Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) & Advocacy in Practice
🤝 Blog 4 of 7 in our Safeguarding Series
Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) & Advocacy in Practice
Links to all 7 blogs in this series are at the bottom of this post.
🌍 Why Safeguarding Must Be Personal
Safeguarding is not only about protecting people from harm — it is about supporting people to live the lives they want, with the right level of safety, support, and dignity. The principle of Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) recognises that safeguarding is only effective when it reflects the individual’s wishes, feelings, identity, and desired outcomes — even when concerns involve high-risk types of abuse such as coercive control, financial exploitation, organisational abuse, or neglect.
Commissioners and inspectors increasingly test whether safeguarding is done to people or with them. A process-led approach may be “compliant” on paper but can still fail in practice if it removes choice, ignores the person’s voice, or creates safety plans that are not realistic for the individual to live with. MSP bridges that gap by shifting the focus from process completion to meaningful outcomes.
🧠 What MSP Looks Like in Real Safeguarding Practice
MSP changes the conversation. Instead of starting with “What’s the matter?” staff are supported to ask: “What matters to you, and what would you like to happen now?” In practice, MSP means:
- Listening first — giving time and space for the person to explain what is happening in their words (including through accessible communication).
- Agreeing outcomes — defining what “being safe” means to the person, not only to professionals.
- Balancing risk and autonomy — recognising that people may choose options that carry some risk, and responding proportionately.
- Co-producing safety plans — building actions the person understands, accepts, and can follow.
- Reviewing and adapting — checking whether the safeguarding actions achieved the person’s desired outcome and adjusting where needed.
In tender responses, this matters because MSP shows commissioners you understand modern safeguarding expectations: person-led, rights-based, outcome-focused, and grounded in real-world delivery.
📜 The Core Principles of MSP
While each local authority may frame MSP slightly differently, high-quality safeguarding practice consistently evidences:
- Choice — people are involved in decisions about safeguarding actions wherever possible, with information presented in ways they can understand.
- Control — decisions reflect the person’s goals and preferences, not only professional risk appetite.
- Proportionality — interventions match the level of risk; restrictions are not the default.
- Partnership — coordinated working with the person, family (where appropriate), advocacy, and multi-agency partners.
- Accountability — clear records showing what was decided, why, and how the person’s voice influenced the plan.
🗣️ The Role of Advocacy in Safeguarding
Advocacy is central to MSP because it strengthens voice, choice, and control — particularly where a person has barriers to being heard. These barriers may include dementia, learning disability, autism, mental ill health, communication impairment, trauma, fear of repercussions, language barriers, or coercive control.
Providers should evidence that they:
- Know when to involve independent advocacy under the Care Act 2014 (including situations where a person has substantial difficulty being involved and has no appropriate person to support them).
- Support access to advocacy early — not only when required at the end of the process, but at the point where voice and choice may otherwise be lost.
- Work confidently with advocates — sharing information lawfully, engaging constructively, and ensuring advocates can speak to the person privately where needed.
- Strengthen self-advocacy where possible — using communication tools, accessible information, and trusted relationships to support the person to speak for themselves.
In tenders and inspections, advocacy evidence often separates “policy-aware” providers from “practice-ready” providers. It shows you understand that safeguarding is not only a risk response, but a rights response.
🧩 MSP in High-Risk Situations
Some providers assume MSP is only relevant for “low-level” concerns. In reality, MSP is most important when the stakes are highest. In cases involving coercion, exploitation, domestic abuse, or modern slavery, the person may:
- Minimise the harm (because they fear retaliation or loss of relationships).
- Refuse support (because they don’t trust professionals or fear “being moved”).
- Agree to actions without understanding (because information wasn’t accessible or trauma-informed).
MSP does not mean “doing nothing.” It means taking safeguarding action in a way that is more likely to work because it is built around the person’s reality, priorities, and capacity to engage — supported by advocacy where needed.
💡 Practical Example: MSP + Advocacy in Action
Case Study (Financial Exploitation, Early Dementia): A man with early dementia is repeatedly giving money to a “friend” who is pressuring him. Staff are concerned about exploitation, but he is adamant he does not want police involvement and fears losing independence.
Using MSP principles, the safeguarding lead:
- Establishes desired outcomes with the person: “I want to feel safe, keep my independence, and not be embarrassed.”
- Arranges independent advocacy so the person can explore options with support and privacy.
- Completes proportionate risk planning: banking safeguards, call-blocking, agreed check-ins, and clear steps if pressure escalates.
- Documents capacity considerations and the rationale for the plan, including how the person’s views shaped decisions.
- Reviews outcomes after 2 and 6 weeks: reduced contact, improved confidence, and no further financial losses.
This type of detail scores well because it evidences real-world safeguarding: not “we followed policy,” but “we achieved a person-defined outcome while managing risk effectively.”
📋 What “Good” Looks Like Operationally
To make MSP and advocacy consistent across a service (not dependent on one strong manager), providers should embed them into day-to-day systems:
- Assessment and reviews — prompts that capture “what matters to you” and desired safeguarding outcomes in accessible language.
- Recording templates — sections for the person’s views, communication method, advocacy involvement, and outcome tracking.
- Staff training — scenario-based learning that includes difficult conversations, trauma-informed approaches, and working with advocates.
- Supervision and reflective practice — reviewing safeguarding cases through an MSP lens: “Did we achieve the person’s outcome?”
- Quality assurance — audit questions that test voice, proportionality, and evidence of outcome review (not just “referral made”).
📊 Evidencing MSP & Advocacy in Tenders
To score highly in tenders and inspections, providers should evidence:
- Training and competence — % staff trained, refresher cycles, and how MSP/advocacy learning is tested (e.g., scenarios in supervision).
- Process — how desired outcomes are captured, how advocacy is accessed, and how decisions are recorded and reviewed.
- Practice examples — anonymised case studies showing voice ➜ plan ➜ outcome ➜ learning.
- Data and governance — advocacy referrals, safeguarding outcomes achieved, themes, and improvements tracked through QA cycles.
Done well, this demonstrates a safeguarding culture that protects people and respects them — which is exactly what commissioners and inspectors want to see.
📚 Catch up on the full Safeguarding Series:
- 📘 Why Safeguarding Matters in Social Care
- 🧭 Recognising Abuse, Neglect & Self-Neglect (Including Modern Slavery & Domestic Abuse)
- 🔔 Thresholds, Referrals & Section 42: Getting the Response Right
- 🤝 Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) & Advocacy in Practice
- 🧩 Multi-Agency Working, Information-Sharing & Record-Keeping
- 🧯 Building a Speak-Up Culture: Whistleblowing, Supervision & Debriefs
- 📄 Evidencing Safeguarding in Tenders & Inspections