SaferEd Conference 2025: Developing a Safeguarding Culture in Education

Following the success of our first face-to-face Safeguarding & Mental Health Conference, we are thrilled to announce that we are now accepting registrations of interest for our 2025 conference. Don't miss out on the chance to be the first to receive exclusive updates and information about next year's event. Sign up to the waiting list today to stay informed and ensure your place at the forefront of safeguarding discussions.

This conference will give you the opportunity to share the dynamics involved with a range of keynote speakers and practice-based workshops . These sessions 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.

Our Keynotes Speakers

Dame Jasvinder Sanghera 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'.

Doctor Jon Needham 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. 

Professor Carlene Firmin 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).