Professional Curiosity

Lack of Professional Curiosity has been evident in numerous Child Safety Practice Reviews, Safeguarding Adults Reviews and Domestic Homicide Reviews. Opportunities for practitioners and professionals to demonstrate professional curiosity have been missed.

Developing and maintaining a sense of professional curiosity is vital if practitioners are to work together to keep children and adults safe.

Being professionally curious enables opportunities to identify less obvious indicators of vulnerability or protective factors, It allows us to gather relevant information and understand risks.

It prevents assumptions being made when assessing an individual or families’ needs and safeguarding risks.

It also allows practitioners to understand the cumulative impact of multiple or combined risk factors, and look at a more holistic approach to that individual or families needs.

It is a combination of looking, listening, asking questions, and checking and reflecting on information received.

You should:
• Test out your professional hypothesis and not make assumptions
• Triangulate information from different sources to gain a better understanding of individuals and families
• Getting an understanding of individual’s history, which in turn, may help you to consider what may happen in the future
• Obtaining multiple sources of information and not accepting a single set of details you are given at face value
• Having an awareness of your own personal bias and how that affects how you see those you are working with
• Professional curiosity is not being intrusive or nosey

Consider:

• ‘Think Family/Think Household’ approach
• Making Safeguarding Personal 
• Cultural Competenence 
• Protected Characteristics 
• What policies and procedures are available to support you 
• Supervision or Reflective Practice 
• Gaps in knowledge or training

Being professionally curious is not always easy. There may be barriers to this, including those from practitioners themselves, such as:

• over optimism
• making assumptions
• lacking the confidence or assertiveness to ask sensitive questions
• unconscious bias

Barriers may also be presented by people we work with, such as not wishing to answer questions, questioning a practitioner’s intentions and what some organisations call ‘disguised compliance’ which is:

• focusing on one particular issue
• being critical of professionals
• failing to engage with services
• avoiding contact with professionals

It is essential to identify any potential barriers and work with the child or adult at risk or family to overcome these. Clearly explaining the purpose behind your questions or requests for clarification helps build trust and ensures they understand that the goal is to support their well-being and safety.