With over fourteen years’ experience as a qualified social worker, I currently serve as Strategic Safeguarding Lead at Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust, where I provide senior leadership across safeguarding practice within CAMHS inpatient services. My work is rooted in a clear professional purpose: to ensure safeguarding is not simply a regulatory requirement, but a lived organisational culture that actively protects, listens to, and champions young people at their most vulnerable.
In my role, I lead the strategic development and implementation of safeguarding frameworks, policies, and procedures across CAMHS inpatient provision. This includes ensuring robust compliance with safeguarding legislation while embedding high-quality, trauma-informed safeguarding practice into everyday clinical and operational decision-making. I work closely with multidisciplinary teams to strengthen professional curiosity, reflective practice, and shared accountability, ensuring safeguarding remains central to high-quality care.
My leadership is informed by extensive experience across both inpatient and community CAMHS settings, giving me a comprehensive understanding of the complex clinical, social, and emotional needs faced by children and young people experiencing mental ill health. This breadth of experience enables me to advocate effectively for young people’s voices, rights, and wellbeing within complex systems and multi-agency environments.
Alongside my safeguarding leadership, I am deeply committed to advancing equality, diversity and inclusion within health and social care. I am the founder of a professional network dedicated to advancing ethnic minority representation into leadership roles across the sector. I established this network after repeatedly witnessing capable, experienced professionals being overlooked or unsupported in their progression, often due to a lack of access to mentorship, visibility, and honest dialogue about systemic barriers.
What began as a response to these inequities has grown into a community of over 400 professionals across health and social care. The network provides a platform for peer support, leadership development, advocacy, and collective learning, and reflects my belief that inclusive leadership is fundamental to safe, effective, and compassionate care. This work directly informs my approach to governance, workforce development, and the creation of psychologically safe and inclusive organisational cultures.
My professional values align closely with Greater Manchester Mental Health NHS Foundation Trust’s commitment to delivering compassionate, high-quality care for vulnerable populations. Through strategic safeguarding leadership, a strong focus on inclusion, and collaborative working, I remain dedicated to building environments where young people feel protected and empowered, and where professionals are supported to lead with integrity, confidence, and purpose.
One year ago, Advancing Ethnic Minorities into Leadership Roles within Health and Social Care was founded with both urgency and intent. The initiative emerged from a personal experience of escalation and a clear recognition of the persistent under-representation of ethnic minority professionals within NHS leadership and senior decision-making roles.
What began as a necessary response has since grown into a purposeful and influential movement. Over the past year, the initiative has expanded across multiple platforms, increasing visibility, strengthening inclusive leadership discourse, and creating meaningful, and at times challenging, conversations about equality, access, and progression within health and social care.
In December, we proudly marked our first anniversary. To commemorate this milestone, we launched the inaugural annual awards ceremony, created to recognise and celebrate organisations and individuals who actively demonstrate commitment, leadership, and impact in advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion across the sector. The awards are intended not only to acknowledge excellence, but to spotlight good practice, amplify role models, and encourage sustained organisational accountability.
At its core, this work is about more than representation alone. It is about fairness, voice, and the creation of leadership structures that genuinely reflect the diversity, talent, and lived experience of the workforce and the communities it serves. Through connection, shared learning, and collective advocacy, the initiative continues to challenge systemic barriers and support a more inclusive future for leadership.
As this journey moves forward, we invite those who are committed to equity, inclusion, and meaningful change to stand alongside us and contribute to this growing agenda for progress.
Register your interest via the link below.
Founder, Young Crown Foundation
I am the founder of the Young Crown Foundation, an international charity established eighteen months ago to support and empower young pe
