You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser to improve your experience and security.
SaFest 2026 speaker information
I am the Chief Executive Officer of North Devon Against Domestic Abuse (NDADA). NDADA is also part of the Devon Domestic Abuse Alliance, delivering around two-thirds of the Devon County Council Domestic Abuse contract. In addition to Domestic Abuse, I have a background in perinatal support.
Emmanuel Akpan-Inwang is the Founder and Director of Lighthouse Pedagogy Trust (LPT), a charity dedicated to providing high-quality children’s homes for children in the UK care system. LPT also delivers qualifications, training, and leadership development for professionals working in the sector. A former participant on the Teach First Leadership Development Programme, Emmanuel’s experience teaching in Birmingham inspired his focus on improving outcomes for children in care. His approach is rooted in the Danish model of social pedagogy, which integrates care and education in a holistic way. He has contributed to major sector reports, including the 2022 Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, and was awarded the British Empire Medal in 2025 for services to social enterprise and young people. Emmanuel is also a Churchill Fellow (2019), Acumen Fellow (2024), and Visiting Fellow at King’s College London Policy Institute.
Dr Libby Sevink has been working in Forensic Medicine since 2016. After 6 years working in General Forensic Medicine and Sexual Offences Medicine progressing to be Clinical Lead for Custody, she now works at the Paediatric SARC in Exeter and is the Clinical Lead for Devon and Cornwall Police. Having obtained her Membership by
examination of the Faculty of Forensic and Legal Medicine she has gone on to become an examiner and was selected to be the Faculty’s Vice President for Forensic Medicine, working to improve standards in the field.
Through her work with the FFLM she contributes her expertise to national guidelines and worked with the Institute For Addressing Strangulation to develop the guidelines for clinical management of non-fatal strangulation in acute and emergency care services, and continues to contribute to their important work. She is passionate about teaching and sharing knowledge about Forensic and Legal Medicine to enable professionals and the public to know how best to support the vulnerable people that come into contact with the legal system.
Tuesday
Megan is a survivor of technology-assisted child sexual abuse, an experience compounded by inadequate professional responses that led to further harm. Since 2016, she has used her lived experience to advocate for improved responses to online child sexual exploitation, championing stronger policy, practice, and victim rights.
As a Participation and Engagement Manager, Megan leads survivor-centred engagement, creating safe spaces for victims, survivors and their families to share insight and shape positive change. She works closely with individuals and organisations to ensure survivor voice informs better support pathways and system improvements for children, young people, and those in recovery.
Jon was, until July 2023, a primary headteacher and a designated safeguarding lead for 17 years and extremely passionate about safeguarding children and strategic leadership. He was the National Safeguarding Facilitator for Education working with the DfE championing the voice of education in local partnerships and central Government. He now provides professional guidance on all things leadership and safeguarding for all types of education settings and organisations. Jon is also the creator of the Strategic Safeguarding Quality Mark Framework.
- Alexandra Burgess: Alex has a strong background in criminal justice; housing, homelessness and systems change. Alex is a researcher at Together for Childhood’s Plymouth site, focussing on child sexual abuse prevention. In addition to working with Together for Childhood Alex is carrying out PhD research into sexual abuse prevention with a focus on primary and secondary prevention work with adults who may be at risk of sexually harming others.
- Dr Claire White - Claire has a background in forensic and developmental psychology and began working on the Together for Childhood project in Plymouth in 2017. She has extensive experience of designing and carrying out quantitative and qualitative research and evaluation with children and young people, adults in the community, and professionals (using traditional, participatory, and creative methods), helping to build an evidence base of what works to prevent child sexual abuse in a place-based initiative.
- Shelley Shaw- Shelley has been working for the NSPCC for 8 years and is privileged to work on the amazing child sexual abuse prevention programme ‘Together for Childhood’. Shelley’s background is background is in community development and this theory and practice underpins Together for Childhood’s work. Shelley has also worked in commissioning and this approach enables her to maintain a ‘helicopter view’ and identify opportunities for different parts of systems to work together. Shelley is committed to the values of social justice and collaboration is her favourite way to achieve this.
- Alice Dutton: Alice Dutton has been evaluating Together for Childhood since the start of the project. Alice leads the local evaluation in Stoke-on-Trent and has conducted various research and evaluation with young people around topics such as consent and online safety. Alice has also led on the Young People’s Knowledge Attitudes and Behaviours research, which was conducted across all four of our Together for Childhood sites.
- Ashika Thomas: Ashika is a researcher at the Together for Childhood Stoke on Trent site working on preventing child sexual abuse in the area. She has completed her masters in Development Studies at the London School of Economics and has experience in mixed methods research. Ashika has also led several ethnographies with children, young people and adults from migrant and minority communities in India and is interested in ensuring children across different social backgrounds are safe from abuse and neglect.
Natasha is the CEO and Founder of Bold Voices, an award winning social enterprise that prepares and empowers educational communities to recognise and tackle gender inequality, misogyny and cultures of gender-based violence. Since 2018 the organisation has worked with over 250,000 young people, staff and parents in over 200 schools across the UK and abroad, delivering knowledge about gender inequality, creating spaces for critical thought and discussion, and building the courage to challenge gendered issues. Natasha has an academic foundation in issues of gender and equality with an MSc in Gender and International Relations from the University of Bristol. She has facilitated workshops and delivered lectures on gender equality, feminism and women's rights at multinational investment banks, start ups, schools and universities across the UK.
Maria Cassidy is the Families and Communities Lead for The NWG Network, a charitable organisation formed as a UK network of over 14,500 practitioners who disseminate information down through their services, to professionals working on the issues of child exploitation (CE) and trafficking within the UK. The charity offers support, advice and through its campaigns raises the profile of CE, provide updates, training, shares national developments and influences the development of national and local policy informed by practice.
Maria works alongside safeguarding partnerships and national organisations to assist them in creating a culture which values and recognises families as safeguarding partners. She is also instrumental in bringing areas together to share practice about their work with families that others can learn from. Maria’s national work has included developing resources, briefing papers, workshops, benchmarking tools, videos, and delivers the training “Experts by Experience” which all include the voice of families affected by exploitation.
Sukhdev Rathore joined the NWG in 2022 and is a qualified youth worker with extensive experience in the youth and community sector. I have worked in both statutory and third-sector organisations, including a previous role as a practitioner at Barnardo's. In this position, I supported survivors of child exploitation and modern slavery. Also providing advice and guidance to communities, professionals, and various organisations on other safeguarding issues. My career has provided me with opportunities and the privilege to enhance my knowledge of working with diverse communities and organisations.
As the Exploitation, Diversity, and Inclusion Lead at the NWG, I collaborate with practitioners, strategic leaders, community leaders, and policymakers to ensure marginalised and minoritised communities are part of the solution and effort to combat child exploitation. Part of my role includes hosting forums and webinars that give practitioners and managers a platform to better understand the complexities of supporting child victims and survivors from diverse backgrounds. I have also developed resources to assist practitioners in supporting children and families from all communities.
Wednesday
Lewis Webb is an experienced school leader and former Senior Safeguarding Practitioner, having worked across both small and large rural school settings as a Class Teacher, Deputy Head, and Head of School and numerous years as a DSL. His recent time in schools gives him first-hand insight into the challenges faced in education today.
Now leading Inclusion and Learning across the Exeter and East area, Lewis brings a strong commitment to equity, opportunity, and success for all young people. He is passionate about embedding safeguarding into the curriculum and fostering cultures where all staff share responsibility for keeping children safe.
Lewis is known for his proactive and collaborative approach, engaging stakeholders across education to drive improvement and share best practice. He values positive challenge within safeguarding teams and champions the wellbeing of educators, recognising their vital role in helping children thrive.
Hi, I’m Penny. I’ve been a teacher for 13 years and currently split my time between two roles which I’m really passionate about. I work at Devon Virtual School as the Education Lead for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children (UASC), and I also continue my role as a Deputy Head Teacher in a primary school two days a week.
In my role with UASC, I support young people in finding a place in education and then work to ensure that the support and provision they receive is not just adequate, but excellent—so they can settle, succeed, and exceed expectations. I’m really enjoying the challenge and impact of this work, and I’m constantly inspired by the resilience and potential of the young people I support.
Penny Goldsby-West
Education Lead for Unaccompanied Asylum Seeking Children
Amit is the founder of For Working Parents, a company that helps organisations become more inclusive for their working parents and employees. A former Deputy Headteacher, Amit uses his experience and his training as an ICF Coach to create an environment in the workplace that is more empathetic and human and where parents and carers can thrive both at work and at home. Amit focuses particularly on the digital world and helping parents decode online language, manage screentime, understand social media dangers, and keep their children safe online through building positive relationships and asking the right questions. Amit’s LinkedIn profile and Instagram page provide regular digital advice and guidance for parents and his recent periodic table of emojis went viral, with schools, organisations, and media from around the world requesting copies of it to share with their communities. Amit also speaks publicly about his own personal story, having lost his mother to ovarian cancer, becoming a parent to a daughter born with three holes in her heart, and being diagnosed with ADHD as an adult.
Harriet is Head of Policy at the Office of the Children’s Commissioner; this is a statutory body responsible for promoting and protecting the rights of children as set out in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. The office has a particular focus on the most vulnerable children – those who are living away from their families in care, mental health institutions, or youth offending settings and those children who have a social worker. Harriet has worked in children’s policy for think tanks and charities, and also spent two years working as a child protection social worker.
Gemma was the Head of Policy and Public Affairs for CEASE UK where she led on political advocacy, legislative reform, campaigning and alliance building. She is an expert on the continuum of sexual exploitation including pornography, prostitution and trafficking, as well as the policy, legislative, educational and cultural changes that are needed to curb the harms of the commercial sex industry.
Thursday
Leon's biography:
Leon is a qualified social worker currently working in an edge of care DBIT core service in Essex. He has been working with children, adults and families for 25 years in a variety of settings. He first came across Solution Focused approach in 2016 and has experience of using it in the charity sector as well as the Local Authority. He enjoys making SF as accessible as possible to people and believes it to be a flexible and effective tool for change.
Steven's biography:
Steven qualified as a social worker through the Frontline programme, beginning his career in statutory safeguarding teams before joining DBIT, Essex’s edge-of-care service. Steven works with children and families drawing heavily on the solution-focused approach and is particularly passionate about whole-family work and the opportunities for change this creates.
Joe Clay - UK programme Manager- Safeguarding Partnerships
Joe oversees Railway Children’s Safeguarding Action Groups across the country and leads the organisation’s training provision for Train Operating Companies (TOCs) and British Transport Police (BTP). With over 18 years of experience supporting young people—as a frontline practitioner, outreach youth worker, and later as a project manager for a large national charity—he brings extensive expertise in direct youth engagement, the rail industry, and multi-agency collaboration.
Joe plays a key role in strengthening contextual safeguarding systems to protect children at risk, working closely with rail industry partners, law enforcement, and community stakeholders to develop and embed effective safeguarding practices. He leads on Railway Children’s support for the Safeguarding on Rail Scheme, ensuring that frontline staff across the transport sector are equipped with the knowledge and skills to identify, respond to, and support vulnerable young people.
His work is instrumental in building safer environments for children and young people, ensuring they receive the right support at the right time.
Lisa is a qualified youth worker and an experienced leader within youth settings including early help, youth work, missing and exploitation services and youth justice. Lisa has been a passionate advocate of contextual safeguarding since its inception and was instrumental in developing practice alongside the contextual safeguarding research team when working in Wiltshire, which was a pilot site for the Scale Up project which ran from 2019 - 2021. As lead for the systemic implementation of contextual safeguarding, Lisa initiated Wiltshire formally piloting a Risk Outside the Home child protection pathway for young people at risk of significant harm, which generated learning that instigated ongoing and current research into this approach. Lisa has worked with the contextual safeguarding research team as a practitioner co-researcher on the Sustaining Social Work project, which provided recommendations around how those working in contextual safeguarding can be supported. Lisa has since led youth justice and exploitation services in Devon and is currently Service Manager in Dorset where she is strategic lead for contextual safeguarding and leads targeted youth work, post 16 participation services and Dorset Careers Hub.
Friday
Emma and El are both highly specialist Speech and Language Therapists working within the Bridges team. They specialise in working with the intersection between speech, language and communication; trauma and SEMH. Their role is to ensure that language and communication are considered at every stage of the Bridges model of support and to advocate for young people with language and communication needs across their wider systems. Talking about safety with the young people they work with is a key part of their role.
5WAVES is a US-based, lived experience led charity that provides Worldwide Awareness, Voice, Education, and Support specific to sibling sexual trauma and abuse (SSTA). Maria is a survivor and Brandy is a parent of SSTA. In addition to the websites, educational materials, and numerous personal appearances around SSTA, Maria and Brandy have coauthored published research on the subject, in collaboration with Hebrew University.
James Simpson. Housing Resolutions Coordinator, Young Devon.
I have always had a strong sense of social justice and am glad I am in a position where I can affect positive change in disadvantaged people's lives. I have worked with homeless young people for twelve years, mainly with Young Devon. Our team work with 16-17 year olds and Care Experienced young people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness.
Jenny Lynch - Youth Work Project Manager Young Devon
Hi I’m Jenny, I have been working with Young Devon since 2013 leading the Homeless Prevention team covering East Devon, Exeter and Teignbridge. At Young Devon our strap line is ‘Changing the Odds in Favour of Young People’, I feel so privileged to work alongside and support young people every single day, doing all we can to make sure a young person’s first experience of homelessness is their last.
