Education Adviser at SFE, Emma Mudge, explores what contextual safeguarding is, why working with parents matters, and practical strategies for DSLs to consider…

Designated Safeguarding Leads (DSLs) increasingly face safeguarding concerns that originate outside the home – in peer groups, neighbourhoods, schools, and online arenas. This is the essence of contextual safeguarding i.e. acknowledging that environments beyond family life can expose young people to harm.

By design, contextual safeguarding requires a different approach to engaging with parents. Rather than focusing only on home-based risks, DSLs must treat parents and carers as partners in identifying and mitigating external dangers. When done with care, this collaborative stance can transform outcomes for children.

What Is Contextual Safeguarding?

Throughout Working Together to Safeguard Children (2026), it is identified that safeguarding includes protecting children from maltreatment whether it is “within or outside the home, including online”. Generally put, contextual safeguarding is the latter, i.e. ‘outside the home, including online’. The Contextual Safeguarding Network provide more detail as it defines it as:

“An approach to understanding, and responding to, young people’s experiences of significant harm beyond their families. It recognises that the different relationships that young people form in their neighbourhoods, schools, and online can feature violence and abuse.”

Key areas include:

• Child Criminal Exploitation (CCE)
• Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)
• Exposure to extreme views and potential radicalisation
• Online harms – such as grooming, radicalising content, and abusive peer behaviour

Though these risks happen beyond the home, the impact on the child – and on the responsibility of the school and family – remains profound.

Why Working with Parents Matters

Working Together (2026) states clearly:

“Practitioners [should] empower parents and carers to participate in decision-making to help, support and protect children”, p.18.

This principle remains vital in contextual safeguarding. Parents uniquely understand their child’s behaviours, routines and relationships. They are often the first to notice changes that could indicate external risks. Engaging them as partners strengthens the school’s protective network and creates alignment in messaging and intervention.

How Contextual Safeguarding Differs From “Traditional” Cases

In traditional safeguarding where harm is home-based, parental involvement often centres on assessing and enhancing their protective capacity – which can involve challenging conversations.

In contextual safeguarding:

• Parents are not a risk factor; they are key enablers of safety.
• The conversation shifts from “risk within” to “risks outside” the home.
• The power imbalance which exists in ‘traditional’ safeguarding cases should be reduced, if not removed. This takes careful thought by the professionals, ensuring that the adults around the child can work together to safeguard against and mitigate the risks.
• DSLs invite parents to contribute local insights – asking, for instance, “What do you know about where your child spends time and who they are with?” – rather than presuming to already know.

This approach deepens trust and creates a shared responsibility from the outset.

Fostering a Two-Way Culture with Parents

Our level of communication with parents and families is of fundamental importance when developing our school safeguarding culture – not just when working with a specific family during an identified case of a contextual safeguarding concern, but also preventatively.

We need to find ways to ensure that we work collaboratively with the school’s community, so that we not only provide information, but we also recognise the knowledge that families have and work to gather this information too! Providing a platform for parents to be able to proactively engage with the contextual safeguarding risk in the local area can be incredibly powerful.

Clair Graham, the Head of Service for Contextual Safeguarding at Birmingham Children’s Trust at Empower U Contextual Safeguarding Hub in Birmingham, states:

“I think there needs to be a real acknowledgement about the power that parents, carers and communities have … They’re just as important as having the police as part of your partnership … They’re just as important and I don’t think we acknowledge that enough.” Birmingham Children’s Trust Parent Case Study, 2022

So, what do we have to make sure that we prioritise?

a) Sharing with parents:

• You may wish to alert them to specific contextual safeguarding concerns – e.g., local hotspot areas for exploitation, emerging online risks etc. As KCSiE states “It will be especially important for parents and carers to be aware of what their children are being asked to do online”, Paragraph 139.
• Use newsletters, online briefings, or texts in plain language- avoid jargon and ensure that the information is accessible to all parents.

The above does come with a few necessary caveats though!

Firstly, don’t scaremonger.

It is important that you are sharing balanced, factual and non-biased information, not gossip. Do not mention local businesses, etc., be very general in the information provided.

Secondly, be careful not to paint the local area in a bad light. 

It is far more powerful to encourage a sense of pride within the community, so always balance information about the contextual safeguarding risks with the positives too.

b) Gathering from parents:

• Ask what they see or hear around the community.
• Provide anonymous routes to share sensitive concerns.
• Bring parent insights into risk mapping and strategic safeguarding planning.
• Inform them of the ‘FIB’ form (Force Intelligence Bureau form) which can be used to provide non-urgent information to police (such as youth gatherings, or regular ‘package’ deliveries etc).

Point ‘b’ is critical and is often the missing link in a safeguarding team’s communication strategy.

The Impact of Effective Parental Engagement

When DSLs genuinely work with parents on contextual safeguarding:

• Intelligence improves – parents reveal real-time insights into concerning environments or peer groups.
• Interventions are earlier – behavioural or emotional shifts can be spotted sooner.
• Messages are consistent – children hear and internalise safety messaging both at school and at home.
• Communities gain resilience – informed parents spread awareness and create protective networks.

Practical Strategies for DSLs To Consider

Parent Workshops: Host informative sessions on online safety, peer pressure, exploitation risks, and radicalisation. Make them interactive, accessible and timely.

Communications: Embed contextual safeguarding themes in school newsletters, letters, and digital channels – always making them accessible and actionable. Consider creating parent-friendly glossary (e.g., explaining CCE, CSE, radicalisation).

Parent Bodies (e.g., PTA): Add contextual safeguarding to meeting agendas. Invite DSLs as informal attendees to co-develop strategies and to gather intelligence. The development of a contextual risk map using both school-led data and parent reports could be beneficial.

Proactive Culture: Encourage parents to observe and report potential risks and document parent observations. Celebrate parent champions whose vigilance protects children and informs school approaches.

Quick DSL Checklist

• Is contextual safeguarding (including online contexts) clearly defined in school policy?
• Have we co-created a risk map with local parent input?
• Are parents routinely informed about external safeguarding concerns and signs to watch?
• Do we have accessible ways for parents to raise safeguarding concerns?
• Are school staff confident explaining contextual safeguarding to parents?
• Are parents seen as partners and part of the solution?

If any of this has got you thinking and you’d like more support or advice, our expert RSHE and Safeguarding Advisers can help. Contact us on safeguarding@servicesforeducation.co.uk for more information.

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• Save Time and Resources. You won’t have to generate new ideas, collate, research, draft, and/or check content for accuracy every month. 

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  About the Author

Emma Mudge - Adviser, Services For Education

Emma has more than 20 years' experience in primary education and has worked in a variety of roles including Assistant Head Teacher, Deputy Head Teacher, and Acting Head Teacher - working at the forefront of school leadership and improvement for the majority of her career.  

Emma now works as the Educational Adviser for English sharing her experience and knowledge to continually promote and improve the standard of teaching and learning in English, and in school improvement overall. Supporting schools with the accuracy of their KS1 and KS2 writing assessments is an important part of her role, using her expertise as a member for the moderation team to inform, train and support teachers and school leaders. 

Emma is also part of the team which delivers the Health For Life programme (improving the healthy opportunities for primary aged children) and the NPQSL, where she proudly supports the development of our aspiring leaders in the city.