Expert Social Work Consultancy

During my career I have gained extensive experience in working with children and their families, particularly within safeguarding arenas and the Family Court processes (both public and private law). I have specific experience in working with families where the issues relate to the “toxic trio”; neglect, abuse (physical, sexual, emotional etc.) and where children are considered to be “beyond parental control”. 

My experience of court work includes completing parenting assessments, viability assessments, special guardianship assessments, risk assessments, and developing safety plans for children.

During my career I have worked on child protection teams, assessment teams, children in care teams, children with disability teams, a court team and Cafcass. 

During my time at Cafcass I fine-tuned my reporting skills, with a particular focus on the needs and voice of children, and providing an analytical overview of situations in a succinct manner. I also developed my skills in completing Re W assessments and enhancing my understanding of legal processes not used by local authorities, such as 16.4 Guardians.

Throughout my career I have had a keen interest in working with children and young people with additional needs, whether this is a form of disability, learning need or mental health difficulty. This interest has led to me being involved in the care and safety planning of children with particularly complex and/or challenging needs, including mental health act assessments, capacity assessments, risk management meetings, care and treatment reviews, and education health and care plan assessments and reviews. Many of these young people also had safeguarding risks around them, whether this was poor parental mental health, drug and/or alcohol misuse, neglect or domestic abuse. Meaning that whilst this was an area of interest for me, it did not take away from my core skills of assessing risk and working with families to manage and reduce those risks.