NWG Programme of Learning and Development - growing understanding and responses
9 - 13 May 2022, Virtual Event
Speakers on Monday 9th May 2022
Catherine Bennett
Catherine started her career in youth justice in 2003. Catherine has undertaken a variety of roles including restorative practice, work in the secure estate, team management posts and a number of project roles. In 2018, Catherine was appointed as Gangs and County Lines Manager for Suffolk. This partnership role saw Catherine working with a broad range of agencies and services to increase awareness, disrupt the activity of gangs and county lines and ensure that the young and vulnerable were afforded the appropriate safeguarding response. In 2020, Catherine moved into the County Lines Pathfinder role, with a focus on direct practice in child criminal exploitation cases. Catherine is now Deputy Head of Suffolk Youth Justice Service.
Presentation Title: Learning from the Suffolk County Lines Pathfinder
The Youth Justice Board supports frontline services to improve through a pathfinder approach. Suffolk has collaborated with our neighbouring counties to work together as a County Lines Pathfinder.
Suffolk has concentrated on how do we support children and families who are experiencing exploitation and how do we support the professionals who are working directly with them?
The session will provide a high-level overview of some of our findings and showcase some of the FREE resources that you can access:
- Cultural Competence: what knowledge, skills, and values are helpful to children and families experiencing criminal exploitation?
- Safety Planning: Holding trauma in mind when safety planning.
- Emerging good practice and safe exit: What does the emerging evidence tell us?
- Working with parents and caregivers: A webinar for parents, co-produced with parents with lived experience on what information they wish they had known at the start of their child’s exploitation.
Heidi Dix
Heidi has been a qualified social worker since 1997 and has experience of both adult and children’s services in the areas of learning disability, mental health, substance misuse and fostering. She has worked in both the statutory and third sector and since 2007 has worked as a manager within Suffolk’s Youth Justice Service (YJS) (part-time) leading a team responsible for quality assurance and practice development. She also works part time as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Suffolk where she is the Social Work Teaching Partnership Lead. Heidi is passionately committed to social justice and is the Safeguarding Trustee for Outreach Youth, a Charitable Incorporated Organisation for young people who are LGBTQIA+. Her interests include social work practice learning, relationship-based, trauma informed practice and co-production with children and young people in the youth justice system.
Presentation Title: Learning from the Suffolk County Lines Pathfinder
Joint presentation with Cath Bennett
Clair Graham
My name is Clair Graham. I am currently employed as a Head of Service for Contextual Safeguarding working within the EMPOWER U, Exploitation and Missing Hub (Birmingham Childrens Trust). I have worked within the social work field with both vulnerable adults, children and families for the past 18 years.
In my current role I have put in place a strategic development plan to put in place this service which is new to Birmingham. I oversee a large multi- agency team; with a primary focus on developing the contextual response to the abuse and exploitation of children up to the age of 25. I have significant experience in this area and I am also involved in community work that looks primarily at how we can support children in the growing prevalence of knife crime and youth violence (looking at the links between children excluded, children missing, sexually and criminally exploited, the links to abuse and neglect within the home and a wider perspective on the risks associated with the wider community (neighbourhood and peers).
I also work with parents to identify the signs of youth violence and exploitation and sign posting them to community resources that can provide support as well as commissioning services to meet the needs within this area. In addition, I also chair the Channel board looking at prevention and reduction of children involved in /or at risk of radicalisation.
In my spare time I also work in partnership with Community and faith leaders with a clear focus on empowering, building resilience and safety within the community.
Presentation Title: Contextual Safeguarding: BCT Approach to Localism
(Parents/carers and Communities as safeguarding partner)s
My presentation will look at how Birmingham Children Trust is working to equipping, engaging, empowering and building trust with parents and communities in the fight against the risk to children outside of the family home.
Hannah Halls
Hannah has worked in Policing and Crime throughout her career working across Local Government and the charity sector. Starting her career as a Metropolitan Police Office, Hannah has also worked for the Mayors Office for Policing and Crime in the Criminal Justice and Commissioning Directorate working in the Youth Justice and Violence Against Women and Girls policy teams. Hannah is now the National Youth Projects Manager for Crimestoppers, with national oversight of their Fearless project.
Presentation Title: Fearless.org – reporting crime anonymously, snitching & the bystander approach
Fearless.org is the dedicated youth service from the independent charity Crimestoppers. Fearless aims to breakdown any barriers that might prevent young people from reporting crime. Whether this is a fear of the process or a distrust of the Police, Fearless empowers young people to speak out. We do this by promoting our unique service that gives anyone the opportunity to speak up to stop crime, 100% anonymously. Fearless.org discuss the barriers to reporting crime, challenging myths around snitching and provides information on how to talk to young people about these barriers and being an active bystander.
Ineke Houtenbos
Ineke Houtenbos is the Senior Training and Development Consultant in Northern Ireland for the NSPCC where she has worked, in various posts, for the past 18 years. She has a Bachelor’s Degree in Social Work and has practiced in Holland, The United States, and Northern Ireland. Ineke, whose father is from Holland and mother is from Tanzania, was born in Saudi Arabia and lived in the Middle East until she was 17 and graduated High School. She has seen a lot of the world spending time in Holland, Tanzania, Bahrain and Saudi and giving her a unique view of the world.
Her anti-racism work started when she was just 15 years old, delivering presentations to her peers and writing essays on the history of slavery, racism and colonialism and she continues this work now as the Chair of the Black Worker Support Group of the NSPCC, owning her own D&I training business, being a member of the Education Team at the Black Leaders’ Network and most importantly as the mother of two growing young women of colour.
Presentation Title: Understanding the Impact of Racism in Practice
Aim of Presentation - To raise awareness/understanding of:
- The terminology used when talking about racism
- Dismantling ‘BAME’
- Racism and bias in policing and social care, impacting on young people at risk of exploitation
- The nature and impact of micro-aggressions
- Responses of Black, Asian and ethnically minoritized communities to racist structures and language
- Tools to engage in this conversation in teams
NWG Programme of Learning and Development funded by: