Safeguarding & Mental Health Conference 2024

The Commissioner’s talk will cover key findings from her most recent survey, the Big Ambition, and other key concerns around safeguarding and children’s mental health.

Dame Rachel De Souza is a nationally recognised educator and advocate for improving the life chances of disadvantaged children. Before her appointment as Children’s Commissioner, she led two schools from failing to outstanding, before founding and leading the Inspiration Trust, a family of fourteen schools in East Anglia. The Trust was twice ranked as the nation’s top group of comprehensive schools based on pupil progress at GCSE. She was made a Dame in 2014 for services to education.

Dame Rachel was appointed Children’s Commissioner in 2021. In this role she has unique legislative powers, is an advocate for children across the country, and represents children’s needs across Government. In role, Dame Rachel has completed the largest-ever survey of children ‘The Big Ask’ with over half-a-million responses. This work led to a commission from Government to look at representing children’s voice in the Online Safety Bill, an ongoing piece of work into driving up attendance in schools, and was asked to complete the Family Review by Government.

There has been a steep rise in mental health and safeguarding presentations since the pandemic, notably in self-harm and suicidal behaviours, with a huge impact on schools and their staff. The session will cover best practice and current thinking, alongside considering the challenges for school safeguarding leads. Support for staff and using reflective approaches will be considered to promote resilience in staff and the wider school community.

Dr Lesley French is a consultant clinical psychologist and heads up the clinical help offer for the Schools Division at Anna Freud. Dr French trained at University College London, is an Honorary Lecturer and worked in the NHS for over 20 years in CAMHS and outpatient forensic services alongside her role as Programme Director for a leadership course for Anna Freud /UCL. She was Clinical Director and Head of Psychological Therapies before moving to Anna Freud full-time in 2019. Dr French oversees three child and family community mental health teams, a national remote service providing direct intervention to young people in schools, staff and parents and leads on safeguarding training.

Experiencing traumatic events such as assault, abuse, death, bullying and racism as a child or young person can increase risk to poor mental health and long-term outcomes. By understanding how these events impact them, designated safeguarding and mental health leads are better placed to respond effectively and use evidence informed approaches to create an environment that supports their recovery.

David Trickey is a leading Consultant Clinical Psychologist and Co-Director of the UK Trauma Council. He has specialised in working with traumatised children, young people, and their families since 2000, particularly following domestic abuse and family homicide. He continues to focus on direct clinical work, as well as the training, supervision and support of others and is the clinical team lead for a specialist service for children in care. He presents at conferences and supervises research. He is chartered by the British Psychological Society and registered with the Health and Care Professions council. He was a member of the committee responsible for the 2018 revision of the NICE Guidelines for PTSD. In all of his roles he draws heavily on the research literature to which he has made a modest contribution.