Hi and thank you for visiting my website. I am an independent social worker, teacher and child protection consultant from Perth, Western Australia.

Through Aspirations Consultancy, I provide consultation and training to child protection organizations and practitioners around the world to support them in building their knowledge and skills in family and safety-centred child protection practice and in the Signs of Safety approach. I also work directly with families as an independent practitioner, providing child protection services and rigourous safety planning in high-risk cases and in situations of ‘denied’ child abuse.

In my work as a child protection practitioner, I have used the Signs of Safety approach extensively, both within a statutory setting, within a non-government reunification and family preservation program, and in a hospital-based child protection unit. I am passionate about supporting child protection workers, supervisors and managers in the difficult work that we do, and about ensuring that family members, including children and young people, have a strong voice in planning for their future.

Through my work with families and my training and consultation with agencies and practitioners, I have developed a number of tools and resources to assist child protection professionals and family members in working together to build future safety for children. These resources are described in more detail under the 'resources' section of this website.

I wish you all the best in your work with families!

Sonja has recently developed three new safety planning tools.

Family Safety Circles is a tool to help identify people for the child’s safety network and to help professionals and family members develop strong and effective safety networks. (see more)

The Future House is a visual tool for identifying the family’s safety goals (what the parents/caregivers/safety network think the parents need to be doing differently in the future to show everyone that the children will always be safe in relation to the identified dangers. (see more)

The Safety House is a practical tool to help workers talk with children about the safety planning process and to elicit children’s views on what they think needs to happen within their family to ensure that they are safe, in situations where they may have previously been hurt or were at risk of being hurt. (see more)