The Emotional Element of Adult Safeguarding: holding the human at its centre

Estimated reading time 7 minutes

In February I attended a Leadership Exchange and Learning Event hosted by the Norfolk Safeguarding Children Partnership on the emotional landscape of safeguarding. 

It was such a useful and thought-provoking session. Sitting and listening to the presentations and the conversations at my table, I soon realised that although the discussions focused on those working in safeguarding children, you could easily swap the word ‘adult’ for ‘children’ and the emotional landscape would be the same.

This discussion has stayed with me. The emotional element of adult safeguarding work is not one we talk about much. Safeguarding isn’t just a technical process or a set of statutory responsibilities.

It’s deeply human work, carried out in a Venn diagram at the point where human vulnerability, risk, choice, professional responsibility and compassion meet. And that can be demanding in ways that aren’t always easy to articulate. 

Since the event, I have been thinking about how I first came to work in adult safeguarding. 

For me personally, it came from a strong commitment to social justice. I don’t want another person to be abused, neglected, or exploited if they are not able to protect themselves. I want to see tangible outcomes, where an intervention genuinely improves someone’s life. Others may speak about a ‘sense of mission’ in safeguarding. It may not even be a conscious career choice, other than knowing it is the ‘right thing to do’.

I started working in this field after a chance corridor conversation with a director of nursing at the health organisation where I was employed. I asked who I needed to contact to raise an adult protection referral (we are talking pre-Care Act under No Secrets) to the local authority.

Why this work is emotionally challenging

We know that adult safeguarding often involves hearing human stories many people never have to encounter. Stories of abuse, neglect, exploitation, self‑neglect, fear, trauma, and sometimes system failures, that leave people without the protection they need. Stories involving people who already face significant disadvantages or isolation. What comes to us is the ‘worst side of awful’. 

The emotional content of this work has a powerful impact. We ‘lean into’ difficult and distressing human experiences, wanting to work with the person to stop their pain and suffering. I will never forget a number of cases I was involved with. Bearing witness to someone’s harrowing experience is not neutral: the details of these stories leave a mark. Even the most seasoned professional can feel the weight of what they’ve heard or seen. And these stories impact not only those who work in the field, but also anyone who takes an action to raise a concern or support an individual as one of the responsibilities that comes with their job.

My sense is that emotional resilience is an essential component for this work, but it is rarely explored.

Safeguarding is not, at its heart, a technical exercise. Behind every concern, enquiry or review sits a person – often frightened, confused, angry or exhausted – and a workforce carrying the emotional weight of responding to harm.

Safeguarding asks us to understand that for adults who experience abuse or neglect, the emotional impact is rarely confined to the moment of harm. There may be shame, grief, betrayal or a loss of trust that stretches far beyond the safeguarding enquiry. For some, the intervention itself can be emotionally destabilising. Being asked to recount painful experiences, having familiar routines disrupted, or feeling that decisions are being made ‘about me, without me’ can compound trauma, even when actions are well-intentioned. We have to be alert to this.

Balancing protection and autonomy

One of the most complex aspects of safeguarding adults is navigating the delicate balance between

(1) keeping someone safe, and

(2) respecting their right to make their own choices, even risky ones. 

Supporting an adult to live the life they choose, even when that choice involves risk, can create deep ethical tension.

There are times when none of the options feel perfect. When the ‘right’ decision isn’t obvious, the ethical tension we hold can feel draining. Those moments are part of the job, but they are also part of what makes safeguarding such important work.

Progress isn’t always straightforward

We all know that safeguarding rarely follows a neat or linear path. There are setbacks. There are situations where outcomes take months, even years, to become clear. Sometimes we never find out what happened after we have played our part. Combined with high caseloads, statutory deadlines and public scrutiny, it’s understandable that people can feel frustrated, saddened, or simply worn down.

Partnership working

There is also an emotional dimension to partnership working. Safeguarding sits at the intersection of multiple agencies, each with its own pressures, languages and cultures. Differing perspectives and even disagreements are inevitable. 

When we approach these relationships with empathy, assuming positive intent, remaining respectful under challenge, it helps create the conditions where difficult conversations can happen without becoming personal battles. Emotional intelligence is as critical to effective multi-agency safeguarding as any protocol.

Safeguarding is work rooted in purpose

Yet despite the emotional weight, many people remain committed to safeguarding adults work because it is also deeply meaningful. Supporting someone to be safer, heard and respected can be profoundly rewarding.

The importance of MSP

That’s why the principle of Making Safeguarding Personal remains so vital. It can’t just be a slogan: it is an essential part of the approach to adult safeguarding. It requires us to slow down enough to ask what matters to the person, not just what is the matter. It means recognising that emotional safety is as important as physical safety, and that choice, control and dignity are protective factors in their own right.

Over time, the cumulative impact of these pressures can affect even the most experienced and resilient of us. Acknowledging that adult safeguarding is emotionally difficult work should not be perceived (and I am sure this is not the case) as less important than other skills in the work. It is a sign of honesty, and it’s vital for building a healthy, reflective and resilient workforce.

How about this as an idea?

The analogy of looking after yourself as a means to help others is well understood. On an aeroplane the safety briefing advice is to put on your own oxygen mask first before helping other passengers.

Over the last few years, the Norfolk Safeguarding Childrens Partnership has developed Joint Agency Group Supervision (JAGS) across its partnership. 

A JAGS meeting provides a reflective safe space for multi-agency practitioners, where the very challenging work of safeguarding children, and the emotional impact of this work, is understood, contained and held. It is about supporting the critical resource at the heart – the worker – by providing a safe space to pause and reflect together. 

Is it time to explore something similar in adult safeguarding? 

To sum up 

As safeguarding continues to evolve amid changing demographics and rising demand, we will need more than updated policies. We will need emotionally literate systems and emotionally supported practitioners. Because when we attend to the human heart of safeguarding, we do not weaken practice – we strengthen it.

If we pay less attention to the emotional element of safeguarding, we risk reducing people to processes in which professionals’ involvement is just transactional. Neither serves good outcomes. Resilience is not the absence of feeling: it is the capacity to acknowledge emotion, reflect on it and continue to act thoughtfully.

If we want our Norfolk (and the wider) safeguarding network to sustain itself, stay compassionate and continue making a difference, then we need to keep making space for these conversations. Space to reflect, to support one another, and to recognise that the work is hard because it matters.

Thank you.

Walter Lloyd-Smith

Norfolk Safeguarding Adults Board Manager