.

This also applies to informal reviews, where the opportunity to be more creative in approach is much greater.

This might mean that as well as the more “formal” aspects of the Review such as the chronology and meeting with those who were involved, there may be more informal aspects which might help the Reviewer to “get inside” the organisation to really understand why things happened the way they did. This might include things like attending particular services,  observing meetings to fully understand the dynamics involved or convening groups of relevant people and facilitating a reflective dialogue.

The consultation with respondents about the ToR and any follow up communication and explanation relating to the final version of the ToR can be done by a member of the Review Group, providing the required information sharing agreements are in place.

Two examples of specific methodologies which could be adopted are below. The Learning Together model by the Social Care Institute of Excellence focuses on how organisations can improve their practice by learning about the causes of the safeguarding incidents, taking the wider context of other ‘systems’ that they interact with. It specifically focusses on:

• using systems thinking to gain a deeper understanding of current local practice and cultivate an open, learning culture;
• building internal capacity by having staff trained and accredited in the Learning Together approach to reviewing;
• undertaking rigorous case reviews and audits using a core set of principles and analytic tools;
• building on the experience and findings of previous reviews

The website contains helpful advice for organisations about commissioning reviews, deciding on the skills of the Reviewer suitable for their purposes, and quality assurance.

Practice Review Framework – developed in Wales and suitable for reviewing both children and adults’ safeguarding failures, this model emphasises speedy completion of reviews to ensure quick implementation of learning. This has been compared favourably to more traditional approaches to reviews in the study ‘Comparing Safeguarding Review Methodologies'.