Dr Sarah Carlick’s early career convinced her that the world of safeguarding could be changed and she has dedicated herself to doing so as a Safeguarding Expert, Tedx Speaker and a Digital Safeguarding Pioneer.

Sarah started her working life as a social worker and then a probation officer, gaining experience in the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK, USA, Canada and Australia.

She is a Safeguarding Consultant specialising in Children Computer Interaction for children and young people to be equal partners in  the codesign for innovative digital safeguarding initiatives. She facilitates safe digital spaces for children and young peoples voices, ideas and experiences to be integrated within digital safeguarding initiatives. As well as acting as the bridge between children and young people to be equal partners in the conversations with organizations in digital developments.

Sarah currently undertakes coaching  and supervision for a range of senior managers, heads of safeguarding and safeguarding leads.

She is also the Director of an award-winning safeguarding training and consultancy company, The Athena Programme, since 2007.

Her experience is built on a rigorous academic background.  She has a diploma and degree and in Social Work from Lancaster University UK, an MA in Arts-Health from the University of Central Lancashire and a  PhD (also at Lancaster University). 

Gary Davies is a former police officer who served for 31 years in Avon and Somerset Constabulary before joining Bristol City Council in 2012 and becoming the Head of Service for Early Intervention and Targeted support. He led the Early Help services, Children Centres, Community Safety Team, Youth Offending Team and the response to knife crime, serious youth violence and gang involvement across the City. Over the last 10 years a part of his work has been the development of the use of data and analytics to support early intervention work and improve information sharing across the partnership. This has attracted attention form Government departments over recent years which has led to a series of grant funding opportunities to develop his work. He more recently has taken on a number of programmes funded by the Dept of Education and is working in partnership with Somerset and Bristol Councils.