The lack of “professional’s curiosity” has been identified as a point of learning across Medway multi agency audits as well as in local and national Serious Case Reviews. The term professional curiosity is interchanged with “respectful uncertainty”, “professional courage”, “professional/healthy scepticism”, “thinking the unthinkable”, “finding the why” and “questioning minds”. Professional curiosity is an essential skill for professionals working with families to support keeping children, and their families, safe.

What is Professional Curiosity?

Professional curiosity is the capacity and communication skill to explore and understand what is happening with a family rather than making assumption or accepting things at face value. It is about professionals looking for evidence to support their assessment, and for information that may not support. Professionals can be misled with stories we want to believe are true, particularly if we are overly optimistic about what change a family can make, are over empathising with a family or are eager to see our hard work make a difference. Children, and adults, may not make direct disclosures about the abuse or neglect they are suffering. Instead they may be disclosing through their behaviour or language, and this needs to be “unpicked” by professionals to identify abuse, neglect or unmet needs. Being open minded and curious will help to make an informed assessment of the child, and families’, lived experiences. Curious professionals will spend time engaging with families on visits or during contacts using their skills to observe and interact.

Reflections for practice

• Direct work tools and activities with children are key to ascertain the views and feeling of children.
• Professionals need to listen to parents, other adults or siblings when they try to speak on behalf of children as they may have important information to contribute. However;
• Parents and carers can easily prevent professionals from seeing and listening to the child. Families may also seek professionals who they can manipulate or collude with.
• Effective multi agency work needs to be coordinated.
• Questions should be asked in an open way so that families know it is about safeguarding the child/ren not to judge or criticise.
• Challenging parents (and colleagues) requires expertise, confidence, time and a considerable amount of emotional energy.
• All professionals have their own jargon. Professionals need to ask about acronyms or what something might mean for a child e.g. complex diagnosis.

Behaviours that should prompt professional curiosity in parents/carers:

• Only one parent/carer speaks or waits for the other to speak first or checks for reactions when they do. Could there be domestic abuse?
• The parent/carer minimises any reported issues, conflicts or reported incidents.
• One parent/carer makes a range of complaints about the other which they do not defend.
• Parent/carer is unable to make changes despite support.
• Parent/carer does not have funds to provide for basic needs of a child despite receiving an income/benefits.
• Parents/carers do not bring children to appointments or repeatedly cancel/reschedule.
• Are there other people in the family life exerting their opinion or control over the family?
• Disguised compliance.
• Discrepancies between their accounts and the presentation of the child.
• Avoiding interventions.
• Attempts to get professionals to focus on their needs.
• Pushing for diagnosis of conditions they feel their children have.
• Adults claim their behaviour has changed without intervention.

Behaviours that should prompt professional curiosity in children:

• Children under the age of consent for sexual activity reporting sexual contact or accessing sexual health services.
• Presenting at services under the influence of drugs/alcohol. Or reports of substance use.
• Repeatedly going missing from home, school or other placement.
• Have there been changes in the child’s appearance, behaviour, alertness or appetite?
• Have friendship groups changed?
• Making and then retracting allegations.

Questions for professionals to ask themselves

• Do I have an understanding of the family, and child’s, histories?
• Do I know who is in the home and in the child’s life?
• Does the assessment reflect consideration of trauma and its impact?
• Have I identified how the parents feel about each of their children?
• Have I considered what the child would say about themselves?
• Have I asked or searched for corroborative evidence for the things I have been told? E.g. reported diagnosis.
• Am I relying on self-reporting?
• Are there any discrepancies in accounts?
• Have preconceived ideas about a parent/carer as either “good” of “bad” influenced how involved they are in assessments regarding their children? Are their concerns disregarded because they are seen as unreliable due to their own needs or behaviours?
• Have I spoken to more than just the parents/carers?
• Are there other adults/siblings/peers or professionals I should talk to?
• Are there any grey areas? Do I have unanswered questions?
• Have presenting behaviours been explored? Does the assessment identify any motivations for the behaviour?
• Do I have a comprehensive understanding of what the lived experience each day is for each of the children I am working with and their family members?
• Have I communicated in a way that is accessible to the child and family?
• Have I considered the child and families’ faith, culture, nationality, family pattern and life style?
• Do I have the specialist knowledge to assess the needs of children and adult with various health diagnosis?

Manager’s responsibilities

Being professionally curious enables practitioners to challenge parents and explore a child’s vulnerability or risk while maintaining an objective, professional and supportive manner. This is not an easy balance.

Professionals need to be supported through good quality training to help them develop and have access to support and supervision.

Managers are in a key position to model that challenge is acceptable, and should demonstrate how it can be done in a constructive way so that professionals have more confidence in challenging parents. Professionals need to be supported to ensure they do not feel they are being too nosey or intrusive.

Managers need to foster the practice of practitioners exercising their professional judgement in the light of circumstances of a particular case. Standardised tools can reduce uncertainty but they do not replace professional judgement.

Professionals needs to be supported in how they can articulate “intuition” into an evidenced, professional view and discuss “gut feeling” with other professionals. Managers are in a position to “play devil’s advocate” and present alternative hypotheses, they could also ask the practitioner to present the case from the child’s or other family member’s perspective.

Where it has been identified that there was a lack of professional curiosity in a case practitioners need to be supported to identify the barriers rather than apportion blame. Barriers include disguised compliance, the “rule of optimism” where we rationalise away new or escalating risks despite clear evidence to the contrary, not seeing the whole picture of accumulating risk, normalisation of behaviour that is not acceptable, perceived status of colleagues and acceptance of their opinion over your own, confirmation bias in that we seek evidence to support the view we have made, “knowing but not knowing” having a grasp that something is not right but not exactly what or lacking confidence to manage tension.

Considerations for professional curiosity in practice:

• There is some evidence that an empathetic approach by professionals may result in an increased level of trust and a more open family response, leading to greater disclosure
• Where domestic abuse is suspected professionals need to find a safe way of speaking to potential victims alone to make safe enquiries.
• Proceeding on false information may result in a child, or victim of abuse, being at significant risk of harm.
• Fixed views about men, about perpetrators of domestic abuse, young parents, parents with substance misuse issues/problematic mental health issues or learning disabilities need to be addressed.
• Teenages can be seen as troublesome young people rather than the vulnerable children they are. They are also not listened to when raising concerns about their friends.
• Fear of asking too much so that children and families will not re-engage/attend with services.
• Link analysis to the Strengthening Families framework, especially “Complicating factors/Grey areas”.

Multi-agency collaboration

Multi-agency collaboration, consistency and ongoing communication, is key to establishing the true picture of how children and their families experience life. Where a child and family are open to a number of services it is easy for a professional to assume that one of the others will be identifying issues and managing ongoing concerns. Every practitioner must take responsibility for their role in the safeguarding process.

Remember! Be curious, be sceptical, think critically and systematically but act compassionately.

This guidance should be read in conjunction with the Kent and Medway Safeguarding Procedures and the MSCP Factsheet “Resistant, uncooperative and hard to change families”.