Navigating interagency working to support people experiencing self-neglect
- Monday 23 February 2026
- 12:00 - 13:00
- Audience: Open to the public, staff and students
- Booking: This event is free
Join us for the third webinar in our ExChange Wales spring conference on 'Adult Safeguarding', highlighting both the potential and the barriers of inter-agency work to bring positive change for those experiencing self-neglect.
Speaker
Dr David Orr
Associate Professor in Social Work & Social Care, University of Sussex
Abstract
Self-neglect presents distinctive challenges and can have high stakes for individuals’ self-care, health and wellbeing. It often requires extensive collaboration, which can involve some, or all, of: Social Care, Health, Fire & Rescue, Housing, Environmental Protection, the police and voluntary sector organisations, among others. Several Safeguarding Adults Reviews attest to the logistical, interprofessional and legal challenges practitioners face in navigating this.
This webinar draws on the findings of an interview study with 69 practitioners / managers, 16 people with lived experience of self-neglect, and 2 family carers. Their experiences showed the potential for inter-agency working to achieve positive change, but also the complex dynamics impeding it. Where there were good mutual understanding, shared interprofessional spaces, and practically-oriented procedures, collaborative working strengthened self-neglect support; at other times, negotiating collaboration was likened to ‘jumping hurdles’ or putting one’s ‘head above the parapet.’ Keeping a collective focus on the person experiencing self-neglect becomes harder for practitioners to do when their attention is absorbed by inter-agency processes and barriers.
This discussion will explore the need for – and approaches that show promise in helping – professional curiosity in safeguarding and self-neglect to be complemented by ‘interprofessional curiosity.’
Biography
Dr. David Orr is Associate Professor in Social Work & Social Care at the University of Sussex. Since 2010, when he first started researching self-neglect and safeguarding, he has undertaken several research studies in this area and co-wrote (with Professors Suzy Braye and Michael Preston-Shoot) influential knowledge reviews on self-neglect for the Social Care Institute of Excellence. He led a study for the UK Collaborative for Development Research to develop initial principles to guide safeguarding in international development research, and was co-editor of the Palgrave Handbook of Sociocultural Perspectives on Global Mental Health. Before entering academia, he worked in Community Mental Health Teams with older adults.
This is the third webinar in our spring ExChange Wales conference series on Adult Safeguarding.
Find out more about our free upcoming events and sign up: https://www.exchangewales.org/adult-safeguarding-conference-2026/
