The AoCPP brings together adult safeguarding and child protection practitioners from a wide range of disciplines including social work, paediatrics, nursing and health, psychology, police and criminal justice, law, education, research among many others. This multi-disciplinary perspective, which holds the child and family at the centre, has been a key part of our purpose since 1979.

Support & Networking

We recognise the huge psychological and emotional challenge that so often goes hand in hand with work in this field. That’s why we provide opportunities for our members to connect with colleagues across the United Kingdom and internationally, facilitating the forging of supportive relationships and the broadening of professional knowledge through the sharing of good practice. We provide these opportunities through a whole range of different mediums, some of which are outlined below:

Continuous Professional Development

Since the onset of Covid-19, we have moved much of our activity online, providing regular member’s lunches with updates, mini-training sessions, and the chance to network remotely. The feedback from our online member’s meetings in 2020/21 tells a story of practitioners who valued the chance to come together with colleagues and share their experiences of working through extremely challenging times and circumstances, whilst feeling supported by the AoCPP as an organisation. Our online member’s meetings continue and are set to do so beyond Covid. Ultimately, when it is safe to do so, we envisage running a programme of both online and face to face events.

We offer regular masterclasses which are run by people who are leading thinkers and practitioners in their respective fields. These sessions provide a deeper level of training and CPD, often running for half a day and with smaller numbers to allow interaction and the chance for professional curiosities to be explored and developed. These are open to both members and non-members to attend, but with a reduced cost to our family of members.

Again, with the onset of Covid-19 we added webinars to our programme of events. Our webinars are typically short, lecture-style events on a range of topics relevant to frontline practice. We actively seek feedback from our members about topics they’d like us to cover and then we work to source the best people to deliver the sessions.

In addition, we offer a range of conference events and a triannual congress. These events often see us work in partnership with academic establishments bringing together the very best in cutting edge research and frontline practitioner experience to provide a holistic learning and networking experience for our delegates.

Our Special Interest Groups are free for our members to join and bring together practitioners, academics and trainers and consultants who have a shared interest in a particular area of practice. The groups are forums to learn from each other, to explore different perspectives and theories in a safe and professional way with a view to enhancing participant’s knowledge and understanding of the area. We are always open to suggestions for new special interest groups and offers from members to Chair or contribute to groups. We currently have special interest groups in Children and Young People in Care and Care Experienced, Equality and Diversity, Practice and Serious Case Reviews, Gender Dysphoria, Perinatal and we have others in development.

Access to Practice-Influencing Research

Our members get access to Child Abuse Review, our highly respected academic journal, along with the entire back catalogue of issues. Child Abuse Review will help you stay up to date with the latest research from leading experts and academics. 

And as part of our continued commitment to using research to influence practice, we include our “key practitioner messages”; learnings drawn from each article to make Child Abuse Review accessible for all those in practice. This alone is worth £159.99 per annum but is available to members for free.