Caldecott's MD Speaks At National Conference

Nick Barnett, Managing Director of the Caldecott Foundation will be speaking at this year’s National Police Missing Persons’ Conference in Hull.  The event is set to follow in the success of 2019’s conference, with several hundred delegates confirmed to attend.

The theme of this year’s conference is ‘Missing and Vulnerability’ and, during the event, a range of speakers from the world of Missing Persons will discuss good practice and share learning together with new developments within this critical safeguarding area.

The Caldecott Foundation has previously been recognised for obtaining excellent results in reducing the number of vulnerable young people missing from care.  Between 2014 and 2017, the Foundation succeeded in achieving a 98% reduction in incidents of ‘missing from care’.  For this work, the charity received a National Community Award from the Howard League for Penal Reform, under the new Residential Care category.

“In recognising that children in care are at higher risk of entering the criminal justice system, we developed our ‘Engage’ project, by targeting a reduction in the number of ‘missing from care’ incidents”, said Nick Barnett.

“We implemented a new relational model and made changes to our child protection procedures”, Nick continued.  “Through training, we developed our culture to value consultation with our young people and built closer working relationships with Kent Police.”

At this year’s National Police Missing Persons Conference, Nick will speak on the subject of “Achieving Excellence in Children’s Residential Care Homes”.

The Caldecott Foundation has therapeutic residential care homes for children in Kent and the East Midlands, with four of these having been rated as “Outstanding” by Ofsted.  One of the homes has recently received its fifth consecutive “Outstanding” rating, with an Ofsted inspector commenting: “Staff have really invested in the young people and this is shown in the strength of relationships.  The management team ‘lead by doing’.  The young people have made significant progress, all attending mainstream schools and achieving their full potential.  The children are confident and clearly feel loved.”

“It’s a fantastic achievement”, Nick Barnett said in response to the feedback.

“We are incredibly proud of all of our achievements, as we believe they have improved the opportunities for the young people in our care to build successful, safe and fulfilling lives.”

Also speaking at the conference will be Assistant Chief Constable Catherine Hankinson, West Yorkshire Police, National Police Lead on Missing Persons; and Joe Apps from the National Crime Agency’s National Missing Person’s unit; amongst others.  Organisations exhibiting include the “Missing People” charity and “The Children’s Society”; businesses such as Motorola and eSafe Global; and Police forces from across the UK.