WEBINAR

Violence Free Futures for Children and Young People: High Stakes, Uncomfortable Truths, Creating the Conditions for Real Change

Date: Friday, 22nd November 2024

Time: 10am-3pm (London, UK) with a one hour break

Price: Free

In conversation with: Nahim Ahmed MBE, Head of Strategic Engagement - Youth and Community, Poplar Harca, Spotlight Youth Services, Professor Gwyneth Boswell, Director of Boswell Research Fellows, and Visiting Professor at the School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia, Dr Alex Chard, Director, YCTCS Ltd, Elie Godsi, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Anne Longfield CBE, Executive Chair and Founder, Centre for Young Lives, Paul Marshall, Deputy Chief Executive, Manchester City Council, Professor Rod Morgan, Professor Emeritus, University of Bristol, Dr Gilly Sharpe, Lecturer in Criminology, University of Sheffield, Wendy Tomlinson, former Head of Safeguarding at the Youth Custody Service

Young Futures is a vital part of the government's response to high levels of violence. The stakes couldn’t be higher - far too many children are dying, traumatised and denied the opportunity to thrive and realise their full potential because of the violence they experience and their violence towards others.

The government says it is committed to doing something about it – to halving knife crime and violence against women and girls – over the next decade. Young Futures presents the opportunity to create the conditions for real change; this is ours to grasp.

Intentionally and unapologetically, through a series of conversations, this webinar will strategically explore what is known about the lives of children and young people who use violence and about the impact violence has on children and young people, their families and the communities around them. We’ll seek to acknowledge the complex relationship between exploitation and violence that often makes children and young people both victim and perpetrator and ask 'who do we see first'.

We’ll ask what the government being 'tough on crime' and 'tough on the causes of crime' might look and feel like, and reflect on what older children need to have a 'sure start' and brighter futures.

To that end, this webinar seeks to develop clarity about the root causes of violent crime experienced and perpetrated by children and young people, including full acknowledgement of the pervasive systemic factors. We can expect to reflect on unpalatable truths and to feel the gap between what is in our gift to change and what will need 'the village'.

We will be challenged to hear and sit with uncomfortable truths, wrestle with complexity, feel how high the stakes are, and be inspired and motivated to collectively play our part in creating the systemic conditions for real change.

This webinar is for leaders across all services who are committed to improving children and young people's lives.

Hear from

Nahim Ahmed MBE

Head of Strategic Engagement - Youth and Community, Poplar Harca, Spotlight Youth Services

Nahim has been on a mission to help bring positive sustainable changes to the community he serves; particularly to areas that are affected by structural societal issues including poverty and deprivation.

Over the past decade, he has been committed to serving the most vulnerable members of our society through his work in the private, public and voluntary sectors. His undergraduate and postgraduate studies in Youth and Community Work, Law and Community Leadership and Strategic Management of Projects complements his current role as a senior leader in the youth and community setting.

His life transforming work and commitment led to local and national recognition; from being awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award to being recognised in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list in 2021 with an MBE for his services to disadvantaged young people in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.

Professor Gwyneth Boswell

Director of Boswell Research Fellows, and Visiting Professor at the School of Health Sciences, University of East Anglia

For the last 33 years, Gwyneth has researched and published widely on the backgrounds of children and young people who commit violent offences, both in the UK and South Africa, focusing on trauma. She has advised on research in Rwanda on the ‘gacaca’ mediation process for young men being released from prison for crimes of genocide, and on the development of social work training in Romania.

Gwyneth has also researched and published on the experiences of children of imprisoned fathers, and has conducted evaluations of the effectiveness of different kinds of custodial and residential treatments. Much of her research has been longitudinal, focusing on outcomes. She has been closely involved with Probation training both at De Montfort University and the University of East Anglia, where she remains a Visiting Professor and, for the last 18 years, has been Director of her own social research company, Boswell Research Fellows. 

Gwyneth’s books include Contemporary Probation Practice, with Davies & Wright (Avebury 1993); Young and Dangerous (Avebury 1996); Violent Children and Adolescents: Asking the Question Why (Wiley 2000); Imprisoned Fathers and their Children, with Peter Wedge (Jessica Kingsley 2002); and Sickle Cell and Deaths in Custody with Simon Dyson (Whiting & Birch, 2009).

Dr Alex Chard

Director, YCTCS Ltd

Dr Alex Chard is an organisational consultant, independent academic and author. He has a Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice. His doctorate focussed on creating systemic change in public sector services. He has 34 years' consultancy experience across a range of public services, including significant experience in organisational review and change processes and creating pan-organisational learning. In the early years of his career he established some of the very first community-based projects as direct alternatives to custodial sentences. As a service manager, he managed both social work services and youth justice services. A recent publication Punishing Abuse was a detailed study of 80 children in the West Midlands justice system. In the Foreword, Anne Longfield (Children’s Commissioner for England) described the report as comprehensive and harrowing ... a powerful reinforcement of the need to support all children who have suffered ... Punishing Abuse has been highly influential regionally and nationally in developing understandings of the depth and impact of adversity on children.

His published work also includes:

• Systemic Resilience, HMI Probation Academic Insight, this publication extended the thinking in Punishing Abuse; 

• Troubled Lives Tragic Consequences a review of six children involved in very serious violence;
• Systemic Inquiry, co-editor and author of a book on systemic approaches to research;
• Defending Young People, co-author of three editions of a legal reference book

Alex has detailed knowledge of safeguarding processes and responses for older children. He has studied the professional involvements for 125 troubled children (110 boys and 15 girls) known to the range of public agencies. Through case reviews he developed ALTAR™ (Abuse, Loss, Trauma and Attachment and Resilience) an evidenced based approach to consider the needs and responses for older children.

He has recently been attending the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) Professionals. He has provided advice on Organisational Leadership and Culture in developing a Universal EDI Standard. Alex is a member of the Academic Oversight Group for the NHS Violence Reduction Academy for London.

Elie Godsi

Consultant Clinical Psychologist

Elie Godsi is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with an Associate Fellowship and Chartered status at The British Psychological Society. With over 30 years’ experience in the field of adult mental health and forensic mental health, he has spent 20 years working in NHS based services.

He has worked in maximum secure hospitals with offenders detained under the Mental Health Act, in various prison settings and with young offenders in secure residential units. Elie has particular expertise in the assessment and treatment of all forms of traumatic stress responses including those arising from Adverse Childhood Experiences such child abuse and neglect.

Having assessed and treated thousands of adult victims of child abuse in various clinical and non-clinical settings, he has gained extensive international experience in the psychological assessment and treatment of adults who were abused whilst they were children, and has provided Court reports on over a thousand adults who were involved in child care proceedings.

He currently sits as a member of the National Child Safeguarding Review Panel Pool of Reviewers based at the Department for Education. The NCSR Panel is responsible for commissioning, supervising and publishing national reviews of serious child safeguarding incidents it considers are complex or of national importance and which they consider will lead to national learning.

In 2020/2021 he was a core member of the NCS Panel tasked with conducting a review into cases of non-accidental injury (NAI) perpetrated on children under one year old by men with a caring role for that child. The full report was published in 2021.

Books written by Elie Godsi:

Violence in Society - The Reality Behind Violent Crime (1999)

Violence and Society - Making Sense of Madness and Badness (2004)

Anne Longfield CBE

Executive Chair and Founder, Centre for Young Lives

Bio to come.

Paul Marshall

Deputy Chief Executive, Manchester City Council

Paul is Deputy Chief Executive at Manchester City Council. Appointed in May 2024, he is a part of the Council’s core leadership team, helping to set a strategic direction for the organisation and guide it not only on a local, but an increasingly global stage. He is also responsible for key pillars of council policy – delivering on our zero carbon ambitions, running corporate services, as well as leading on digital strategy and transformation of services.

He is a qualified and registered social worker with over 25 years’ experience in the public sector; working with partner agencies to improve the experiences and outcomes of less well served children and their families.

Paul secured his first Service Manager role in a large county council in 2002 and has experience of working in small and medium size unitary Local Authorities.  Since securing his first senior role in 2004 Paul has experience of leading Children’s Services in large County and City Councils.

Appointed as Manchester City Council’s Strategic Director of Children’s and Education Services in March 2016, Paul held the statutory duty of the Director of Children Services. Under his leadership, Manchester’s Children Services has transformed from one that was judged by Ofsted in 2014 to be failing children to being judged as ‘good’ for the first time in 2022.

He led the integration of the children’s and education services directorate (previously separate service areas) and held overall strategic responsibility for children and education services across the city; including the Youth Justice Service. This includes chairing Manchester’s Youth Justice Management Board.

In 2022 the Council was accepted onto UNICEF’s Child Friendly Cities and Communities programme – the city’s first step on the journey to being awarded Child Friendly status.

Professor Rod Morgan

Professor Emeritus, University of Bristol

Formerly Chief Inspector of Probation 2001-4 and Chairman of the Youth Justice Board 2004-7. Co-Editor of the first five editions of 'The Oxford Handbook of Criminology'. Has written widely on the politics of law and order, custodial conditions, the prevention of torture, policing, magistrates courts and youth justice.

Dr Gilly Sharpe

Lecturer in Criminology, University of Sheffield

Dr Gilly Sharpe is a Lecturer in Criminology at the University of Sheffield. Gilly has a long-standing interest in responses to girls and women in the youth and criminal justice systems and has published widely on these topics. Gilly's most recent book is Women, Stigma and Desistance from Crime: Precarious Identities in the Transition to Adulthood (Routledge, 2024). This unique longitudinal examination follows up a cohort of 52 young adult women who were criminalised as children and came of age during austerity. The book demonstrates that marginalised young women are frequently subjected to stigmatisation, punishment and devaluation across a range of inter-connected state welfare and penal institutions.

Gilly's other books are Offending Girls, (Routledge, 2012) and Criminal Careers in Transition: The Social Context of Desistance from Crime (Oxford, 2014) with Farrall, Hunter and Calverley.

Gilly's previous research has also focused on persistent young offenders, desistance from crime, domestic violence and maternal imprisonment and resettlement. She is currently undertaking a study of young adult women's experiences of imprisonment, examining perceptions of safety and experiences of staff relationships amongst imprisoned young women. 

Wendy Tomlinson

Former Head of Safeguarding at the Youth Custody Service, social worker and service manager

Wendy is a social worker who had 25 years of working in and managing children’s services, including a Youth Offending Team and services for Looked After Children and Care Leavers and their foster carers, adopters, and other providers. She led the Youth Custody Service’s safeguarding agenda.