The solution-focused approach
Solution-focused practice is a structured way of holding a conversation that takes the difficulty seriously and keeps the next step in view. In safeguarding, what has happened and what the evidence shows always matter; the aim is not to skip that, but not to stay with the problem longer than is useful. We look at what’s already working, however small; what a good outcome would actually look like; and what one step, however modest, would move things forward. It was developed by Steve de Shazer, Insoo Kim Berg and colleagues at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, with a strong emphasis on observing what actually helped people make progress. I trained in it in 2000, working alongside Eileen Murphy Consultants to bring it into secondary schools in Leicester, and I’ve used it in supportive conversations, mentoring and coaching ever since.
How it fits with other supervision models
Put simply, good supervision does three things: it helps keep children safe and your decisions sound, it helps you grow in the role, and it checks that you are okay.
Two well-established models, widely used in UK social care and related settings, describe this in more detail. Brigid Proctor calls these the normative, formative and restorative functions of supervision. Tony Morrison’s 4x4x4 model adds a fourth, about how you work with your school and other agencies. It also reminds us that supervision serves the child, you, your school and partner agencies, and it works through a case in stages, from what happened to what you will do next.
Solution-focused practice isn’t an alternative to these models. It comes from a different tradition, and where those models set out what supervision should achieve, solution-focused practice is a specific, structured way of holding the conversation itself: built around noticing what’s already working, clarifying what a good outcome looks like, and identifying the next small step. The two work together: the supervision I offer covers the same ground of accountability, development and support. The difference is in how the conversation is held.
Frank Thomas, author of Solution-Focused Supervision (2013), makes a point I would underline: a supervisor doesn’t simply accept any solution that works, but asks whether it is good enough for everyone it affects. In safeguarding, that means the child first.
Why I use a solution-focused approach
In more than two decades of using it, I have found that a conversation focused on what’s working and what’s next helps people leave with a decision they can act on.
The same principles underpin Signs of Safety, a strengths-based framework widely used in child protection in England, in which I’m also trained. I’ve trained in restorative approaches too, which share the same respect for relationships and for putting things right.
In practice
This means a few recurring moves. Noticing exceptions: times a difficult situation was handled a little better, or didn’t happen at all, and what was different about those times. Scaling: rating where things stand right now, and naming what one point higher would look like. Future talk: building a clear, concrete picture of what ‘better’ means in practice, rather than staying with what’s wrong. None of this means avoiding hard questions. It means asking them in a way that leaves you somewhere to go, not just a clearer account of the problem.
Safeguarding work rarely gives you time to sit with a difficulty for its own sake. A solution-focused conversation respects that: it takes what’s genuinely hard seriously, and it’s built to leave you clearer about your next step, not just heard.