Places and Spaces: Why the context of harm matters

Extra-familial harm shows why traditional safeguarding is not enough

In our recent webinar, Sam, Director of Safeguarding across 13 schools, shared a moment that reshaped her safeguarding practice early in her career. She described how, for years, she had focused on the child and family, as safeguarding professionals are all trained to do, but had not always considered the place where harm was happening. That shift in thinking became a defining lesson.

Sam’s reflection captures one of the most important principles in contextual safeguarding. To protect children effectively and prevent it from recurring, safeguarding professionals must be empowered to know not only who is harmed, but also where, when, and how that harm is taking place.

Places and spaces shape risk

Extra-familial harms, such as exploitation and peer-on-peer abuse, often happen outside the spaces schools control. They unfold in parks, shopping areas, transport routes, online spaces, community hangouts, and other everyday settings. If safeguarding responses only follow the child back into school or home, the wider conditions enabling the harm can remain untouched.

Harm does not occur in a vacuum. It is influenced by the environments around young people. A poorly supervised public space, a peer group dynamic rooted in fear or status, or an online platform that normalises harmful behaviour can all become contexts where harm is more likely to emerge. In these situations, focusing solely on the child can unintentionally leave the setting itself unsafe for others.

Contextual safeguarding asks a different question: what is it about this place, this group, or this setting that is making harm possible, and what can be changed about it? Seeking to understand the context, and the social rules that govern young people’s lives.

Protective capacity grows beyond school gates

If harm happens within school, leaders can intervene directly through culture, staffing, routines, and policy. If harm happens elsewhere, safeguarding professionals must draw on relationships with partners to extend protection into those extra-familial contexts.

Working together with a common framework (Contextual Safeguarding) and a common language (the voice of the child) can increase the Protective Capacity® of schools, local authorities, police, health services, community organisations, transport providers, youth services, and most importantly young people themselves. When organisations collaborate using a shared framework, protective capacity expands beyond one setting and into the wider community. This is how safeguarding becomes preventative, not just reactive. It becomes about shaping safer environments for all young people, not being reactive after harm has occurred

A wider lens leads to stronger outcomes

Sam’s message is simple but powerful. The places and spaces where young people live their lives matter. When context is taken seriously, safeguarding becomes more realistic and more effective. Patterns across locations and peer groups can be identified earlier, interventions can be designed around young people’s lived experiences, and partnerships can influence environments outside school control.

Context matters because the places and spaces where harm occurs is often the key to preventing it.