Safeguarding

Annual Safeguarding Report

This report presents Key's safeguarding performance for 2024/25, demonstrating strong compliance and effective safeguarding practices. Key highlights include:

• 114 safeguarding incidents recorded (down from 149 in 2023)
• 100% compliance with 24-hour reporting targets, exceeding the 90% KPI
• Identified improvement areas in Domestic Abuse Services and Homeless Schemes regarding SIR completion
• All staff up to date with mandatory safeguarding training and DBS checks

The report identifies specific areas requiring attention, particularly around consistent SIR completion and ongoing staff awareness, while acknowledging the positive decision-making in place.

Impacts and issues

The safeguarding incident reporting process was updated during 2020, to ensure that safeguarding concerns are recorded and signed off by a manager. This provides evidence of the decision-making process including where the decision is made not to refer on to statutory services. Each incident needs timely sign off by a manager. A KPI was set to monitor performance against this. Pre 2024/25 safeguarding reports had been recorded within a calendar year, for consistency and in line with other reporting, this report now runs from April to March.

For reference the number of SIR's for Jan to March 2024 have been recorded in this report, but the focus/narrative of the report refers to the April 2024 to March 2025 figures only.

The table below shows the number of safeguarding incidents recorded during 2024/25 with comparisons to previous years. There has been a slight reduction in safeguarding concerns in 2024/25 when compared to 2023 decreasing from 149 to 114. A reduction of 24%.

Emotional Health and Wellbeing Service

The Emotional Health and Wellbeing (EHWB) team work with school aged children. During 2024/25 58 (50 individuals) SIR's have been completed by the team. This is a reduction of 29% when compared to the previous year. This area continues to be the highest area of reporting; this is to be expected as the service is working with children many of whom are struggling significantly with their emotional health. The service provides a safe place for young people to explore their emotions, and this often leads to safeguarding concerns.

Breakdown of concerns:
•    Suicidal ideation: 15 cases (previously 24 in 2022, 6 in Jan-Mar 2024)
•    Physical abuse: 15 cases (12 in 2022, 11 in 2023)
•    Self-harm: 9 cases (7 in 2022, 22 in 2023)
•    Neglect: 9 cases (4 in 2022, 2 in 2023)
•    Emotional abuse: 7 cases (11 in 2022, 12 in 2023)
•    Bullying: 6 cases (9 in 2022, 7 in 2023)
•    Sexual abuse: 1 case
•    Other: 20 cases

Schools Counselling 

There have been 2 safeguarding concerns reported in Key's work in schools who have directly commissioned us. The reporting of safeguarding continues to be low in these settings. This is related to the way children in these services are referred for support. Commonly there has been a safeguarding concern prior to referral that is being dealt with by the school and other agencies, we are made aware of the concern as part of the referral, but safeguarding actions are already in place. The support we provide is to support after the concern.

Drop-In

Drop-in have raised 20 SIR's (19 individuals). The number of SRI's for Drop-in has reduced significantly during 2024/25. This will be linked to the reduction in individuals seen in Drop- in from 206 in 2023 to 152 in 2024/2025. The percentage of cases for 16/17-year-olds where there is a SRI is in place has increased.

In 2024/25, 17 of the 20 SIR's were from 16/17-year-olds, 15 of those 17 involved "homelessness" as the safeguarding issue. Homelessness for 16/17-year-olds remains the main safeguarding issue.

• Existing support in place: A young person may already be receiving appropriate support from a social worker. Often a young person's social worker may accompany them to Key services. 
• Family reconciliation potential: The situation may be that the young person would like to explore living independently but there is no reason that they cannot continue to live at home safely. 
• Family mediation successful: The family can be supported to understand the limited options and difficulties of a young person living alone and are willing for the young person to continue to live as part of the family unit. Young people are often supported to explore different perspectives and reflect on their own behaviour and the behaviour of others. This can support them to successfully remain at home. 
• Thorough assessment completed: Our services thoroughly explore family dynamics and assess whether the 16/17-year-old can safely remain within the family home. We actively engage with parents and guardians to discuss options and support, ensuring a holistic approach that addresses the needs of both the young person and their family.

Note: Completing this review has highlighted one case that should have had a SIR, but one was not completed - a referral was done to CSC but no SIR.

Homelessness Schemes

14 cases (9 individuals). 5 individuals were from Inn2/Foundations, the remaining 4 were from the Bridge/Parker House. The safeguarding reporting shows timely decision making and staff at the scheme appropriately involving other agencies such as the Mental Health Team and Children's Social Care.

A review of the data has shown under reporting in two cases. SIR’s had not completed for one individual who was referred to Adult Social Care and one where a young man was drinking heavily. These cases had been dealt with appropriately in terms of outcomes and working with other agencies. Further work has taken place to support the manager to understand when the SIR documentation should be completed and this will be further embedded with this team.

Domestic Abuse Services

There have been 10 SIRs completed (9 individuals). SIR's have increased from 3 in 2023. This area requires focused attention. Full case review audits have taken place in quarter 1 of 2025/26 and early indications are that the team are recording appropriately on the case management system and that appropriate actions are referenced in notes which show that people are being kept safe. However, this is not all being captured using the SIR process.

Other Services 

Other Services breakdown: Tenancy Support (0), Mediation (7), Community Counsellor (3), Base (1)
Notable trend: 7 of the 12 Sirs’ are from Mediation, compared with 1 in 2023. The families supported have become more complex with an increase in neurodivergent young people, and people struggling with their mental health including anxiety, depression & obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Considerations for potential under-reporting in other service areas: Consideration has been given to whether there is any under-reporting across other services. This has led to useful insights:

Tenancy Support Services:Often people are being supported who have moved due to domestic abuse. They are commonly already supported by IDVAs (Independent Domestic Violence Advisors) and other related services. The team are often aware of broader social work involvement with families and may be involved with Team Around the Family meetings, but these cases have not been opened because of concerns raised by our teams - rather, our role is providing practical housing support within an existing safeguarding framework.

Community Counselling: As Community Counselling provides a therapeutic space for adults, we must carefully balance confidentiality with safeguarding responsibilities. Only serious concerns regarding imminent risk of serious harm to self or others would be considered for action outside of the therapeutic relationship. This protected therapeutic space is essential - if clients cannot trust that their explorations of complex emotions, past traumas, and difficult feelings will remain confidential, they would not feel safe to engage in the deep therapeutic work necessary for healing and recovery. This careful balance ensures that safeguarding thresholds are appropriately high while maintaining the integrity of the therapeutic relationship.

The Base Community Work: Our work at the Base community centre represents informal community work where community members trust staff to discuss their lives openly. This is a non-judgmental space where we only report on safeguarding concerns where there would be a legal requirement to do so. We try to work alongside people to empower them to make better choices rather than taking more formal action. Most of the people supported are adults who need a safe space to process their experiences and challenges. This informal, accessible approach allows community members to engage more readily with support, often reaching people who might not access formal services. The safeguarding threshold in this setting appropriately focuses on situations where there is a legal duty to act, while preserving the trust and accessibility that makes these community-based interventions effective. This careful balance ensures that we don't inadvertently create barriers to help-seeking by over-reacting to disclosures that, while concerning, don't meet the legal threshold for formal safeguarding action. The empowerment approach enables adults to maintain agency over their lives while receiving the support they need.

This analysis demonstrates that lower SIR numbers in some services may reflect appropriate role boundaries and effective multi-agency working, rather than missed safeguarding opportunities.

Compliance Monitoring

Training and DBS Compliance

Conclusion