Understanding professional curiosity in everyday child safeguarding practice through the lens of narrative inquiry

The phrase professional curiosity stems from child safeguarding practice reviews as a recurring omission of safeguarding practice. This study examines what local authority workers define professional curiosity to be and what enables or restricts them in being curious about the lived experiences of the child. Understanding how to improve this area of practice protects children, keeping them safe from harm.

Using a narrative inquiry approach, a purposive sample of thirteen participants were engaged in an online conversation through semi-structured interview. NVivo was used to thematically analyse their narratives to ascertain what professional curiosity in everyday practice looked like and what were the facilitators and barriers to being curious about the child. Labov’s (1972) structural analysis of selected stories provided deeper insight and evaluation as to why practitioners chose to be curious.

Work skills, experiences and attitudes were the three domains which reflected what professional curiosity meant to practitioners, providing an understanding of the phrase for future policies, practice and learning. The four domains of service users, safeguarding practice, professional development and service factors were the enablers and barriers to being curious. Vignettes illustrating the enablers of curiosity serve as evidence of good safeguarding practice.

From a constructivist point of view the key process that emerged behind a practitioner’s curiosity stemmed from positioning theory. How practitioners positioned themselves in response to their conversations with children and parents influenced whether or not they were able to be curious about the child. A service user’s risk factors also impacted upon a professional’s curiosity. Those factors that were constructed as something that could be worked with positioned professionals as wanting to work with the child to find out more about them. This knowledge supports practitioners to consciously consider their own positionalities when interacting with families for being curious to protect the child.