Professional Curiosity

The phrase professional curiosity is something that I am sure you are starting to hear used more and more, especially if you are front facing and you work with clients/residents/tenants/patients, etc.

At TNTA we are getting a lot of requests for training around this subject so we have developed a course to explain what it is, but thought that it would also be a great feature for the newsletter as well. 

Children, young people and adults affected by abuse or neglect rarely tell us so directly. There are many reasons for this, they may be frightened or ashamed, and often they don’t realise or understand that their lives are different to other peoples. 

This makes it difficult for professionals to identify people who are experiencing or at risk of abuse. To do so we need to be ‘curious’ about their lives, observant of their behaviour and to really listen to what they are saying to us.

This is called professional curiosity.

Described by Lord Laming (2003, in the Victoria Clime case) as ‘respectful uncertainty’, put simply, it is seeing past the obvious and not taking a single source of information and accepting it at face value.

It means testing out your professional assumptions about different types of families/situations and putting together information from a variety of sources to get a better understanding of the family and the situation. This in turn helps to build a truer picture and make predictions about what may happen in the future.

So what can we do?

• What do you see?
• Is there anything that makes you feel uneasy?
• Is there anything that prompts you to want to question what you see?
• Are you observing any kind of behaviour which is indicative of abuse or neglect?
• Does what you are observing contradict what you are being told?
• Is anyone trying to signal to you using body language, etc. that things aren’t what they seem, or does their body language contradict what is being said?
• What aren’t you seeing?

• Is someone trying to tell you something but finding it difficult to explain or express what they mean?
• Are you concerned about what you hear (fear in their voice, etc.)?
• Are they telling you anything that you feel needs further clarification?
• Is someone else telling you something that causes concern?
• Can you hear anything happening elsewhere in the house that may cause concern (e.g. shouting upstairs)

Are there any questions that you could ask which will help to provide more information about what is happening? For example:

• How do you deal with conflict/stress/arguments, etc.?
• Do you have any other professionals working with you?
• What is a typical day like for you?
• Do you feel safe? Do you feel happy/when was the last time you felt happy?
• What do you look forward to?
• Are there people who regularly visit your home apart from those who live there?
• What do you feel is going well?
• What would you like to change/what is not going so well?

• Are other professionals involved with the family? If so, can you speak to them?
• Have other professionals seen the same as you? We know that lack of information sharing has been highlighted in many Child/Adult Safeguarding Practice Reviews (used to be called serious case reviews). Make sure you talk to each other and share information.
• Are professionals being told the same or different things? This links to the bullet points above
• Are others concerned? (professionals, friends, other family members) If so, what action has been taken so far and is there anything else which should or could be done by you or anyone else?