Safeguarding adults: from realism to ritual
Abstract
Purpose
The landscape of adult social care, and in particular of adult safeguarding, has shifted considerably over the last decade. Alongside policy changes in the responses to adult abuse, there have been shifts in professional and public understanding of what falls within the remit of this area of work. This results, arguably, in differing understandings of how adult safeguarding is constructed and understood. Given the increasing emphasis on multi-agency inter-professional collaboration, service user involvement and lay advocacy, it is important to consider and reflect on how both professionals and lay people understand this area of work. The paper aims to discuss these issues.
Design/methodology/approach
This study employed Augusto Boal’s model of Forum Theatre to explore how a variety of professional and lay groups understood, related to and engaged with how the Care Act 2014 defines and describes “adult safeguarding”.
Findings
Lay participants responded to the scenario in a variety of ways, upholding the construct validity of “adult safeguarding” and the authority of the social worker. Social care and health practitioners sought orderly, professionalised and sometimes ritualistic solutions to the “adult safeguarding” scenario presented, seeking carefully to structure and to manage lay involvement. Inter-professional collaboration was often problematic. The role of lay advocates was regarded ambiguously and ambivalently.
Originality/value
This paper offers a number of practice and research recommendations. Safeguarding practitioners could benefit from more effective and reflexive inter-professional collaboration. Both practitioners and service users could benefit from the more thoughtful deployment of the lay advocates encouraged within the Care Act 2014 and associated guidance.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge the inspiration of Ira and Marie Lightman, Catherine Dunn and Matt Hargrave in the preparation of the initial anti-model Forum Theatre script. The authors acknowledge the guidance of Mick Hill, Toby Brandon, Alison Steven, Pauline Pearson, Donna Burrows and Ollie Harness in the preparation of the Forum Theatre workshop formats. The authors acknowledge the scrutiny of Cat Meredith and Andy Fletcher in their comments upon drafts of this paper, and extend their thanks to their proofread Wendy Morton and to the two anonymous peer reviewers who scrutinised the initial submission.
Citation
Yoeli, H., Lonbay, S.P., Morey, S. and Pizycki, L. (2016), "Safeguarding adults: from realism to ritual", The Journal of Adult Protection, Vol. 18 No. 6, pp. 329-340. https://doi.org/10.1108/JAP-06-2016-0011
Publisher
:Emerald Group Publishing Limited
Copyright © 2016, Emerald Group Publishing Limited