🏷️ £250-500, with additional tickets from £120
🎧 All those involved in safeguarding
📍 In person – Broadway House, Tothill St, London SW1H 9NQ

Join us at our Annual Safeguarding Conference, taking place in person.

The Annual Safeguarding Conference is a one-day professional development event bringing together safeguarding leaders, practitioners, and partners from across education, care, and related sectors. The programme provides a comprehensive update on emerging safeguarding risks, lessons from key national inquiries, and practical strategies for strengthening safeguarding practice. Through expert-led sessions, case studies, and interactive discussions, delegates will explore resilience, compliance, youth engagement, and the challenges of digital safeguarding. The day concludes with the Annual Safeguarding Awards, recognising excellence and innovation in safeguarding practice.

Training Topics

• Resilience in Safeguarding Practice
• Emerging Risks in Safeguarding
• Lessons from IICSA
• Partnerships and Professional Collaboration
• Youth Voice in Safeguarding
• Digital Safeguarding
• Learning Outcomes

By the end of the conference, participants will be able to:

• Apply resilience-building strategies to maintain personal wellbeing and professional effectiveness in safeguarding roles.
• Recognise and respond to emerging risks such as radicalisation, misogyny, and online harms, while fulfilling Prevent responsibilities.
• Interpret the lessons of IICSA and integrate key recommendations into safeguarding frameworks and practice.
• Strengthen collaborative practice with LADOs and other safeguarding partners to ensure robust case management.
• Embed youth voice into safeguarding strategies, ensuring young people are heard, respected, and protected.
• Identify and mitigate current digital safeguarding threats, applying proactive approaches to protect children and young people across online platforms.

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The SACPA Awards are held annually each autumn to celebrate and recognise outstanding contributions to safeguarding and child protection.

The awards honour individuals, teams, and organisations who demonstrate excellence, innovation, and commitment in creating safe environments for children and vulnerable individuals. As a key event in the safeguarding calendar, the SACPA Awards shine a spotlight on best practices and inspire continuous improvement across education, care, and community sectors.

📣 Entries for the 2025 awards are now open!

FOR MORE INFORMATION AND ENTRY

This event will be held jointly with:

09:30 – 10:00 Registration and refreshments

10:00 – 10:30 MOT for safeguarding professionals: Resilience Building in Safeguarding

This session focuses on supporting safeguarding professionals by exploring resilience-building strategies to sustain wellbeing and effectiveness in demanding roles.

• Speaker: Dr Mariya Ali, Director, SACPA

10:30 – 11:00 Emerging Risks Safeguarding: Radicalisation, Misogyny and Prevent responsibilities for schools

This session examines the growing safeguarding risks linked to radicalisation and misogyny, outlining schools’ Prevent duties and practical responses.

• Speaker: Dr Craig McCann

11:00 – 12:00 Lessons from IICSA

This session reflects on the findings of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), highlighting key lessons for safeguarding practice across education settings.

• Speaker: Fiona Scolding KC

12:00 – 13:00 Networking lunch

13:00 – 13:45 Working effectively with LADOs   

This session explores how to collaborate productively with Local Authority Designated Officers (LADOs) to ensure robust safeguarding case management.

13:45 – 14:30 Youth Voice in Safeguarding

This session emphasizes the importance of embedding children and young people’s voices in safeguarding, ensuring that practice reflects lived experiences.

14:30 – 15:00 Refreshments and networking

15:00 – 15:30 Safeguarding Across Borders

This session highlights the challenges and considerations of safeguarding in international or cross-border contexts, with a focus on collaboration and information-sharing.

• Speaker: Damian Cranny, Fraud Protection Officer, Dorset Police

15:30 – 16:15 Digital dangers and trends

This session addresses emerging digital risks facing children and young people, offering insights into trends and strategies for safer online environments.

• Speaker: Karl Hopwood, SACPA Chair

16:15 – 16:30 Annual Safeguarding Awards

This session celebrates excellence in safeguarding practice through the presentation of the Annual Safeguarding Awards.

16:30 Conference close

Speakers:

Dr Mariya Ali, Director, SACPA

Mariya Ali is Director of SACPA and an internationally recognised safeguarding and child protection expert. With over two decades’ multidisciplinary experience in legal, academic, advisory, and leadership roles, she is strongly committed to advancing child rights and welfare. Formerly Deputy Minister in the Maldives, she led national reforms in child protection policy and legislation. Internationally, she has worked with UNICEF, Save the Children, and Lumos Foundation on child sexual abuse, exploitation, and systems reform across South Asia and beyond. An academic and practitioner, Mariya has published widely and specialises in trauma-informed, survivor-centred, and systems-based safeguarding approaches.

Dr Craig McCann

Craig McCann is a senior leader with extensive experience driving business transformation across public and private sectors. As founder of S.P.E.C.T.R.U.M. Universal Ltd., he advises policymakers and practitioners on counter-terrorism strategy, risk management, and partnership approaches to address evolving global threats. Craig delivers training, coaching, and mentoring to frontline professionals and has worked in diverse contexts including East Africa, the Western Balkans, and Asia. His research spans interventions to counter-narrative campaigns, and he regularly publishes, lectures, and speaks at international conferences. In addition, he teaches UK police recruits and writes children’s books promoting literacy and positive family experiences.

Fiona Scolding KC

Fiona has practised in the field of public law with an emphasis upon work concerning children and vulnerable adults for 28 years.  She is ranked as a leading education and court of protection barrister in the legal directories.  She has been involved in many cases concerning safeguarding in settings involving children and adults and has led investigations into abuses of power in educational,  health and charitable settings.

Damian Cranny, Fraud Protection Officer, Dorset Police

Damian is a Fraud Protection Officer with Dorset Police’s Economic Crime Unit and certified NLP Practitioner. He combines traditional policing with psychological insights to combat fraud through innovative education. His 24-lesson secondary school program explores fraud psychology, while his romance fraud awareness campaign achieved a 323% increase in victim reporting within two weeks. Damian develops presentations that merge real-world police experience with NLP techniques, helping educators understand criminal manipulation tactics. At conferences, he focuses on protecting students from fraud targeting and building resilience against social engineering attacks through comprehensive safeguarding approaches.

Karl Hopwood, SACPA Chair

Karl Hopwood is an independent online safety expert and member of the UK Council for Internet Safety (UKCIS), where he sits on several working groups. He serves on the advisory board of the UK Safer Internet Centre and the Roblox Trust and Safety board, and has advised TikTok on harmful challenges. Karl works closely with Internet Matters, Ofcom, and schools across Europe to promote digital literacy and safer online behaviours. A former headteacher, he has consulted for INSAFE for 19 years, coordinating helplines and awareness centres. He currently chairs Childnet International and SACPA, and previously chaired the Marie Collins Foundation.