Association of Child Protection Professionals

Association of Child Protection Professionals The Association of Child Protection Professionals (previously known as BASPCAN) is a registered charity and membership association.

If you have any concerns regarding a child please call the NSPCC Help Line on 0808 800 5000.

October's programme is open for booking, with sessions across the month on some of the most searching questions in safeg...
01/10/2026

October's programme is open for booking, with sessions across the month on some of the most searching questions in safeguarding practice.

Wednesday 7 October, 12.00 to 13.30 History and Practice SIG: child welfare and the historic forced adoption of children of unmarried mothers in Britain, with Dr Michael Lambert. Free to everyone.

Tuesday 13 October, 12.00 to 13.00 Safeguarding in Sport SIG: vicarious trauma of Safeguarding Leads in sports organisations, with Dr Kate Hills.

Thursday 15 October, 11.00 to 12.00 Neurodiversity SIG: a socio-ecological response to autism and harmful sexual behaviour, with David Russell.

Friday 16 October, 09.30 to 16.30 Nagalro Autumn Conference: institutional racism, a Pandora's box that keeps being ignored. Hybrid, London and online, with discounted rates for AoCPP members booking in groups of five or more.

Tuesday 20 October, 10.00 to 11.30 Digital Safeguarding SIG: The Digital Voice, messages that need to be heard, with Julie Nicholson.

Wednesday 21 October, 10.00 to 11.30 Child Sexual Abuse SIG: the scale and nature of child sexual abuse in England and Wales, with Kairika Karsna of the CSA Centre.

Together they create space to reflect on the history that shapes practice, the emotional weight practitioners carry, and the evidence that should inform what comes next.

AoCPP sessions are online. Standard tickets are £15, and members attend free.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/

30/09/2026

It is International Podcast Day, so a little reminder, we have one!

The AoCPP Podcast archive holds thirty episodes, each taking a focused look at a single topic. The series is not currently in production, but it is free to listen to and covers some evergreen discussions.

Worth revisiting:

Coercive Control, with Dr Emma Katz
Equality, diversity and inclusion in safeguarding, with Jahnine Davis
Stress, trauma and survival responses, with Dr Karen Treisman
Child Neglect, with Professor Jan Horwath
Poverty, Child Protection and an Uncertain Future, with Professor Brid Featherstone
Safeguarding in Sport, with Dr Daniel Rhind
Unregulated placements: lived experience and what needs to change, with Rebekah Pierre
Interview practices in policing, with Dr Rob Ewin

Available on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and Acast.

If you would like to see the podcast return, and have a subject or a guest in mind, tell us in the comments. The programme follows what members ask for.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/category/podcast/

At least half a million children in England and Wales are estimated to experience contact sexual abuse each year. Yet in...
28/09/2026

At least half a million children in England and Wales are estimated to experience contact sexual abuse each year. Yet in 2024/25, child protection plans under the category of sexual abuse made up just 3.5 per cent of all plans, the joint lowest proportion in 32 years.

Both figures come from the latest Scale and Nature report from the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse, published in July. The practice question sits in the distance between them. Most children who are sexually abused are never identified by the agencies around them, and many tell no one at the time.

On Wednesday 21 October, 10.00 to 11.30, our Child Sexual Abuse Special Interest Group welcomes Kairika Karsna, Principal Research and Evaluation Officer at the CSA Centre, to examine the latest findings and what they mean for practice.

Kairika has twenty years in child safeguarding research and has written the CSA Centre's evidence reviews on the scale and nature of child sexual abuse. The session will look at the most recent data, and at the gap between what people report in surveys and what agencies identify. It will also ask what the evidence means for practitioners, managers and leaders in every agency.

Co-chaired by Anna Glinski and Dr Peter Yates, with space for questions and discussion throughout.

Standard £15. Members free.

Book your place: https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/child-sexual-abuse-special-interest-group-the-scale-and-nature-of-child-sexual-abuse-in-england-and-wales-examining-the-latest-findings-and-what-they-mean-for-practice-kairika-karsna/

Tomorrow, Tuesday 29 September at 12.00, the same Special Interest Group meets to discuss the Child House model with Dr Laura Smith and Eimear Timmons of the Lighthouse. Registration closes at midday today: https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/child-sexual-abuse-special-interest-group-improving-the-safeguarding-justice-and-health-response-via-the-child-house-model-dr-laura-smith-and-eimear-timmons-the-lighthouse/

In sports organisations, the Safeguarding Lead is often the person every disclosure, every worried parent and every diff...
27/09/2026

In sports organisations, the Safeguarding Lead is often the person every disclosure, every worried parent and every difficult case eventually reaches. The protocols may be clear. The weight of carrying that work is talked about far less.

On Tuesday 13 October, 12.00 to 13.00, our Safeguarding in Sport Special Interest Group welcomes Dr Kate Hills, Head of Safeguarding at Swim Ireland for twenty years, to explore vicarious trauma among Safeguarding Leads in sport.

Working through two hypothetical cases, Kate will show how vicarious trauma can take hold even where procedures are well understood, and how uncertainty, ethical tension and cognitive load affect decision making.

The session also asks a question that reaches well beyond sport. Is the Safeguarding Lead left to carry the burden alone, or does the organisation build a culture that shares it?

Chaired by Dr Suzanne Everley of the University of Chichester.

Relevant for safeguarding and welfare leads in sport and physical activity, and for anyone in a designated safeguarding role whose work goes largely unseen.

Standard £15. Members free.

Link: https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/special-interest-group-safeguarding-in-sport-vicarious-trauma-of-safeguarding-leads-in-sports-organisations-dr-kate-hills/

Today is the European Day of Languages, and this year's theme is how languages shape inclusion.Language It determines wh...
26/09/2026

Today is the European Day of Languages, and this year's theme is how languages shape inclusion.

Language It determines whether a child can describe what happened to them, whether a parent understands what is being decided about their family, and whether a professional hears what is actually being said or a rough approximation of it.

Using a family member as an interpreter, particularly a child, is one of the quieter risks in this work. So is assuming that fluent conversational English means someone can follow a child protection conference, or a set of written expectations, or a court document.

Communication access runs wider than spoken language. Our SEND and Neurodiversity Special Interest Groups return regularly to communication with disabled and neurodivergent children in enquiries and investigations, which is the same principle in a different form. A child who cannot be understood is much harder to protect.

Worth asking this week: when did your team last look at how it works across languages and uses interpreters?

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/special-interest-groups/

Recovery is one of the least documented parts of what we know about child sexual abuse.The Recovery Histories Project, a...
23/09/2026

Recovery is one of the least documented parts of what we know about child sexual abuse.

The Recovery Histories Project, a partnership between the AoCPP and Birkbeck, University of London, is building the first archived collection of oral histories about experiences of recovery from child sexual abuse across England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland over the past seventy years. It includes practitioner voices alongside those of survivors.

The team is particularly keen to hear from Black survivors and practitioners, Black oral historians, and from Black-led and 'By and For' organisations, meaning those led by and for the communities they serve. Upcoming fieldwork prioritises Ireland, Wales and Scotland.

Oral history archives shape what future practitioners and researchers are able to know. What is not recorded now is simply absent later.

If you are a survivor who would like to take part, if you have practised in this field, or if you know organisations who should be part of this, the team would welcome hearing from you at [email protected]

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/recovery-histories-project/

Please share with colleagues and networks who may be interested.

If anything here raises something for you, the Survivors Trust helpline is on 08088 010 818.

Eimear Timmons has spent more than thirty years in child protection and children's services. She is now Safeguarding Lea...
22/09/2026

Eimear Timmons has spent more than thirty years in child protection and children's services. She is now Safeguarding Lead and Practice Development Manager at the UCLH Lighthouse, England's first Child House, where her work is the demanding and detailed business of getting safeguarding, health, police and therapeutic services to function as one service rather than four.

Dr Laura Smith is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist specialising in recovery and justice following child sexual abuse, and an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society. She leads England's first Child House at the Lighthouse.

On Tuesday 29 September, 12.00 to 13.00, they join our Child Sexual Abuse Special Interest Group to talk about what the Child House model changes for children, and what it asks of the professionals around them.

With Child Houses now being rolled out across every NHS region in England, this is a timely hour for anyone who will be working alongside one.

Standard £15. Members free.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/child-sexual-abuse-special-interest-group-improving-the-safeguarding-justice-and-health-response-via-the-child-house-model-dr-laura-smith-and-eimear-timmons-the-lighthouse/

Welcome week begins at many universities today.If you are starting a social work, nursing, education, psychology or crim...
21/09/2026

Welcome week begins at many universities today.

If you are starting a social work, nursing, education, psychology or criminology course this term, or returning to postgraduate study alongside practice, AoCPP student membership is £60 a year, or £5 a month.

It gets you into our Special Interest Group sessions and Lunch & Learns at no cost, where you will be in the room with people doing the work you are training for. It also gives you Child Abuse Review, our peer reviewed journal, which will save you a good deal of time on assignments and keep your reading closer to current practice than most reading lists manage.

Fifteen Special Interest Groups are open to you, led by practitioners and researchers working in the area.

And for anyone teaching or supervising students this year, the Children's Commissioner's handbook for higher education on supporting care experienced students was updated last month and is worth circulating to colleagues.

Please share with any students who might find this useful.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/product/student-membership/

Autumn term brings movement. New schools, new areas, families who arrived over the summer, and families about to move ag...
19/09/2026

Autumn term brings movement. New schools, new areas, families who arrived over the summer, and families about to move again.

Movement is one of the conditions in which children become harder to see. Records lag behind the family, relationships restart from nothing, and the professional who held the concern is no longer the same professional in the room.

Our piece on child protection with families who move looks at the risks the Child Safeguarding Practice Review Panel identified for vulnerable babies and children in transition, and what a more careful geographic handover actually asks of us with cultural sensitivities in mind.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/child-protection-with-families-who-move/

It is Youth Mental Health Day, and this year's theme is Build Future You.The Children's Commissioner's most recent analy...
18/09/2026

It is Youth Mental Health Day, and this year's theme is Build Future You.

The Children's Commissioner's most recent analysis of children's and young people's mental health services set out again how many children are waiting, and how long some of them wait.

For those of us in child protection, the overlap is the difficult part. A child waiting for mental health support is often the same child on a plan, the same child missing education, the same child whose behaviour is being read as risk rather than as distress. The thresholds sit in different places, the referral criteria do not line up, and children fall into the gaps between them.

Children waiting for support are often being asked to build a future while the services around them each hold only one part of the picture.

Our autumn programme returns to this repeatedly, including our session on 29 September on the Child House model, which brings safeguarding, justice, health and therapeutic support into one building rather than four separate waiting lists.

https://www.childprotectionprofessionals.org.uk/events/

Address

17 Priory Street
York
YO16ET

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+44 (0) 1904 613605

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