Speakers

Adam is the Safeguarding and Central Education Lead of the Vanguard Learning Trust, consisting of six schools in the London Borough of Hillingdon. Prior to this, Adam was a deputy headteacher and DSL of a new school in West London, leading on student behaviour and pastoral care. Adam's commitment to safeguarding has an international dimension, having spent part of his career teaching and serving on the board of a national helpline in Aotearoa/New Zealand.

Adam has just started a professional doctorate (EdD) at the University of Derby, building on research from his master’s dissertation, which seeks to evaluate the working relationship between schools and children’s social care. His doctoral work aims to expand these findings and propose more comprehensive and integrated support structures, which will ultimately help to bridge the gap between the two sectors. Adam is also a member of Hillingdon’s Education Safeguarding Subgroup, where he collaborates with professionals from the local authority and other schools/trusts to share best practice and strengthen safeguarding efforts across the borough.

Becci is the Assistant National Mental Health Lead for a large school trust that works across many parts of England. The trailblazing work undertaken within Oasis Education sets the tone and paves the way for what the trust believes should be a blueprint for all education providers. Supporting the whole community: students, staff and our families’ mental health and emotional wellbeing is key to making a significant difference to people’s lives.

Becci originally trained as a teacher and worked in secondary schools for 15 years, including within safeguarding and mental health. She now helps to lead a multi-disciplinary team of mental health professionals supporting pupils and their families to achieve and grow.

Dai is a recognised safeguarding expert and regularly supports trusts with complex safeguarding issues including handling disclosures of abuse, managing allegations against staff and involvement in Child Safeguarding Practice Reviews. He also supports trusts with safeguarding governance reviews.

Dai is an experienced trainer and national coach and mentor for trust designated safeguarding leads (DSLs). He provides "invaluable” guidance and a "reassuring, safe place” where individuals can improve their knowledge and learn from best practice. As well as speaking at national safeguarding conferences and delivering his tailored courses to trust DSLs, Dai also delivers CST's masterclass on safeguarding and the safeguarding module of the CST Essential Trustee Programme.

Jon originally trained as an adolescent specialist nurse before moving to a nurse advisor to a strategic health authority and then went onto a role as a young people’s health service commissioner. He worked briefly as an advisor to two World Health Organisation projects before becoming the lead for early help provision and multi-agency working in a large local authority.

He became an education safeguarding advisor 10 year ago and for the last four years has worked as the National Director of Safeguarding for a large multi-academy trust. In his spare time, he is a voluntary youth worker, and mentors six men in industry. In addition, he is just about to complete his PhD in Psychology. When (if) he ever relaxes he is a keen fan of Korean drama (but does need the subtitles).

Jonathan has worked in education for over twenty-five years as a teacher, senior leader, and senior advisor for a large local authority, where he led the curriculum and learning and teaching teams. Jonathan is an experienced school improvement partner and Ofsted inspector. 

Jonathan’s focus in the trust is working with senior leaders to ensure that safeguarding is effective. He is also responsible for the quality of education strategy which focuses on securing high quality curricula and enabling excellent teaching and learning. His experience and expertise in teacher training and school improvement has supported each of the trust’s schools in their ongoing improvement journeys.  

Jonathan is a trustee of Growing Against Violence. The charity runs workshops for schools tackling gang culture and safeguarding threats associated with gangs and social media. The charity has reached over 300,000 children and young people across London and the home counties since its inception.  

Kevin Hartley is a Senior Education Consultant for the NSPCC consultancy service, which supports schools and other organisations in developing their safeguarding practices.

Kevin worked in secondary education for almost 30 years, initially as an English teacher but later as a Pastoral Lead and then a member of senior leadership.

He spent 12 years as a designated safeguarding lead (DSL) in a busy, diverse 11-18 Academy. He has contributed to the development of policies and procedures at both school and trust level.

Leora Cruddas is the founding Chief Executive of the Confederation of School Trusts – the national organisation and sector body for school trusts in England. She has advised successive governments and sits on several Department for Education advisory bodies. She was recently the vice chair of the Head Teacher Standards Review Group, a member of the external advisory group for the Schools White Paper, SEND National Implementation Board and the Regulatory and Commissioning Review.

Prior to founding CST, she was Director of Policy and Public Relations for the Association of School and College Leaders. Leora has six years of experience as a director of education in two London local authorities. She is a visiting professor at UCL Institute of Education. Leora was made a CBE in the 2022 New Year’s Honours.

Louis has vast experience in holding various senior leadership responsibilities across education, specialising in safeguarding, school improvement, and supporting leaders with their preparations for Ofsted visits and their broader improvement journey. Most recently, Louis was a director of a regional multi academy trust, leading on SEND and attendance and, before that, a senior leader at a secondary academy.

In 2020, Louis supported the work of the Department for Education during the Covid-19 pandemic, advising civil servants on the impact and effectiveness of the government safeguarding strategy around attendance and children in need.

Louis is a calm and professional leader, especially in the face of adversity or challenge; he is passionate about safeguarding, advocating for children and young people, and maximising the effectiveness of senior leaders in education; by taking a common-sense approach to effective and robust strategic leadership.

In his spare time, Louis is a non-executive director (trustee) of Diverse Academies Trust, a member of the British Army Independent Advisory Group to the Defence School of Transport (DST) Leconfield. He founded and now sits on the board of the national group of academy trust safeguarding directors (NASSA) and is an avid follower of Hull City!

Raminder has worked with children and families within both the education and youth justice sector for over 20 years. Prior to her current role, as the Director of Safeguarding for a multi-academy trust, Raminder was the safeguarding lead officer for a large local authority, judged as outstanding by Ofsted, with responsibility for supporting over 300 schools with strategic safeguarding policy, procedures, training and advice.

Raminder is an accredited specialist safeguarding trainer and has co-authored the guidance on Sexual Behaviours in Educational Settings, in her capacity as an AIM Project associate.

Raminder is passionate about safeguarding children and she has held the position of chair, vice chair and of safeguarding lead governor of a local primary school. She is a member of CAPE (Child Protection in Education) and on the CAPE conference planning committee, responsible for planning both national and member conferences. She is also a member of the National Safer Recruitment Consortium task group, who are responsible for the Safer Recruitment Training and Guidance for Safer working Practice for staff working in educational settings. Raminder is an experienced safeguarding speaker on safeguarding issues that impact education staff and has spoken at both national and regional conferences.

Ruth was born in Birkenhead, studied for a law degree at Newcastle University, and moved to London to work as a teacher in Tower Hamlets. 
 
She co-founded STOP THE TRAFFIK in 2005 and was it’s first CEO when it was incorporated as a charity in 2008. Her vision is to create a world where people are not bought and sold through the prevention and disruption of modern slavery and human trafficking.

Over the last two decades STOP THE TRAFFIK has delivered a series of firsts: the first global petition of 1.5 million signatures to stop trafficking delivered to the United Nations; the first federated active data platform (Traffik Analysis Hub); the first anonymous reporting app (The STOP App), which is now in 14 languages; and the first geo targeted prevention programmes, which have run along 50 global trafficking routes and hotspots reaching nearly 30 million people vulnerable to exploitation since 2016. 
 
Believing the greatest lever to disrupt human trafficking is to disrupt the flow of proceeds of crime, STOP THE TRAFFIK provides the first ‘go to market’ range of intelligence products, fuelled by expert experience, providing unique insights to embed into financial and commercial systems, supporting law enforcement investigations, influencing changed behaviour to those in front line delivery and the creation of policy. 
 
Ruth was made an OBE in 2014. 

Samira Sadeghi is Director of Trust Governance for CST. Prior to that, she was Head of Governance and Company Secretary at Academies Enterprise Trust, a multi-academy trust with 57 schools, and served as Regional Governance Officer at Ark Schools for four years. Before moving to the UK with her family in 2010, she was a criminal defence attorney and spent 12 years representing clients on California's death row in their post-conviction proceedings.

Sarah has successfully lead safeguarding across multi academy trusts since 2016 and holds an MA in Safeguarding and an MSc in Education Leadership. Sarah chairs a community of practice with over 80 school trust directors of safeguarding with a view to proving peer support, challenge and development across the sector. Sarah regularly speaks at conferences on topics such as strategy and culture, peer on peer abuse and harmful sexual behaviours. Most recently Sarah has been researching the lens on defining a culture of safeguarding and the leadership behaviours required to establish and maintain a culture of safeguarding. She is in the process of turning this research into training and tools for governance, quality assurance and most importantly, school improvement.

Sarah is an experienced designated safeguarding lead (DSL) and SENCo and is proud to be the Director of Safeguarding and SEND for Three Spires Trust. Sarah has worked in education since 2004 and has worked cross-phase since 2014. Sarah has worked in education leadership since 2006 in a range of roles from head of languages, DSL, SENCo, assistant headteacher and interim head of school, to her
current role leading safeguarding and SEND in a small (but growing), diocesan multi academy trust. Sarah thrives on working with others to improve children's outcomes.

Viv’s passion for Thrive started as headteacher and executive headteacher of primary schools across Barnsley, first becoming a licensed practitioner, then a Thrive trainer. She introduced the approach into schools and saw first-hand the impact it has on behaviour, attendance, and attainment as well as mental health and wellbeing.

Viv has taught across all age ranges and often in schools in challenging circumstances. Having specialised in early years and SEN, Viv was thrilled to take on leadership roles as SENCO, assistant head, deputy head and eventually into headship. Viv was asked to become a school improvement partner and to lead a school special measures, this included embedding Thrive as a core approach and tool to improve every area of practice. She was part of the team that established a co-operative trust and a multi academy trust.

In 2015, Viv was thrilled to join the team, originally as regional development manager for the north before moving to become head of innovation and Thrive’s principal trainer, and now head of product and innovation.

Currently, Viv is a director of a multi academy trust and a foster carer leading a Mockingbird constellation. Viv is endlessly passionate about supporting other professionals to embed Thrive practice.