What can we learn from multi-agency meetings to address extra-familial harm to young people?

Multi-agency panel meetings to address extra-familial harm (EFH) are an integral part of the safeguarding landscape. In recent times, there has been a proliferation of such meetings with the aim of creating safety for young people. Yet little is known about what happens in these meetings or what difference they make to lives of young people at risk or experiencing EFH. This chapter is based on 16 meeting observations across three sites. It presents practitioner talk within meetings to illuminate the degree to which they align with the four domains of Contextual Safeguarding and position young people’s perspectives as pivotal to the development of safeguarding responses within extra-familial contexts. It identifies a series of essential features to ensure that meetings move beyond “talking and tasking” and focus on actions that really are ‘actions’ to intervene in contexts of concern rather than over-relying on tasking practitioners to gather more information.