Question: what exactly is Safety-Organized Practice?

Safety-Organized Practice is a holistic approach to collaborative teamwork in child welfare that seeks to build and strengthen partnerships within a family, their informal support network of friends and family, and the agency. SOP utilizes strategies and techniques in line with the belief that a child and his or her family are the central focus and that the partnership exists to find solutions ensuring safety, permanency, and well-being for children.

Safety-Organized Practice is informed by:

• Solution-Focused Therapy, based on the work of Insoo Kim Berg, Steve de Shazer, and the Brief Family Therapy Center (now the Solution-Focused Brief Family Therapy Association);
• Signs of Safety, the Three Houses, and the Safety House, based on work by Steve Edwards, Andrew Turnell, Nicki Weld, Sue Lohrbach, Sonja Parker, and many other child welfare professionals;
• Structured Decision Making by the NCCD Children’s Research Center;
• Group Supervision and Interactional Supervision, based on work by Sue Lohrbach and Lawrence Shulman;
• Appreciative Inquiry, based on work by David Cooperrider and Suresh Srivastva;
• Motivational Interviewing, based on the work of William Miller; and
• most importantly, the evolving work of hundreds of practitioners around the world to adapt and integrate evidence-based tools and approaches with best practices in the field of child welfare.