SaferEd Conference 2025
Developing a Safeguarding Culture in Education

Hosted by Safeguarding Network

Online 1st - 4th July 2025

Creating, embedding, developing and managing your safeguarding culture within a whole organisation / school approach is an increasingly complex task for Designated Safeguarding Leads and senior leaders. 

This Conference will explore key issues related to the challenges we face and explore potential solutions as we all strive to keep young people safe and ensure that everybody working in a school or college understands their safeguarding responsibilities. 

We are delighted to invite you to attend in-depth Keynote sessions from three truly inspirational speakers: 

  • Professor Carlene Firmin -  Safeguarding via inclusive school cultures
  • Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, CBE - A culture of safeguarding
  • Dr. Jon Needham - Navigating the complex challenges within a whole-school approach

Tailored Workshops: Attend ten practical workshops throughout the week led by experts from organisations like Safeguarding Network, Lucy Faithfull Foundation, SWGfL, and Anna Freud. All workshops and Keynotes can be watched on demand after the event.

Cutting-Edge Insights: Explore the latest research and trends in safeguarding in education, and uncover solutions to the challenges we all face in keeping young people safe.

Free DSL Planner: all participants will receive a copy of our hugely popular annual Designated Safeguarding Lead Planner 2025-26.

Continuing Professional Development: Participants can attend ALL Workshops; plus watch all Keynotes and Workshops on demand for a limited amount of time, totalling over 2 days of Continuing Professional Development.

Booking

All prices are subject to VAT. All attendees receive a free Designated Safeguarding Lead Planner 2025-26. Non-Members can save £50 per ticket by subscribing to Safeguarding Network.

Programme

We want to create a space for honest, open dialogue where we can challenge our own and others thinking in a safe space.


The 3 Keynotes are on July 1st, and the Workshops are scheduled from 1st July to 4th July. 


Participants will be able to attend ALL the Workshops throughout the week, with the added flexibility of watching all Keynotes and Workshops on demand for a limited amount of time.

Tuesday 1st July

  • Welcome

  • KEYNOTE 1: Professor Carlene Firmin - Safeguarding via inclusive school cultures

  • WORKSHOP 1: Safeguarding Online. Graham Lowe, SWGfL

  • KEYNOTE 2: Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, CBE - A culture of safeguarding

  • KEYNOTE 3: Dr. Jon Needham - Navigating the complex challenges within a whole-school approach

  • WORKSHOP 2: How student voice strengthens a safeguarding culture. Hannah Smart, Transforming Futures

Wednesday 2nd July

  • WORKSHOP 3: ‘Everyone’s Safer’. Laura Nott, Lucy Faithfull Foundation.

  • WORKSHOP 4: Introduction to supervision in education - how safeguarding supervision can promote staff mental health and wellbeing. Sharon Hand, Safeguarding Network

  • WORKSHOP 5: Creating a mentally healthy culture in your school. Vicky Seward, Anna Freud.

Thursday 3rd July

  • WORKSHOP 6: How VR can enable practitioners to have an insight into a child’s perspective. Abby Cooke and Shalene Lemmie, Cornerstone VR.

  • WORKSHOP 7: IRL – The motivation for sexting in UK teenage boys. Dr. Jon Needham.

  • WORKSHOP 8: Empowering student voices: a framework for managing extra familial risks to children. Jason Tait, The Student Voice.

Friday 4th July

  • WORKSHOP 9: Speaker and topic TBC. Association of Childcare Protection Professionals.

  • WORKSHOP 10: Speaker and topic TBC. CPOMS.

This conference is for:

  • Head teachers
  • Principals
  • Heads of department
  • Heads of teaching and learning
  • Deputy headteachers
  • Designated Safeguarding Leads and DDSLs
  • School business managers
  • MAT leaders
  • Governors
  • Senior leadership team
  • Pastoral leads

and others with a passion for ensuring the safety and wellbeing of young people in education settings.

About Safeguarding Network

We are here to help reduce the DSL’s burden. We provide a wide range of resources, tools, training, and expert advice to help DSLs and staff with safeguarding responsibilities, to meet their setting''s needs, saving time and making safeguarding more robust. 

Non-members can save £50 per ticket by subscribing to Safeguarding Network.

Keynotes

We are delighted to invite you to three inspirational Keynote sessions from Professor Carlene Firmin, Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, CBE, and Dr. Jon Needham.

  • Safeguarding via inclusive school cultures

    Professor Carlene Firmin

    Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility, and within education settings this starts with day-to-day practices. Using examples of effective approaches with comments from staff and students who have been involved, Carlene will look at how safeguarding in school and college contexts requires professionals to move beyond referral-based responses and instead nurture inclusive and anti-discriminatory cultures.

    She will highlight the ways in which behaviour or sanction-dominant policies can undermine contextually focused approaches to safety, and signal ways to create safe school contexts within, and independent of, multi-agency partnerships.

    Carlene is Professor of Social Work at Durham University. Since 2008 Carlene has researched young people’s experiences of community and group-based violence and advocated for comprehensive approaches that keep young people safe in public places, schools and peer groups. She coined the term Contextual Safeguarding in 2015 as a result of her doctoral work, and has gone on to apply the idea through a multi-research project programme first at the University of Bedfordshire, and since 2021, at Durham University. 

    She is Principal Investigator of Contextual Safeguarding: The Next Chapter, as well as Co-Investigator on Contextual Safeguarding Across Borders and the Innovate Project (in partnership with Sussex University).

  • A culture of safeguarding

    Dame Jasvinder Sanghera, CBE

    Jasvinder will share her thoughts and experiences of effective safeguarding cultures, the tensions that exist and how survivor voice is central to effective safeguarding practice. Drawing on her own experience she will highlight the need for safeguarding to take precedence over the perceived culture of individuals, groups, organisations and society at large. She will highlight the signs of forced marriage and how we can work together to prevent this, and explore the building blocks of safe organisational cultures, including empowering staff to act where they have concerns. 

    Participants will… 

    • Feel energised and motivated to effect change for young people and their families
    • Be clear about the things to look for in honour based violence, forced marriage, FGM 
    • Be equipped with 3 or 4 practical things they can do to build the safeguarding culture in their organisation
    • Understand why survivor voice IS safeguarding, rather than just an add-on 

    Jasvinder was awarded a Damehood in The King’s Birthday Honours list in 2024, in recognition of her remarkable accomplishments and service to people throughout the UK. She was born and raised in Derby and is a survivor of a forced marriage. Jasvinder is the founder of Karma Nirvana, a national charity that has been operating for 30 years and provides support to both men and women affected by honour-based crimes and forced marriages.

    Jasvinder is an acclaimed international speaker and serves as a leading expert advisor to the Courts for child and criminal proceedings. Her memoir, ''Shame'', was a Sunday Times Top 10 Bestseller and was described in the House of Lords as a ''political weapon''.

    Jasvinder is currently employed by Harrods as their Independent Survivor Advocate to support those abused by former owner Mohammed Fayed.

  • Navigating the complex challenges within a whole-school approach

    Dr. Jon Needham

    ‘Safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility’ is a phrase everybody uses, but what does this mean in reality? This session will explore how a culture of safeguarding is created and applied within the context of a school environment.

    The role of the Designated Safeguarding Lead (DSL) is an increasingly complex one, with new responsibilities added with each new iteration of Keeping Children Safe in Education.

    The focus of this session will be around the strategic leadership of safeguarding within a school by the DSL and the acknowledgement that all the issues cannot be left to one person. Included in the talk will be a challenge to ‘ring fence’ the DSL.

    The talk will identify the steps required to ensure the ethos of the school reflects effective safeguarding practice and that each member is playing their part.

    Outcomes from this Keynote will include:

    • Increased Responsibilities: acknowledging that the role of the DSL is becoming more complex
    • Strategic Leadership: recognising the DSL's leadership role strategically within a school
    • Shared Responsibility: Highlighting the need for collective involvement in safeguarding rather than it being the sole responsibility of the DSL
    • Protecting DSL Capacity: ensuring the DSL has  dedicated time and resources for their role
    • School-wide Safeguarding Ethos: emphasising the steps to ensure all staff members contribute to a culture of effective safeguarding

    Jon originally trained as a nurse specializing in adolescents with life limiting illness before moving to become an advisor to a strategic health authority and a health commissioner. He worked briefly as a specialist advisor on two World Health Organization projects before becoming the lead for early help  within a large unitary authority. 

    He worked as an education safeguarding advisor supporting 530 schools and for the past 6 years has worked as the National Director of Safeguarding & Mental Health in a multi-academy trust. 

    He holds a PhD in Education (Safeguarding) from Liverpool Hope University. He also acts as a mentor to five young men starting in business ensuring that they develop to their full potential. In his spare time, he is a voluntary youth worker. When (if) he ever relaxes he is a keen fan of Korean dramas (though must use subtitles).

Workshops

We have a wide range of online workshops around our conference theme of developing a safeguarding culture in education, scheduled across Tuesday 1st July to Friday 4th July. 


Participants will be able to attend ALL the Workshops throughout the week, with the added flexibility of watching all Keynotes and Workshops on demand for a limited amount of time.


Click on each workshop to find out more.

WORKSHOP 1: Safeguarding online

Graham Lowe, SWGfL

WORKSHOP 2: How student voice strengthens a safeguarding culture

Hannah Smart, Transforming Futures Trust

WORKSHOP 3: ‘Everyone’s Safer’

Laura Nott, Lucy Faithfull Foundation (LFF)

WORKSHOP 4: Introduction to supervision in education - how safeguarding supervision can promote staff mental health and wellbeing

Sharon Hand, Safeguarding Network

WORKSHOP 5: Creating a mentally healthy culture in your school

Vicky Saward, Anna Freud

WORKSHOP 6: How VR can enable practitioners to have an insight into a child’s perspective

Abby Cooke and Shalene Lemmie, Cornerstone VR

WORKSHOP 7: IRL – The motivation for sexting in UK teenage boys

Dr. Jon Needham

WORKSHOP 8: Empowering student voices: a framework for managing extra familial risks to children

Jason Tait, The Student Voice

WORKSHOP 9: TBC

Association of Child Protection Professionals

WORKSHOP 10: Developing a culture of safe data sharing

CPOMS

“The event was an inspiring blend of engaging talks and workshops, all centred around the crucial topics of safeguarding and mental health. It was truly enlightening to hear from leading experts and to gain new insights and practical strategies that can be applied to our daily work.”

Safeguarding and Mental Health Conference 2024 Attendee



Meet our sponsor

CPOMS is the trusted provider of safeguarding, wellbeing and pastoral software used by over 20,000 settings worldwide. Its systems support a wide range of establishments, including nurseries, primary and secondary schools, colleges, charities and sports clubs, in ensuring the wellbeing of pupils and staff. The systems also aid Local Authorities by simplifying the sharing of sensitive pupil information to streamline the safeguarding process. As part of the Raptor Technologies family, CPOMS continues to expand its capabilities and partnerships. 

Book your ticket today!

Non-Members can save £50 per ticket by subscribing to Safeguarding Network.

Find out more about Safeguarding Network membership