CSA CENTRE - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the NSPCC
Anna Edmundson is Head of Policy and Public Affairs at the NSPCC and leads their policy and public affairs strategy across all aspects of child abuse and neglect in the UK; directly influencing parliament and policy makers, to ensure their policy calls are sound and convert into real change to protect children from abuse.
Anna is a qualified barrister with over twenty years' experience of developing and leading high-performing policy teams in children's and human rights organisations, which have changed the law and policy around criminal justice, policing, mental health, children's rights and child protection.
Anna heads up the Practice Improvement Team at the CSA Centre, leading our work creating practice resources, devising training and advising individuals and organisations on how to improve their response to child sexual abuse.
Anna is a qualified social worker and prior to joining the CSA Centre worked within statutory front line child protection and specialist services as a practitioner and manager. She was the practice development lead for child sexual abuse within East Sussex children's services, and contributed to local and regional service and policy development. Here she developed and led a multi-disciplinary specialist sexual abuse team, which provided assessments, interventions, supervision, consultation and training.
Anna has specialised in child sexual abuse work for the majority of her career, including acting as an expert witness in the family courts on child sexual abuse case in her previous role.
In her current role Anna offers expert input on a number of national strategic projects relating to child sexual abuse. She is an Associate Tutor at the University of Sussex and is the Editor of NOTA News, the quarterly magazine for members of the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abuse.
Caroline qualified as a Clinical Psychologist in 1992, but is also a trained Family Therapist, registered Cognitive-Behavioural Psychotherapist and a Clinical Supervisor. Her career to-date spans across the NHS, most prevalently in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS), but also in Primary Care and within a Secure Children's Home.
In 2010 Caroline became Clinical Lead of a specialist CAMHS team working with children and young people who have experienced sexual abuse and assault, focussing on the impact on both the individual and the family. She has trained with the US developers of Trauma-Focused CBT (TF-CBT). TF-CBT is reported to be the best-evidenced intervention for children and young people with post-traumatic stress disorder (Cohen, Mannarino, and Deblinger) and recommended by NICE for PTSD following sexual trauma. Caroline is the recognised UK trainer and consultant for TF-CBT.
Catherine is a Detective Inspector, staff officer for the National Police Chief's Council Child Protection and Abuse Investigations Working Group, led by Deputy Chief Constable Ian Critchley. The group covers all aspects of child sexual abuse and exploitation across policing.
Catherine has been a police officer for 12 years and in the last decade has worked as a detective, primarily in roles protecting vulnerable people, such as: domestic abuse, child protection, sexual offences and public protection. She has worked on high profile child protection matters such as Alfie Evans, with national organisations on improving safeguarding policy, improving our approach to child protection in organised crime and managing child protection and sexual offences teams in Liverpool. Catherine is really passionate about her job and the opportunity to help improve outcomes for vulnerable children.
Job Titles:
- Development Manager for Kingston
Daksha is Learning & Development Manager for Kingston and Richmond Safeguarding Children Partnership. She is a skilled children's safeguarding professional, trainer, and strategic manager with over 30 years' experience working within children's social care.
During the course of her career, she has worked both at a national level as a director at Reconstruct (a safeguarding training company) and as a skilled trainer and facilitator, working with partner agencies to develop multi agency relationships and safeguarding practice, policy & procedures. Daksha has significant experience in the development and delivery of sexual abuse training, including directly working with survivors of sexual abuse and working with multi agency partners to develop good practice. As a woman of Indian heritage, she has specialised in working with minority communities to raise awareness about child sexual abuse.
Job Titles:
- Co - Chair of Rape Crisis England
Dianne is the Co-Chair of Rape Crisis England and Wales (RCEW), and is the Chief Officer of Coventry Rape and Sexual Abuse Centre (CRASAC) which is one of the largest Rape Crisis centres in the country. She also sits as a Non-Executive Director on Coventry and Warwickshire Partnership NHS Trust.
Previously Dianne worked with a range of public sector organisations including working for a number of years as a management consultant specialising with working with NHS organisations and its strategic partners before training as a gestalt therapist and joining the sexual violence specialist voluntary sector. Dianne has worked for a substantial period in the field of sexual violence, in a variety of different roles, and has significant experience of working at a strategic level, having advised national organisations such as the IPCC and participating on national groups such as the All Part Parliamentary Group on Sexual Violence, and the National CPS/ACPO Scrutiny Groups as RCEW's representative.
Dianne continues to work as a Gestalt therapist with survivors and victims of sexual violence including child sexual abuse.
Job Titles:
- Principal Research and Evaluation Officer / Research & Evaluation
Diana is an evaluator/researcher with extensive experience in both qualitative and quantitative methods, including a Master's Degree in Professional Practice in Research Methods and a PhD in Culture, Communications and Media from the Institute of Education, UCL. Before joining the CSA Centre, Diana spent many years as a freelance evaluator working with a wide range of organisations to understand the outcomes and impact of their work. She has produced a number of guides, including "Measuring your effectiveness: A practical guide for services working with children and young people affected by sexual abuse". Diana is also a founding member and current Chair of Trustees of Birth Companions, a charity supporting pregnant women and new mothers experiencing multiple disadvantage, and was awarded an MBE in recognition of this work.
Job Titles:
- Principal Research and Evaluation Officer / Research & Evaluation
Jasmin is a criminologist with extensive research and evaluation experience across both statutory and voluntary sectors. Before joining the CSA Centre, Jasmin worked as an independent research consultant, supporting organisations that operate within criminal justice, children's health and social care and local government. Prior to this, she was a lecturer and researcher in the Centre for Law, Crime and Justice at Cardiff University for over 15 years and remains an Honorary Research Fellow in the University's School of Social Sciences. Jasmin's work is practice-informed, and she has worked on a number of research projects that have made significant impact on both UK and EU policy-making.
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Natasha is a Forensic Psychologist with professional experience in child sexual abuse. She has worked within Youth Justice as a practitioner and manager specialising in harmful sexual behaviour. Natasha has also had roles within secure hospitals and custodial environments where she has predominantly worked with adult males who have committed sexual offences.
Natasha is a visiting lecturer at the University of Birmingham, facilitating teaching sessions to Forensic and Clinical Psychologists in training.
Job Titles:
- Deputy Director / Research & Evaluation
Sophie has led the CSA Centre's research and evaluation work from its launch. Overseeing a highly successful team, together they have produced over 40 widely referenced reports, ‘key messages' summaries, briefings, articles and blogs, with many more planned.
She has extensive experience in conducting research and exploring the issues that matter for children and young people - bringing experience in social care, health and education that spans the NHS, UK, and international charities, working with key organisations including Barnardo's, Coram and Save the Children. Sophie strongly values expertise from practice and lived experience, as well as research evidence, combining them carefully and clearly to inform a wide variety of audiences. Finally, Sophie heads up the continuous evaluation and learning of the CSA Centre's work, to ensure impact and delivery to professional, service and family needs.
Job Titles:
- Social Worker
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Emma is a qualified social worker and practice educator. Prior to joining the CSA Centre Emma worked for the NSPCC for almost two decades in the field of children and young people who display harmful sexual behaviour and child sexual abuse recovery services; with 15 in direct practice and then as a development social worker.
Her role as a practice educator focused on delivering training, workshops and resources for a wide range of professionals working with children and families. During this time she developed guidance and training for professionals working directly with technology-assisted harmful sexual behaviour, including completing an MSc in forensic psychology exploring Technology Assisted-Harmful Sexual Behaviour and the tools and resources available to be used by professionals working with young people.
Ian is the Director of the CSA Centre. He has an extensive background in children's services, including more than a decade leading the development and implementation of children's social care and child protection policy. Most recently, Ian led on children's social care policy for the Local Government Association, working closely with councils and their partners to support, promote and improve children's services. Prior to this, Ian managed the London Safeguarding Children Board, working with senior leaders from across the public sector with a particular focus on building multi-agency partnerships, commissioning and managing research projects, and designing innovative policy responses to complex safeguarding issues.
Jan is an experienced social worker and has worked in the third sector, the probation service, the police, government and the NSPCC. She is a member of the National Independent Safeguarding Board of Wales and a non-executive Director for an NHS Trust.
Jan led the development of the multi-agency risk assessment conference (MARAC), which makes adults and children who experience domestic and sexual violence and abuse safer. In 2015, Jan led a large scale DfE Improvement Programme on Serious Case Reviews. While Assistant Police & Crime Commissioner for South Wales Police, she also lead a review of CSE.
Job Titles:
- Policy Advisor
- Social Worker
- Trainer
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Jane is a social worker by profession with over 25 years experience of practice across Children's Services in safeguarding roles. As part of this work, she has been the author of over 90 Serious Case Reviews, Safeguarding Adult Reviews and Domestic Homicide Reviews.
Jane is an experienced trainer and policy advisor with a specialist interest in child and adolescent neglect, intra-familial sexual abuse, their impact across the life course and trauma-informed approaches to child and adult safeguarding.
Jeremy edits the CSA Centre's research reports and other materials, and steers them through the process of review and publication. He has previously worked as an editor, writer and researcher for organisations including the Home Office, the College of Policing and the Labour Research Department.
Job Titles:
- Principal Research and Evaluation Officer / Research & Evaluation
Kairika is an author of our evidence review of the scale and nature of child sexual abuse with Prof Liz Kelly. Her current work focuses on improving data on child sexual abuse, both in agency records and surveys. Kairika is a skilled researcher with extensive experience of both qualitative and quantitative methods. Before joining the CSA Centre, Kairika spent 5 years at Coram as a senior researcher, working with practitioners in charity and local government settings to improve services for children and young people. Prior to this she worked at a public policy consultancy Shared Intelligence where she carried out research and evaluation for local and central government clients on a diverse range of projects from employment, housing and health inequalities to community cohesion and library provision.
Job Titles:
- Communications and External Affairs Manager
Kirsty is a policy and communications professional with over 15 years' experience executing integrated communications campaigns internationally.
Prior to joining the CSA Centre Kirsty worked within advertising and communications agencies, activating global media campaigns for some of the biggest brands in markets across Europe, Asia and the US.
Looking to make a more meaningful change in the world, but applying her existing experience, Kirsty returned to university to complete an MSc in Medicine, Health and Public Policy, looking specifically at exploring inequalities in women's health, and receiving an award for her dissertation on the use of fertility based tech applications as contraceptives.
Since joining the CSA Centre, Kirsty has sought to make child sexual abuse something which people are able to confront and talk about; removing barriers in technical language, driving accessibility in our research and resources and championing our work far-and-wide.
Job Titles:
- Training Programme Manager
Lamont has almost 10 years of experience working within not-for-profit organisations. He currently plays a pivotal role overseeing the management and co-ordination of the CSA Centre training programme. Prior to this, he worked with gang-afflicted communities as a frontline ‘Gangs interventions specialist' worker and Service Manager. He also played a key role in launching ‘Project Future', an award-winning community project set up in Tottenham, which sought to improve relations between police and the local community following the London riots. Beyond this, Lamont has sat on a number of multi-agency boards including ‘Girls in gangs', ‘Gangs and child sexual exploitation', the ‘Gangs Matrix strategic meeting' focussed on improving community safety in the London Borough of Haringey, and as part of David Lammy MP's review scrutiny panel.
Laura currently heads up Safeguarding, Quality and Learning in children and young people's services at Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council. She has been a children's safeguarding social worker for over 20 years, with experience in all areas of local authority statutory safeguarding children's social work, and over ten years in leadership including Service Manager, Principal Social Worker and Head of Service.
During her career Laura has developed and led practice improvement programs for Local Authority and supported partner agencies, written local procedures and contributed to national policy changes, and supported national bodies in safeguarding vulnerable children. This includes leading the local aspect of the national pilot for supporting the wellbeing of children in care in conjunction with the Anna Freud organisation and the Department for Education. Her particular interests include safeguarding vulnerable groups and ensuring that the voices of children are listened to and they have the opportunity to participate in developing services that are provide to them.
Lisa is an experienced public policy and communications leader, researcher and evaluator with over 20 years' experience working in public policy across the children and young people's agenda. Lisa's roles have focused on the issues affecting, and the provision of services and support to women, families, children and young people with a particular focus on those from vulnerable groups. Prior to joining the CSA Centre Lisa was the policy manager at the NSPCC leading the development of the policy agenda and strategy, campaign development and public affairs influencing across the remit of child abuse and neglect.
Job Titles:
- Director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit
Liz is the director of the Child and Woman Abuse Studies Unit (CWASU), a professor of sexualised violence, and holds the Roddick Chair on Violence Against Women.
She has been active in the field of violence against women and children for 40 years and was the author of Surviving Sexual Violence. In this book she established the concept of a ‘continuum of violence' and references over 100 book chapters and journal articles. In 2000, Liz was awarded a CBE in the New Years Honours List for ‘services combating violence against women and children'. As a result of her important work in the field, in January 2005 Liz was appointed to the Board of Commissioners of the Women's National Commission.
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Lorraine is a qualified teacher with almost 30 years' experience in education, from key stage one to four. Starting out in mainstream schools, Lorraine moved into the special education sector where she worked extensively with children and young people who experienced abuse and trauma.
During the course of her career, she has worked as an education advisor, headteacher of a Local Authority virtual school for children in care and then as the headteacher for three special schools in the South-East. This included day and residential school settings, pupil referral units and a secure school - each making dedicated provisions for children with social, emotional, and mental health needs.
Before joining the CSA Centre, Louise had worked for Barnardo's in the capacity of an Executive Assistant and has also worked for other charities and the NHS. She brings a wealth of experience in administration and logistical support.
Louise is the current Chair for our Advisory Board and Senior Adviser on Children's Social Care for the Local Government Association. Louise works closely with local authorities and their partners to support, promote and improve children's services, while working with central government to ensure the voice of local government is heard in national policy making.
Louise has more than ten years' experience working for local government, including a range of roles across policy and communications at both local and national levels.
Job Titles:
- Research and Evaluation Officer / Research & Evaluation
Milly is a researcher with experience across both qualitative and quantitative methods. Her master's degree was in Gender, Violence and Conflict, where her dissertation explored the experiences of gang-associated young women and girls, and their navigation of risk of harm.
Milly has volunteered as a researcher with charities including Black Health Matters UK and the FOBBS platform, most recently working as a researcher for the Early Intervention Foundation and contributing to the report ‘Improving the way family support services work for minority ethnic families' (2022).
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Nici has worked in healthcare for more than 25 years, initially working as a nurse and lecturer specialising in cancer and palliative care. In 2007, she became immersed in the complexities involved in the delivery of public services as the Head of Partnerships for Cardiff and Vale University Health Board and as the lead officer for addressing human exploitation for the Cardiff Public Service Board. In this role, she developed her passion for working with vulnerable people and set up robust multi-agency processes to support those working in the sex industry and victims and survivors of human trafficking and slavery in Cardiff. She continues to have strong links with nursing, health, social care and professionals working for criminal justice agencies across Wales. Nici is a UKCP trainee psychotherapist, and works at a local comprehensive school in Cardiff to ensure that she remains connected to children and young people and remains grounded in practice.
Using her knowledge and experience of working in adult sexual and criminal exploitation - including supporting survivors of child sexual abuse - Nici joined the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse in 2019 as the Practice Improvement Advisor in Wales. This role brings together a lifetime of working experience to support the continued development of an evidence-informed approach to child sexual abuse at both operational and strategic levels across Wales.
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
Paul is a retired Public Protection Detective Inspector with Lancashire Police and was an Inspector on the HMIC Child Protection inspections.
He authored the first Lancashire Standard Operating procedures for child sexual exploitation, creating the first Lancashire Safeguarding Children's Board Child Sexual Exploitation Action Plan, and the first Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub (MASH) manual.
Paul's current role at the CSA Centre involves working with police forces across England and Wales to better understand their effectiveness in tackling and preventing child sexual abuse and influencing good practice. As well as this, using our research and resources, Paul works with the wider team to inform national policy and response.
Job Titles:
- Policy & Communications Assistant
Peter is a recent graduate with four years' experience in news writing and communications. In that time, he has written for a variety of sectors, from financial institutions to STEM education not-for-profits, and has experience in court reporting and broadcast journalism.
Prior to joining the team, he completed an MA in Public and Political Communication, focusing on British news viewing audiences' compassionate interaction with mediated distant crises.
Rebecca works as deputy director of children's services in West Northamptonshire Council. She is a qualified social worker and has over 25 years experience working within children services, and leading children's social care teams, as well as undertaking peer reviews. Rebecca is passionate about families rights, and building services which are based on good practice with children and their families and ensuring the family is held at the centre of all practice.
Sharon works as Policing Standards Manager in Vulnerability and Public Protection for the College of Policing, specialising in areas including rape, domestic violence, child sexual exploitation and abuse, stalking, trafficking, managing offenders, etc. Working closely with the National Policing leads, the Home Office and service providers for public protection, she is responsible for developing effective training, professional standards and the evidence base for all UK policing relating to public protection matters.
She is a retired Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) officer. During her 31 years service, mostly as a detective, she specialised for many years both operationally and strategically in public protection matters predominantly domestic abuse, child protection, honour based violence, stalking and sexual offending. She has spoken at many UK and international conferences on the UK policing response to public protection matters and delivered training on related matters across a variety of agencies.
She was part of the ‘Expert Panel' convened to develop the DASH risk model and sits on the Home Office Quality Assurance panel for Domestic Homicide review.
She is co-author of a book entitled ‘Policing Domestic Violence' published by Oxford University Press in November 2008 (under revision) and wrote a commentary for the ‘Handbook of Sexual Violence' Routledge, 2011. She recently received an award at the College Domestic Abuse Champions Event, for her work in domestic homicide prevention.
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
- Specialist
Shauna is a specialist in child sexual exploitation, having spent 16 years supporting children; including working directly with young people, strategically, and in management.
She has experience developing, delivering and evaluating voluntary sector programmes as a service manager and securing funding support to help children and their families facing difficulties. Over the course of her career, Shauna has worked in a number of organisations such as Barnardo's, The Children's Society and Birmingham and Solihull Women's Aid. She has also worked for statutory organisations, where she specialised in both extra and intra-familial harm and focused on shaping systematic change to improve the response to children and young people affected by issues such as child sexual exploitation, trafficking and serious youth violence.
Job Titles:
- Principal of St Mary 's College
As well as being Professor of Applied Social Sciences, Simon is also Principal of St Mary's College, Durham University. He has been involved in the field of safeguarding for 25 years as a practitioner, manager and researcher.
He has written extensively on professional practice with children and families, professional assessment and decision making, adoption of children, and particularly on the subject of child sexual abuse, harmful sexual behaviour in childhood and sexual offending. His recent research includes a large randomised control trial of interventions for children who have been sexually abused, with Professor John Carpenter of the University of Bristol. Simon is Chair of the National Organisation for the Treatment of Abusers (NOTA) which is a national child protection charity working to prevent sexual abuse by improving responses to adults who have sexually offended or children who have displayed harmful sexual behaviours. Simon is the author of five books and a wide variety of other book chapters and journal articles, including the recent book ‘Children and Young People with Harmful Sexual Behaviours' published in 2014 by Research In Practice.
Job Titles:
- Service Manager for the Safeguarding and Exploitation Service at the City of Wolverhampton Council
Sonia is Service Manager for the Safeguarding and Exploitation service at the City of Wolverhampton Council. She is a qualified social worker with over ten years' experience in the statutory and voluntary sector. During this time, she has occupied various roles including Support Worker, Social Worker, Team Manager, Principle Social Worker and Service Manager.
She is passionate about social work and valuing people, diversity and achieving positive outcomes for children and families is at the core of her practice.
Job Titles:
- Principal Research and Evaluation Officer / Research & Evaluation
Stephanie is currently seconded to the CSA Centre from Liverpool John Moores University where she is a Reader in Forensic Psychology in the Faculty of Health. Stephanie has worked for over 20 years across Criminal Justice and Forensic Psychology research, educational and correctional contexts, holding academic, practitioner and managerial roles. Her work centres on helping to prevent sexual violence by working with people at risk of engaging in harmful behaviour and/or with people convicted of sexual offences, to desist from offending.
Working across multi-disciplinary research and practitioner teams, Stephanie's research portfolio examines aspects of vulnerability, risk and need in the context of sexual violence prevention, offender rehabilitation, risk management, public protection, child protection, criminal and social justice, public health, and prisoner human rights. Stephanie is also the Northwest Branch Chair for NOTA and Associate Editor for the Journal of Sexual Aggression.
Job Titles:
- Practice Improvement Advisor
- Strategic Leader
Suzanne is an experienced strategic leader who has worked across the statutory and charity sector over the last 20 years. A proud Youth Worker by profession, she has experience in practice and leadership of highly successful specialist services for children, young people and their families.
Prior to joining the CSA Centre, Suzanne led Barnardo's national work on placed based systems change to support improvements in the response to children who have been sexually abused or criminally exploited.
Much of her career has been spent in the leadership of Youth Justice Services across the North West, holding many additional responsibilities including Greater Manchester Resettlement Consortium Coordinator, Local Safeguarding Children Partnership Board member and member of the Youth Justice Board Workforce Development Council. She is experienced in working collaboratively to influence wide-scale cultural change by focussing on co-production with children, families, and professionals and bringing research closer to practice.