Annual safeguarding conference
🏷️ From £250
🎧 All those involved in safeguarding
đź“Ť Broadway House, Tothill Street, London SW1H 9NQ
🏆 Winners announced for the Annual Safeguarding Awards (enter before October 1, 2026)
With significant changes to safeguarding guidance now in effect, this conference provides an essential update for safeguarding professionals across health, social care, sports, and the voluntary sector. Focusing on Working Together 2026, Keeping Children Safe in Education 2026 and contemporary safeguarding practice, delegates will gain practical insights into creating resilient organisations, strengthening safeguarding culture and improving outcomes for children and young people.
This event will be held jointly with:
09:30 – 10:00 Registration & refreshments
10:00 – 10:15 Welcome: the safeguarding journey from regulation to reflection
An introduction to the conference theme, exploring how regulation, relationships, reasoning and reflection contribute to effective safeguarding and resilient organisations.
- Speaker: Mariya Ali, Director, SACPA
10:15 – 10:45  Regulate before we educate
An immersive movement-based opening experience demonstrating how regulation through movement and sensory experiences supports learning, well-being and effective safeguarding practice. This session will also focus building on our cultural humility.
- Speaker:Â Julene Robinson, Movement Specialist
10:45 – 11:00  Break
11:00 – 11:45  Beyond compliance: reflective practice as a safeguarding intervention
Discover how reflective practice strengthens professional judgement, support staff wellbeing and helps build a positive safeguarding culture.
- Speaker:Â Dr Sylvia B Smith (FHEA, SWE Registered, MBASW)
11:15 – 12:00  The child’s voice in action: Recruitment, culture and accountability
Learn how involving children in recruitment and organisational decision making can strengthen safeguarding culture and accountability.
- Speaker:Â Tricia Young, BBC, Children in Need
12:00 – 12:15  How critical are young people’s voice in the discussion of the manosphere?Â
- Speaker:Â Jemima Corcoran, Student, UCL
12:15 – 12:45  Panel Discussion Trauma-informed workplaces
Explore how psychologically safe workplaces, informed by care experience, can improve wellbeing, retention and safeguarding practice.Â
- Speakers: Mariya Ali, Director, SACPA
- Chair:Â Dale Wilkins, Executive Director, Scotland/Wales and Accredited/Compliance
12:45 – 13:30 Lunch
13:30 – 14:15  Teenage relationship abuse: recognising coercion, control and harm
Gain practical insights into recognising and responding to abuse in adolescent relationships, including coercive control and technology- facilitated harm.
- Speaker: Maddi Brunker, Head of Adult Services at Tender Education and Arts
14:15 – 15:00  Safeguarding in 2026: Working Together, KCSIE and what inspectors expect
A practical update on the latest safeguarding, legislation and inspection expectations for education and safeguarding professionals.
- Speaker:Â Kevin Hartley, Senior Consultant for the NSPCC
15:00 – 15:15 Refreshments
15:15 – 15:45  Artificial intelligence, sport and safeguarding
Explore the safeguarding implications of AI, deepfakes, digital identity and emerging online risks for children and young people.
- Speaker: Rosalind Harrison, Social Media and Content Marketer
15:45 – 16:30  Closing keynote: why regulation, relationships and resilience in key for effective safeguarding
Bringing together the day’s key themes, this keynote explores how organisations can embed resilient, relationship-based safeguarding cultures.
16:30 – 16:45  Annual safeguarding awards and close
The SACPA Awards are held annually each autumn to celebrate and recognise outstanding contributions to safeguarding and child protection. Interested in entering? Find out more here. Please note, entries will close on October 1, 2026.
Speakers:
Tricia Young, BBC, Children in Need
Julene Robinson
Julene is an award-winning multidisciplinary artist, scientist, and wellbeing practitioner. A Master’s graduate of Rose Bruford College who also holds a BSc in Environmental Chemistry she combines artistic practice with scientific inquiry to explore leadership, resilience, and human flourishing. A trained yoga and meditation instructor, Julene integrates a mind-body-spirit approach into her creative practice, championing wellbeing, healing, and sustainable creativity. Recognised by Arts Council England as a global leader in theatre and performance, Julene’s work centres on the power of storytelling to inspire personal and social transformation. Through performance, facilitation, and research, she empowers artists, leaders, and communities to cultivate resilience, lead with authenticity, and build cultures of care.
Dr Sylvia B Smith (FHEA, SWE Registered, MBASW)
Sylvia is Founder and Director of Incline Training Consultants Ltd, specialising in social work education, leadership development, and anti-racist practice. Her doctoral research examined how psychoanalytical approaches can strengthen social work leadership. She offers reflective practice, coaching, and supervision to individuals, groups, and teams across the sector, and is co-convenor of The Reflective Practice Research Network. Sylvia’s work includes commissioned evaluation of anti-racist practice strategy and supporting doctoral students in their research development. She hosts the Social Workers Matter podcast, serves as Vice Chair of a Fostering and Adoption Panel and is currently one of the guest editors for a special issue of the British Journal of Social Work due for publication in the autumn.
Rosalind Harrison, Social Media and Content Marketer
Ros Harrison is a social media and video content specialist who supports schools and child-focused organisations in using online communications safely. Ros has 20 years of experience working with children and young people in both the public and third sectors, including facilitating safeguarding and CEOP training for local authority youth workers and developing domestic abuse awareness programmes for staff and pupils in primary settings. With 15 years of experience as a digital marketer, specialising in GDPR and compliance, across professional services and local authorities, she now helps schools develop effective management systems and robust safeguarding practices when representing themselves on social media through her business, Harrison Media Solutions.
Kevin Hartley, Senior Consultant for the NSPCC
Kevin Hartley is a Senior Consultant for the NSPCC. Kevin has worked in secondary education for almost 30 years, initially as an English teacher, but later as a Pastoral Lead and then as a member of senior leadership.
For most of his career he has been involved in safeguarding and spent 12 years as a DSL in a busy, diverse 11-18 Academy. He has contributed to the development of policies and procedures at both school and Trust level.
Kevin now works in the NSPCC consultancy service which supports schools and other organisations in developing their safeguarding practices.
Jemima Corcoran, Student, UCL
Jemima Corcoran is a final-year undergraduate at UCL, studying English Literature and Language. She has spent the last year as Editor at EdFringe Review and has recently entered the role Editor-in-Chief at UCL’s media outlet, Pi Online for 2026-7, having previously worked as their Lifestyle & Culture section editor. Originally from Brighton, she has a strong interest in animal welfare, environmental issues, and women’s rights. A regular contributor to Pi Online, her work ranges from theatre reviews and investigative lifestyle features to political commentary, earning her Top Ten shortlist recognition at the SPA National Awards for both Best Lifestyle Piece and Best Culture Writer. Jemima has also worked as an on-screen presenter for PiTV at UCL, where she conducted interviews on student culture, politics, and current issues. She has had her articles shared by Zack Polanski, Deborah Frances White, and Tom Read Wilson. She aims to pursue a career in journalism and media after graduating.
Maddi Brunker, Head of Adult Services at Tender Education and Arts,
Maddi brings over 13 years of experience working within the Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) sector. Her career spans frontline service delivery, management of an Independent Domestic Violence Advocate (IDVA) service, and leadership in preventative education and intervention programmes. Maddi has delivered specialist training on domestic abuse and sexual violence for adult safeguarding boards, local authorities, universities, and educational settings. She has also contributed to research led by Durham University in partnership with Galop, and to parliamentary reports produced by SafeLives, helping to inform policy and practice across the sector.
Dr Mariya Ali, Director, SACPA
Mariya is an internationally recognised safeguarding and child protection expert with over 20 years’ multidisciplinary experience. She has held senior advisory, academic, legal, and leadership roles, including serving as Maldives Minister of Gender, Family, and Human Rights, leading reforms in child protection law and policy. Internationally, she has advised UNICEF, UNDP, and ECPAT on child sexual abuse, exploitation, and protection systems. Holding qualifications in law and child psychology, she has published widely on child rights, online safety, and trauma-informed practice. Mariya’s strategic vision, policy expertise, and frontline insight equip her to bring both global perspective and local understanding to SACPA’s mission.
Aileen Kane, Deputy CEO and COO, Abitas Group
Aileen is a seasoned marketing and communications strategist with extensive experience in driving business growth, brand positioning, and stakeholder engagement, including in the education sector. At Abitas Group, she has led strategic marketing, business development, mergers and acquisitions, and organisational transformation with measurable impact. Her background spans marcomms, public affairs, and policy advocacy, where she has shaped legislative discussions and built partnerships with government bodies, including the DfE and the Home Office supporting best practice and high care standards notably across safeguarding and international student recruitment.
Dale Wilkins, Executive Director, Scotland/Wales and Accredited/Compliance
Dale joined the BSA during Summer 2017 with responsibility for safeguarding and standards. In July 2019 he also assumed responsibility for the BSA’s training programme, including both day seminars and accredited training courses. Dale leads on all safeguarding and inspection matters for the BSA, including managing the Commitment to Care Charter, the annual Safeguarding Conference, the Safeguarding Forum. He has also developed a process of BSA Accreditation for our overseas members.
For 31 years Dale was a boarding practitioner. After boarding positions at Norwich School and Tettenhall College, Dale became a Housemaster at Old Swinford Hospital in 1992, and was promoted to Deputy Head in 2007, and subsequently also DSL. He has also been a multi-agency trainer for the Dudley Safeguarding Children’s Board and has been closely involved in inspection in state and independent boarding since 2002. Dale had previously been a BSA course tutor since 1998 and developed the BSA Self-Assessment Toolkit.
