Webinar: Supporting Children Affected by Trauma in Complex Situations
Join this free UK Trauma Council webinar to launch our new Department for Education-funded online Community of Practice and hear from leading UK experts supporting children with complex, overlapping needs.
Background to this webinar
Unfortunately, we know that some young people can find themselves in incredibly difficult situations – facing abuse, neglect, home or community violence, economic hardship, and other significant adverse childhood experiences. They can find themselves in a cycle of inequity, with unmet language, learning, education, and mental health needs, and a lack of trusted and safe social support as they move through their childhood and teen years.
Often, these young people find themselves bouncing between different professionals and different sectors – particularly in social care, health, education, and sometimes also justice. This not only has devastating consequences for the young people but also highlights the significant commitment of resources required across services. Cross-sector services are full of professionals working hard in busy and stretched teams trying to find solutions to meet the needs of these young people – but often report challenges around meaningful joined-up collaborative working.
Our Community of Practice – Building Brighter Futures Together – aims to change this. The platform will bring together cross-sector professionals from across the UK, with key input from caregivers and young people with expertise-by-experience, to learn from real-world examples of how professionals and sectors can work together to provide individualised and meaningful support to these young people and help them to live the life they want.
Join Prof. Rachel Hiller, Dr Emma Smale, Dr Beverley Barnett-Jones and Dr Kate Ward as they discuss ways forward to working together at this free webinar.
Aims of this webinar
To introduce the new Building Brighter Futures Together Community of Practice.
To bring together the research and findings of the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory and other research studies and consider them within the context of frontline practice.
To explore how taking an intersectional lens can help us to better understand and serve children and families.
To explore steps towards a more integrated way of supporting children in complex situations.
Who should attend?
This webinar is suitable for professionals from across social care, mental health, education and justice sectors.
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Dr Kate Ward
Dr Kate Ward is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with over 20 years of experience working with children and young people across North East England. She specialises in supporting young people affected by trauma in complex situations, including those at risk of harm to themselves or others, experiencing relational difficulties, or facing the possibility of inpatient or secure admission or deprivation of liberty orders.
Throughout her career, Kate has worked at the intersection of mental health, safeguarding, education, and care systems, providing direct, specialist psychological support at points of significant clinical complexity. Over the past 3 years, Kate has worked with these systems to develop new ways of working under the Framework for Integrated Care; supporting cross-sector collaboration to provide individualised, meaningful support to children and young people facing significant adversity.
Dr Beverley Barnett-Jones h.c
Dr Beverley Barnett-Jones h.c is a social worker by heart and by profession. Over many years, she has worked closely with researchers, academics, and clinicians to strengthen the social care response to children and families where adverse childhood experiences and intergenerational social adversity manifest as trauma, stress, and loss—deeply affecting mental wellbeing and health. Her work is grounded in a commitment to contextualising these challenges within cultural, structural, and social justice frameworks.
She is currently the Associate Director for Practice and Impact at the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory, bringing extensive frontline experience from children’s social care and the family courts. She played a key role in establishing three Family Drug and Alcohol Courts (FDACs) in England, introducing, and implementing the AMBIT model across LA settings and continues to serve as an expert advisor to the Royal Foundation Centre for Early Childhood.
In 2024, Beverley was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust and the University of Essex in recognition of her leadership and innovation in the field of family justice. She is kinship care experienced and is proud to support those who step up to care for children, as a Trustee for Kinship, the national charity for Kinship carers and their children.
Beverley recently founded the ABEL Initiative—Attachment, Belonging, Elevation and Love—a pathway to hope that promotes collaboration with faith-based communities in effectively implementing evidence-based practices and interventions that support vulnerable children, their families, and communities. Through ABEL, Beverley champions the integration of neuroscience, infant mental health, spirituality, and community wisdom to promote healing, resilience across the life course.
Professor Rachel Hiller
Rachel is a Professor in Child & Adolescent Mental Health at University College London (UCL). She is also the Head of Postgraduate Studies at Anna Freud. Rachel is a member of the Board of Directors for the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies (ISTSS).
Rachel’s research focuses on complex child trauma and adversity, with a particular focus on the mental health and wellbeing of children who have a social worker (including those who are in care). Her work here spans investigating psychological and social mechanisms linking trauma and adversity to mental health, as well as the effectiveness and implementation of scalable interventions across social care and mental health settings.
Emma Smale
Emma is Head of Practice and Policy at Nuffield FJO and works to ensure our programmes and projects create impact for children and families. Emma comes to us from Research in Practice where she was Assistant Director for Innovation, responsible for a wide range of national programmes and partnerships. She led the Learning and Capability Project for the Children’s Safeguarding Practice Review Panel which aimed to identify better ways to generate learning from serious incidents and local safeguarding practice reviews.
Passionate about convening people from different systems and practices, Emma has recently focused on enabling learning and collaboration to generate systems change. She helped to bring about the ‘Staying Close’ pilots, supported accommodation options for young people leaving residential care, contributed to the development of transitional safeguarding and has written about the effectiveness of public inquiries into the protection of children.
Emma was previously Head of Policy and Research for Action for Children, Head of Research and Children’s Social Care for the Social Care Institute for Excellence and a Senior Associate for the Innovation Unit. Emma is a trustee for the Family Rights Group.
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Zoom will be used to deliver online training. Prior to booking, please ensure you meet the system requirements so you can join this training session.
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