The case of Baby Peter left many people feeling saddened, frustrated and powerless to help prevent such events from ever happening again. There are numerous agencies involved in the extremely complex and challenging world of child protection; this project aims to understand the life of a child and those who ensure their safety, to improve the support available to them all.

FutureGov has joined forces with the Local Government Information Unit (LGIU) to lead a project team that will research safeguarding and find ways for social technology to contribute to keeping children safe. Others currently in the core project team include FutureGov, LGIU, Think Public, Headshift and Barnardos. Together we have significant experience and expertise in the application of social technology for business, social innovation, collective social action and organisational change.

We are keen to make the project as open and collaborative as possible, not exclusive to this initial core team. You can see how the project is progressing and collaborate on this group, and we'll be keeping you informed about ways to get involved.

We'll be looking for people to contribute to our research; people to help shape, run and host a pilot; plus some friendly challenge. We're keen to hear from senior managers and practitioners from childrens social services, teachers, police and health workers, social web technologists, public service designers, funders, people who have a personal passion for this area, and of course young people themselves.

This project has the potential to transform the way in which professionals and non-professionals alike might better share information and form the kinds of relationships that might prevent tragedies.