Making Safeguarding Personal

We are working with ADASS to develop and deliver a support offer to help councils and their partners embed the Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) approach.

Partners in Care and Health banner

Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is a sector-led initiative which aims to develop an outcomes focus to safeguarding work, and a range of responses to support people to improve or resolve their circumstances. Part of the Care and Health Improvement Programme, the work is supported by the LGA with the Association of Directors of Adult Social Care (ADASS) and other national partners and seeks to promote this approach and share good practice."

A series of tools to support MSP, measure effectiveness and improve safeguarding practice is available below. Further resources to support local areas’ roles and responsibilities in keeping people safe are available, including publications on safeguarding enquiries and reviews, resources for Safeguarding Adults Boards and work on the links between safeguarding and homelessness. 

Making safeguarding personal videos

The Making Safeguarding Personal videos were developed by Research in Practice for the safeguarding adults workstream of the Care and Health Improvement Partnership in 2022. They are tools for practitioners, trainers and anyone else to be used to promote a person centred, outcome focused and strength based approach to safeguarding adults.

Self-neglect workbook

Making Safeguarding Personal in self-neglect workbook, produced by Research in Practice, draws on evidence from research and safeguarding adult reviews (SARs) to identify how making safeguarding personal can make a difference to the health, wellbeing and safety of people who are self-neglecting. 

Implementing MSP

Making Safeguarding Personal toolkit 

The fourth edition of the MSP practice toolkit, produced in January 2020, outlines an approach to and effective application of safeguarding, alongside a range of resources and practice based case examples.

Making safeguarding personal case studies (October 2019)

The MSP case studies from October 2019 illustrate outcome focused practice in safeguarding adults in line with the MSP approach. They are from nine council areas who put forward case studies, with local areas welcome to put forward further case studies.

Myths and realities of MSP

The briefing, published in November 2019, stresses that MSP is not just about safeguarding practice but also about prevention, and strategic as well as operational safeguarding.

Discriminatory abuse

Discriminatory abuse: a briefing for practitioners forms part of a larger piece of work, and series of activities and resources, to gain a better understanding of discriminatory abuse, and how to recognise equality characteristics in case management, and more broadly recognise unconscious bias and discrimination in practice, approaches and strategies within adult safeguarding.

Measuring MSP

Making Safeguarding Personal Outcomes Framework

The Making Safeguarding Personal Outcomes Framework (MSPOF) was developed to provide a means of promoting and measuring practice that supports an outcomes focus and person led approach to safeguarding adults The framework aims to enable councils and SABs to better identify how practice is impacting on outcomes, indicate areas for improvement, enable bench marking, and share best practice and learning.

It underlines the importance of including qualitative information in developing an understanding the difference that safeguarding support makes for people. It also refers to the significance of case file audit within this, with this resource providing some local examples of case file audit tools and guidance/methodologies.

Due to COVID-19, the MSPOF project was paused in 2019/20 but there continues to be interest in participation.

Leading MSP

Resources for Safeguarding Adults Boards

This suite of resources is intended to support Safeguarding Adults Boards (SABs) and partners in developing and promoting MSP.

Working with risk

This range of resources is aimed at those on working with risk in the context of Making Safeguarding Personal, with a focus on Safeguarding Adults Boards.

MSP development (2012-17)

Activity developing the MSP approach from 2012/13 to 2017 includes the 'temperature check', an assessment of MSP in local areas in 2015-17, alongside recommendations on embedding MSP, with many examples of good practice.

Other resources to support work on safeguarding adults