SAFE Associate – Nina Hartley
Nina possesses extensive experience of leading safeguarding services across both statutory and non-statutory sectors. This includes: managing a front line Child Protection Social Work team; working in the education sector as a Child Protection and Safer Recruitment Advisor at a British International boarding school in Thailand and Designated Safeguarding Governor in Derbyshire; and managing volunteer led community and international programmes with the British Red Cross, Voluntary Service Overseas and the British Council.
Whilst working in Thailand, Nina supported a number of schools affiliated with the Council of British International Schools (COBIS) and Federation of British Schools in Asia (FOBISIA) to develop robust safer recruitment policies and advised on how to set up an effective early help service within a school. Nina’s work at an independent boarding school led to the safeguarding procedures to receiving commendation from Council of British International Schools (COBIS) “for excellent safeguarding policies, processes and whole school teamwork”.
Nina remains passionate about supporting schools to improve their safeguarding procedures and now works in a voluntary capacity as Designated Safeguarding Governor for a comprehensive secondary school, holding overall strategic lead responsibilities for ensuring safeguarding arrangements, policies, procedures and training are effective and comply with the law.
Nina is a highly qualified social worker having gained a distinction in her MSc, alongside having a strong understanding of child development gained from her BSc in Psychology. Nina currently works in a Multi-Agency Safeguarding Hub alongside her roles as Associate Trainer and Consultant and has managed social workers in a London borough across: early help; the looked after children service and latterly in a front line child protection service as a Deputy Team Manager in a Contact and referral service. Nina is a skilled systemic practitioner who is able to provide reflective safeguarding supervision utilising the signs of safety model to support workers and families to identify the strengths within a family and areas of improvement that are required in order to reduce concerns around the safety and wellbeing of children and young people.
As well as providing individual and group supervision to social care professionals, Nina is a provider of reflective safeguarding supervision to Designated Safeguarding Leads within the education and voluntary sector.
Nina has developed and delivered a number of training courses including: how to develop an effective low-level Concerns policy; Keeping Children Safe in Education (KCSiE); direct tools to use when working with children who you may have concerns about; and adult-child touch in sport.
Nina’s experience overseas and working in different cultural contexts alongside her systemic training enables her to support people to understand safeguarding from different perspectives and how to develop a safeguarding culture. Nina has led on safeguarding investigations in schools where there have been concerns relating to staff conduct and assumed the role of LADO when working in an international context. Nina brings expertise in policy development and of setting up safeguarding systems including auditing and developing realistic action plans which address any gaps identified.
Having recently moved to the Peak District, Nina enjoys outdoor swimming, walking and teaching yoga.