Making Safeguarding Personal (MSP) is the approach that should be taken to all safeguarding work. The key principle of MSP is to support and empower each adult to make choices and have control about how they want to live their own life. It is a shift in culture and practice in response to what is now known about what makes safeguarding more or less effective from the perspective of the adult being safeguarded.

MSP is about having conversations with people about how responses to safeguarding situations can be made in a way that enhances their involvement, choice and control as well as improving their quality of life, well-being and safety. It is about seeing people as experts in their own lives, and working alongside them to identify the outcomes they want.

MSP focuses on achieving meaningful improvements to people’s lives to prevent abuse and neglect occurring in the future, including ways for them to protect themselves. People are individuals with a variety of different preferences, histories, circumstances and life-styles; so safeguarding arrangements should not prescribe a process that must be followed whenever a concern is raised, but instead take a more personalised approach.

The Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Safeguarding Adults Board makes it clear throughout our policy, procedures, business plans and priorities that the aims of MSP must be embedded throughout all the work we do.