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The Signs of Safety Story

Andrew Turnell is the principal co-creator of the full range of models within the ‘Signs’ approaches: Signs of Safety, Signs of Wellbeing, Signs of Success and Signs of Belonging. After leading the creation of Signs of Safety in Western Australia during the 1990s in partnership with Steve Edwards, Andrew has since the turn of the century travelled the world assisting and working with organisations and professionals who were using and implementing Signs of Safety.

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Below we list a full range of Signs of Safety practice, learning and implementation methods.

 

Some method titles link to additional explanatory material. Over time we will provide information links for each of the methods

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Signs of Safety Practice Methods

Practice methods are the tools used with families, children and their naturally-connected networks alongside the key skillsets that underpin the application of the tools
 

  • Signs of Safety assessment and planning framework (Signs of Safety Map)

  • Harm Analysis

  • Hanging out in the Middle Column (what’s working)

  • My Three Houses

  • Words and Pictures Explanations

  • Network Finding and Network Involvement

  • Safety planning

  • Participatory conferencing and participatory meeting methods

  • Skillful use of authority

  • Leading with questions

Signs of Safety Learning Methods

Learning methods are designed to be used regularly within practice teams and more broadly across the agency to foster an action learning culture to enable continuous improvement about how to apply the practice methods to the wide variety of children’s services cases and contexts.

 

The three principle learning methods are:
 

  • Group Supervision

  • Appreciative Inquiry

  • Collaborative Case Audit

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Signs of Safety Implementation Methods

Implementation methods are designed to create jurisdiction and agency specific practice guidance; organisational structures; learning, meaningful measurement and leadership processes; IT alignment and other organizational arrangements to fully support the application of Signs of Safety, Wellbeing, Success and Belonging practice across the entire practice workflow. These Implementation methods include:
 

  • Implementation Planning: Details a multi-year process for aligning the organisation with the practice approach and key agency outcomes

  • Meaningful Measures Programme

    • Key Agency-specific Outcomes design

    • Collaborative Case Audit

    • Signs of Safety Agency-specific Dashboards

    • Case Management System alignment

    • Staff, children and parent surveys

  • Formation of Internal Agency Continuous Learning and Development support structures

  • Whole-system Learning Cases

  • Whole-agency Practice Intensives

  • IT Alignment Readiness Assessment

  • IT Alignment

  • Collaborative Inquiry with Critical Incidents (CICI)

  • Appreciative Leadership

  • Leading with Questions

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