This year’s Sacpa Annual Safeguarding Conference promises to bring a day packed with expert speakers from a range of disciplines and perspectives who aim to inform, challenge and invigorate delegates on a range of key and contemporary safeguarding topics and learning. Addressing key issues from our members, sessions will consider the current safeguarding landscape, mental health, exploitation, working with survivors and final recommendations from IICSA inquiry into residential settings.

Sacpa and BSA will facilitate questions directly from members to our experts throughout the day and encourage delegates to come prepared with questions for our panels.

Training topics will include:

• 24/7 Safeguarding: recent developments, future hopes
• Mental health: Risk, thresholds, access to services and developing in-house responses for all
• Pathways to Exploitation: The landscape of prevalence, prevention and response
• E-safety: TikTok, trends and teens
• Caring for people harmed by abuse: the needs of witnesses and survivors
• IICSA Final Report: Key messages and summary from the process, various reports and findings

 Learning outcomes:

• Update on the current safeguarding landscape, recent developments, future hopes and challenges
• Explore the current challenges and service availability for mental health and emotional wellbeing including case study reflection on challenges and solutions
• Increase knowledge about pathways to strands of exploitation, vulnerabilities, prevalence, prevention, and response
• Explore the links between social media use and its impact on the child-on-child safeguarding agenda
• Update on experiences and best practice from working with people who are surviving current and non-recent abuse
• Hear from key players in the IICSA inquiries into residential settings. Increase knowledge of the final outcomes and recommendations of the residential inquiry published last month including lessons learned and pathways forward

Programme:

09:00-09:45

24/7 Safeguarding: recent developments, future hopes

Our keynote speaker will review the current landscape of safeguarding through the lens of the most recent Girl Guides Attitude Survey 2022. This survey gives an annual snapshot and is widely quoted in guidance. How far have we come, and what else do we need to address.

• Chair: Claire Dan, Director, SACPA
• Speaker:
  • Geraldine Costello, Head of Safe Practice, Girlguiding

09:45-10:00

Break

10:00-11:00

Mental health: Risk, thresholds, access to services and developing in-house responses for all

The management of risk and access to specialist services remains a key priority for safeguarding leaders. This session explores the current challenges and service availability and reflects on challenges and solutions from practical case study.

• Chair: Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA Group
• Speaker:
  • Jane Graham, Director, Hieda

11:00-11:30

Break

11:30-12:30

Pathways to Exploitation: The landscape of prevalence, prevention and response

It is recognised that the prevalence of life circumstances and individual vulnerabilities are over-represented in children and adults known to have been abused by exploitation. Our expert speakers in this session share their knowledge about pathways to strands of exploitation and share thoughts on prevalence, prevention, and response.

• Chair: Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA Group
• Speaker:
  • Nikki Holmes, Founder, Safer Together
  • Claire Dan, Director, SACPA

12:30-13:30

Lunch

13:30-14:30

E-safety: TikTok trends and teens

As safeguarding leaders prepare for the online safety bill to become law. E-safety and digital safeguarding are never far away from media coverage or on the ground safeguarding practice. In this session out experts explore the links between social media use and its impact on the child-on-child safeguarding agenda.

• Chair: Aileen Kane, Deputy CEO & COO, BSA Group
• Speakers:
  • Karl Hopwood
  • David Smellie, Partner, Farrer & Co.

14:30-15:00

Break

15:00-15:45

Caring for people harmed by abuse: the needs of witnesses and survivors

In this session our experts share experiences and best practice from working with people who are surviving abuse. Organisations and safeguarding leaders continue to develop protocols and practice in their work with survivors of non-recent abuse and those who are currently in need or are involved with witness services.

• Chair: Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA Group
• Speakers:
  • John Edward, Director, SCIS
  • Martin Reader, Head, Cranleigh School 

15:45-16:00

Break

16:00-16:45

IICSA Final Report: Key messages and summary from the process, various reports and findings

We hear from key players in the IICSA inquiries into residential settings. In this session out speakers review the process of the inquiry and their involvement and give us their perspectives on the final outcomes and recommendations published last month, lessons learned and pathways forward for safeguarding leaders.

• Chair: Claire Dan, Director, SACPA
• Speakers:
  • Fiona Scolding KC
  • Marcus Erooga – Safeguarding Consultant and Expert witness at IICSA

Cost:

• Member Rate: £195
• Additional Full Member Fee: £100
• Affiliate Member Fee: £295
• Additional Affiliate Member Fee: £130
• Non-member Rate: £390*
• Sacpa / BSA Full Member Whole School Rate: £450

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*If you would like to become a member and access discounted rates for Sacpa CPD and events, please click here.

Speakers: 

Claire Dan, Director of Safeguarding, BSA Group and Director, Sacpa

Claire is Director of Safeguarding and Director, Sacpa and leads on the provision of safeguarding advice and support to members and the development and delivery of CPD and safeguarding consultancy services. Claire is a safeguarding specialist and leader with a background in education welfare, youth justice, and early help contexts which have involved a strong focus on diverse and collaborative partnerships, professional development and supervision of front-line safeguarding colleagues, and leading multi-disciplinary teams and projects.  Between 2006 and 2013 Claire was involved with Luton Safeguarding Children Board as a lead multi-agency trainer, developing and delivering single and multi-agency safeguarding training, and since 2013 has delivered pieces of bespoke consultancy work, and providing a range of safeguarding consultancy on a freelance basis.

Geraldine Costello, Head of Safe Practice, Girlguiding 

Geraldine is the Head of Safe Practice at Girlguiding and is responsible for creating a safe environment for its members, ensuring they are protected from harm, abuse and exploitation.
She has extensive safeguarding experience having worked with the Metropolitan Police for 31 years, dedicated to protecting vulnerable groups, focussing on domestic abuse, protecting adults and children at risk, managing violent and sex offenders and working with communities.
She is committed to driving improvements in safeguarding standards and practice across charity sectors and government as a panel member for Department of Education, England Netball, a Safeguarding advisor to Surviving Economic Abuse, and as a Safeguarding school governor.

Dale Wilkins, Senior Director, BSA and BSA Group

Dale joined BSA Group during Summer 2017 with responsibility for safeguarding and standards. In July 2019 he also assumed responsibility for the BSA’s accredited training programme. Dale leads on all safeguarding and inspection matters for Sacpa and BSA Group, including managing the Commitment to Care Charter, and the Annual Safeguarding conference. He has completed “Training for Trainers” with NSPCC and was for 10 years a multi-agency safeguarding trainer for Dudley Safeguarding Children Board.

For 31 years Dale was practitioner in boarding schools, and a BSA course tutor since 1998. He was also for 10 years a school Designated Safeguarding Lead. Dale is currently developing new safeguarding products for Sacpa.

Jane Graham, Director, Hieda

Trained at Great Ormond Street Hospital for Sick Children, Jane has over 30 years of nursing background, Many of them in trauma and intensive care. Whilst in PICU, she had a number of different roles. Nine years of that included a role as a specialist retrieval nurse (CATS) that entailed travelling around the country to stabilise and bring back critically unstable children. To do this she learned advanced nursing and basic medical skills in resuscitation, all medical conditions, and trauma.

She went on to teach these skills to student nurses, qualified nurses and junior doctors as the Practice educator on intensive care. This role also involved lecturing regularly at South Bank University. She has been a DSL for Safeguarding at an independent boarding school where she was Lead Nurse. She is also an instructor for Qualsafe, an awarding body approved by the HSE. She is currently the director of Hieda and director of health and wellbeing for the BSA

Nikki Holmes, Founder, Safer Together 

After graduating with a degree in Criminology and Psychology, Nikki began her career as a police officer with West Midlands Police where she enjoyed a variety of different roles. This is where her passion for working with and supporting vulnerable young people began. In 2008, and in response to increases in youth violence in Coventry, she wrote and co-produced with young people “Get My Point” a piece of youth drama which successfully contributed to the reduction in weapon assisted crime. This work saw her presented with a Chief Constable’s Commendation.

However, it was Nikki became an Offender Manager working with some of the most prolific and complex young offenders that she identified that most, if not all of children and young people known to the Criminal Justice System, had a variety of vulnerabilities and unmet need. The recognition of the victim offender overlap resulted in a career change, moving from policing into the field of substance misuse.

As the service manager of a young person’s substance misuse service in Warwickshire, Nikki developed a number of pathways to improve service provision and support for children who were not actively misusing substances themselves, but were nonetheless impacted by substance misuse due to having a parent or sibling with a substance dependency. This work was recognised by the Care Quality Commission as being innovative practice which should be replicated nationally.

Nikki went on to work for the Care Quality Commission in 2017 as a Children’s Services Inspector. In this role, she contributed to and led a number of national reviews, such as Children Looked After and Safeguarding (CLAS) reviews, Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAI’s) and Local Area Special Educational Needs and Disability Inspections (LA SENDs). She also lent her expertise in the fields of Safeguarding and SEND to develop a number of thematic reviews such as the Control and Restraint in Children’s Home review which is awaiting publication. She remains a bank inspector for the commission.

In 2020 Nikki founded and launched Safer Together, her own training and consultancy enterprise. Safer Together was commissioned in September by Coventry and Warwickshire CCG and Coventry Local Authority Public Health to lead on a Child Exploitation Project on their behalf. Safer Together recognises the challenges associated with navigating the current complexities of the safeguarding landscape and is on hand to support statutory and non-statutory organisations with any aspect of training and consultancy related to child safeguarding and SEND.

Aileen Kane, Deputy CEO & COO, BSA Group

Aileen is Deputy CEO & COO of BSA Group. Aileen leads operations at BSA providing guidance and training and works closely with government departments, local authorities and other agencies to support members. She heads up the group’s work to find places for refugee children escaping from conflict countries and is also a trustee for a children’s charity.

Karl Hopwood

Karl is an esafety expert and a member of UKCCIS (UK Council for Child Internet Safety) and sits on the advisory board for the UK Safer Internet Centre and the education advisory board for CEOP. Karl has worked for a number of key players in the UK and abroad including CEOP (Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre), BECTA (British Educational and Communications Technology Agency), the European Commission and several Local Authorities within the UK.

David Smellie, Partner, Farrer & Co.

David leads Farrer & Co’s Safeguarding Unit. He has been heavily involved in advising clients on safeguarding matters over the last 15 years and, as such, he has witnessed the positive impact of regulatory change over the period. David led the Farrer & Co team which acted as Solicitors to the Independent Review by Hugh Davies QC into the criminal conduct of William Vahey in 2014. David has also acted as child protection governor at three schools, and is recognised as the UK’s top-ranked schools lawyer in Chambers UK

John Edward, Director, SCIS

John was appointed Director (CE) of SCIS in April 2010, having previously been Head of the European Parliament’s Office in Scotland for 6 years.  Prior to that he worked in Brussels, as EU Policy Manager for Scotland Europa in Brussels, and for the European Policy Centre.  He studied in St Andrews, Glasgow and Siena, before making his way back to Edinburgh – but is now Colombian by marriage.

Martin Reader, Head, Cranleigh School  

Martin Reader has been Headmaster of Cranleigh School since 2014. He began his teaching career at St Edward’s Oxford, before moving to Oundle School and then to Reigate Grammar School where he was Senior Deputy Head. Prior to moving to Cranleigh, he was Headmaster of Wellington School, Somerset for eight years. Passionate about boarding, he served as Chair of the Boarding Schools’ Association in 2018, and Vice Chair in 2017 and 2019.

Fiona Scolding KC 

Fiona’s practice focusses upon public law challenges in a wide variety of contexts concerning both local and central government and non governmental departmental bodies. She has particular expertise in areas concerning children and vulnerable adults, with a focus upon education, the Court of Protection, healthcare, community care, equality, human rights and discrimination, but also has experience in areas as varied as immigration, prisons, social security and general public law work.

Fiona’s work for government departments has led her to develop an expertise in public procurement, and she has been involved (on behalf of the Legal Aid Agency) with many large scale challenges to procurement exercises since 2010.

Fiona has been recommended by the Legal 500 for her work in education law since 2002, and is also recommended by them in administrative & public law and civil liberties & human rights.  She is recommended by Chambers & Partners for her work in education law alongside the Court of Protection and local government.

Fiona has a commitment to pro bono work. She also is on the EHRC panel counsel since 2010, and has a keen appreciation and understanding of equality and rights legislation.  She was a member of the Attorney General’s B panel from 2013 to 2017.

Fiona is currently instructed as senior counsel to the Anglican and residential schools investigations on behalf of IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse).

Fiona is joint head of the Public Law Group at Landmark Chambers. 

Marcus Erooga – Safeguarding Consultant and Expert witness at IICSA

Marcus Erooga is an independent safeguarding and sexual abuse Consultant, Researcher & Trainer. From 1999-2018 he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Huddersfield Centre for Applied Childhood, Youth and Family Studies. He spent the majority of his employed career in various positions at the NSPCC, as a practitioner, team manager and Assistant Director for service delivery as well as service and policy development roles relating to child sexual abuse and sexual offending.

He has authored or edited some 80 publications on child abuse and sex offender related issues. Most recently this work has focused on organisational safeguarding. In 2016 he co-authored a review of the literature on organisational risk & protective factors for the Australian Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse as well as being Expert Witness in a Royal Commission Case Study. He is an Expert Witness for the IICSA (the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse) Residential Schools inquiry.

As an independent consultant Marcus regularly trains and presents based on his research and undertakes safeguarding work including audits & reviews for a number of organisations. Marcus is a past Editor in Chief and current Associate Editor of the Journal of Sexual Aggression and a past Chair of NOTA (the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abuse) and is now a NOTA Fellow.