Professional Curiosity

Professional curiosity has been an emerging theme, increasingly identified in learning from adult serious case reviews (SCRs) and safeguarding adult reviews (SARs) (Braye et al., 2017; Preston-Shoot, 2017).

Locally this has also been the case, with the following SARs identifying learning that there was a need for greater professional curiosity

• Extended SAR Report – Jack 
• Learning Briefing for professionals – Jack

• Rapid Review SAR Report – John
• Learning Briefing for professionals – John

• SAR Peter
• Learning Briefing for professionals – Peter

• SAR Ruth Executive Summary
• Learning Briefing for professionals – Ruth

• Learning Briefing for professionals – Lucy

• Learning Briefing for professionals – BS 

• SAR Mr & Mrs Jones 
• Learning Briefing for professionals – Mr & Mrs Jones 

Specific Areas identified in SARs

Within some of these reviews there were some specific recommendations for practitioners to address as part of their practice these included:

•  recording with the person from the initial contact   their preference on methods of future contact.
• if they become aware of a specific risk presented by a person they are delivering services to, they  should consider the need to make other agencies  aware of that potential risk;
• referrals should always be made to the relevant organisations where possible unmet care and health needs have been identified, regardless of any assurances provided by the person about existing agency involvement. ( subject to obtaining the consent of the person or considering whether there are grounds to override the person’s wishes)

Think the Unthinkable

The SAR on Mary, a 20 year old young lady, who needed 24 hour assistance for her complex needs and was found to be pregnant at 30 weeks,   also called for the need for more professional challenge and the need for practitioners to ‘think the unthinkable’ .

• SAR Mary – Executive Summary
• Learning Briefing for professionals – Mary

Domestic Homicide Review – 18

Local a Domestic Homicide Review was published that made the following recommendation on Professional Curiosity:

All frontline practitioners and supervisors should be reminded of the need to accept responsibility for making safeguarding referrals to other services, and not to assume that other agencies /professionals will make necessary referrals.
An effective referral should also contain sufficient case history for the Agency receiving the referral to understand the service users’ needs to enable them to make a fully informed decision about the provision of service.

Additional Resource

For more information on professional curiosity, including resources follow the link to our information and resource page.

WSAB Professional Curiosity Page