Chairing multidisciplinary safeguarding meetings

In a space where professionals will hold different views about confidentiality, information sharing, family engagement and safeguarding, an effective chair is key.

The following draws on systemic ideas to help the chair create a respectful, child-centred conversation without losing sight of statutory responsibilities. 

The aim is not to remove disagreement, but to make disagreement useful. A well-led meeting should clarify the concern, identify what is known and unknown, consider the child’s experience, examine the influence of professional and cultural assumptions, and agree proportionate actions with clear accountability.

Prepare the conditions for purposeful dialogue

Before the meeting, the chair should define the safeguarding question in neutral language and identify why a multi-agency discussion is required. 

Ask contributors to bring the factual basis for their concerns, the child’s expressed views, relevant family context, and any uncertainty in their assessment. 

Avoid framing one agency as the problem. The chair should distinguish evidence, professional interpretation and hypothesis, because these can become blurred when anxiety is high.

Consider who needs to attend, including practitioners with direct knowledge of the child and managers who can authorise decisions. 
Share a concise purpose and intended outcomes. Where possible, tell participants that respectful challenge is expected and that the meeting will examine both risk and the impact of intervention. This establishes psychological safety while confirming that professional accountability remains central.

Keep the child at the centre

The child’s voice must be more than a reported quotation. 

Explore what the child understands, what they want professionals to know, what they fear may happen, and how proposed actions could affect their safety and relationships. 

Clarify any limits to confidentiality in language the child can understand. Practitioners should not promise secrecy when information may need to be shared to prevent harm.

Ask: what is the child communicating through words, behaviour or silence? Which parts of their story have been heard, and which may remain unknown, untold or difficult to tell? 

This reflects the LUUUUTT framework and helps the network avoid treating a single disclosure as detached from relationships and context. The child’s wishes should inform planning, while the chair remains clear that safeguarding decisions cannot rest on consent alone.

Use systemic curiosity to widen the analysis

Systemic curiosity involves asking questions that create understanding rather than defending a predetermined position. 

Useful prompts include: what meaning does each professional give to the concern? What organisational rules shape that position?

What might the family understand differently? What are we assuming? What information would change our view?

The chair should invite multiple descriptions of the same situation and listen for patterns of alignment between agencies. 

Open Dialogue principles are helpful: hear each voice, tolerate uncertainty, reflect rather than react, and avoid closing discussion prematurely. 

However, dialogue is not indecision. The chair should summarise areas of agreement, name unresolved differences and test whether the proposed response is necessary, proportionate and likely to reduce risk.

Attend to social GRACES, power and use of self

Social GRACES provide a structure for considering how gender, geography, race, religion, age, ability, class, culture, education, employment, sexuality and spirituality may shape interactions. 

Some differences are visible and voiced; others are invisible, unvoiced or treated as professionally irrelevant. The chair should consider how these dimensions affect the child, family, practitioners and the meeting itself.

Self-reflexivity requires the chair to examine how personal history, identity, values and authority influence questions, emotional responses and decisions. 

This is not an invitation to centre the chair’s experience or assume cultural similarity. Personal experience may be used briefly and carefully to make thinking transparent, but it should remain open to challenge. 

Ask: am I privileging one explanation? Am I responding to risk, discomfort or familiarity? Is structural power enabling some voices to dominate? What would respectful cross-cultural challenge sound like here?

Balance confidentiality, transparency and safeguarding

Confidentiality is essential for trusting professional relationships, but it is not absolute. 

The network should be precise about what information is relevant, why it may need to be shared, with whom, and what foreseeable impact sharing may have. Avoid using “confidentiality” as a blanket reason either to withhold information or to disclose it.

Where sharing is necessary, plan how the child will be informed and supported. 

Consider whether the source must be identified, whether doing so creates additional risk, and whether another approach can achieve transparency safely. 

Record the legal or procedural basis relied upon, the analysis of necessity and proportionality, and any dissenting professional view. If there is uncertainty about immediate harm, seek appropriate safeguarding or legal advice through established organisational routes.

Chair disagreement with relational authority

Relational authority combines clear leadership with openness to influence. 

The chair should slow the conversation when positions become polarised, restate the shared safeguarding purpose and invite each person to explain the concern behind their preferred action. Name tension respectfully rather than allowing it to become personalised.

A useful sequence is: establish facts; hear the child’s perspective; map risks and protective factors; explore contextual and cultural meanings; identify information gaps; generate options; evaluate likely benefits and unintended consequences; and decide actions. 

If consensus is not possible, the chair must make or escalate the decision within the relevant governance arrangements while recording the rationale and alternative views. Safe uncertainty means remaining thoughtful and revisable, not leaving risk unmanaged.

Convert dialogue into accountable action

Conclude with a concise verbal summary that separates decisions, actions and unresolved questions. Every action should identify the responsible person, the expected outcome and the review point. 

Specify who will speak with the child and family, what will be explained, what support will be offered, and how new information will be shared across the network. 

Check that language is understandable and does not conceal uncertainty behind professional jargon.

The written record should capture the safeguarding concern, the child’s views, relevant context, competing professional perspectives, analysis of risk and protection, the decision, rationale, dissent, and contingency plan. 

Circulate the record in line with local arrangements and correct factual inaccuracies promptly.

Reflect, review and learn

After the meeting, the chair should reflect in supervision or management consultation. 

Consider what increased or reduced collaboration, which voices influenced the outcome, whether bias or organisational pressure affected the discussion, and how effectively the child remained central. Seek feedback where appropriate, especially after a difficult meeting.

At review, test whether actions improved safety and understanding rather than simply whether tasks were completed. Revisit assumptions when circumstances change. 

Effective systemic leadership is demonstrated through transparent reasoning, respectful challenge, purposeful curiosity and the ability to use authority without closing down dialogue. 

The strongest multidisciplinary meetings hold risk, relationship and context together, producing decisions that are both accountable and responsive to the child’s lived experience.

Chair’s final check

• Is the child’s voice visible in the analysis and plan?
• Have facts, interpretations and hypotheses been separated?
• Have power, culture, identity and organisational context been considered?
• Is information sharing necessary, proportionate and transparent?
• Are decisions, dissent, actions and review arrangements clearly recorded?

Practice basis: Adapted from the systemic concepts and reflective practice contained in Essay 2, including LUUUUTT, Open Dialogue, Social GRACES, relational reflexivity and safe uncertainty.

John Packiara is a team manager in children’s services for a London local authority.