Child Q – How can African and Caribbean children be safeguarded?

Facing the challenge of belief and value drive decision-making. London South Bank University (LSBU) are proud to deliver what promises to be a safeguarding conference with a difference. Usually, discussions about safeguarding focus on the harm caused to children by their parents or guardians. However, for Child Q, the harm caused to her involved professionals, those in loco parentis, who were tasked to protect. Instead, they caused her physical, emotional and sexual harm. Despite the outcrying of those from African and Caribbean descent over decades, about the overt and subtle forms of racism they and their children experience at the hands of individuals and institutions, their voices have often not been truly heard. All too often silenced by platitudes of unconscious bias and projections that blame the victims rather than the perpetrators of racist practices. This conference aims to provide an opportunity for African and Caribbean professionals from education, health, the police and social work – to offer an alternative perspective to the problem, and to share ideas for how the institutions that African and Caribbean children and young people attend when they leave the sanctity of their own homes should protect, nurture and develop them. The conference is open to all with an interest & passion in this area - parents, social workers, social work students, designated school safeguarding leads, designated health safeguarding leads (hospitals and community), police, etc...