Sheffield Children Safeguarding Partnership

Hidden Harm Strategy and Implementation Plan

Hidden Harm Strategy.  Drug and Alcohol Misuse, Domestic Abuse, Harmful Gambling and Mental Ill Health in the Household. 2021 -2025

Recognising, understanding, safeguarding, and improving the health and well-being of children and families living in households with drug and alcohol misuse, mental ill health, parental conflict, domestic abuse, and harmful gambling, is at the core of the Strategy. To achieve this the following seven key Strategic Priorities have been identified.

These will form the foundation of the Hidden Harm Implementation Plan:

1. Collaborative Working between Services;
2. Universal Prevention and Early Intervention;
3. Whole Household Approach;
4. Adverse Childhood Experiences and Being Trauma Informed;
5. Support, Treatment and Recovery;
6. Commissioning and Governance;
7. Data Collection.

This strategy commits Sheffield’s services to improving outcomes for whole households where drug and alcohol misuse, harmful gambling, domestic abuse and or mental ill health is a feature and will:

• Encompass a Whole Family Approach, including fathers, mothers, significant others as well as children, young people, and their siblings and ensure their voices are heard in all assessments and multi-agency meetings.
• Support practitioners and services, through delivering training and developing tools and resources, to recognise and reduce the impact on children and families of living in households with drug and alcohol misuse, mental ill health, parental conflict, domestic abuse, and harmful gambling.
• Promote collaborative working between services through shared information and discussion, shared understanding and thinking, joint assessment and plans and shared formulation.
• Acknowledge that partnership working and continuity of communication benefits families and safeguards people from being retraumatised by having to repeat their story to each service.
• Support and enable front line practitioners to look beyond the presenting problem and to utilise the full range of support available in Sheffield to offer appropriate interventions that will benefit households featuring vulnerabilities.
• Have a greater focus on intergenerational issues and transitions.
• Recognise that trauma informed services, schools and workforce will lead to a trauma informed community.
• Include, and be informed by, the views of children, young people, adults, and families.
• Ensure appropriate and relevant data is collected and monitored, and a needs assessment and audit cycle established to continually improve outcomes for families.

Hidden Harm Strategy 2021-2025

Hidden Harm Implementation Plan 2021-2025