Safeguarding 24 is a cloud-based solution that allows your users, e.g. students & staff, to report any safeguarding concerns they have from anywhere.
The reported message of concern will be sent securely to a designated representative in your organisation (for example, a safeguarding officer) and can include a screenshot of the users current browser window, a photograph from a mobile device, and the users GPS coordinates if desired.
I am proud to have worked as a senior manager and Designated Safeguarding Lead in education for over fifteen years, working as a DSL across four different organisations, working with tens of Local Authorities and overseeing more than 3,000 safeguarding referrals.
This gives me an invaluable insight into both the demands and rewards of being at the helm of safeguarding thousands of students and vulnerable adults. I didn’t know quite what I was taking on board when I first became a DSL back in 2007, but I do know that it has become one of my greatest passions.
My vision is that all DSLs and Deputy DSs working in education will have access to the vital knowledge and support they need to work effectively and sustainably to safeguard children and vulnerable adults. My purpose in creating The Essential Safeguarding Company is to ensure that we provide high-quality, timely and valuable ongoing support for DSLs and their teams. We do this by providing safeguarding supervision both as 1:1 and group support; safeguarding training for staff and students; and safeguarding audits and advice to help you safeguard effectively and with confidence.
In addition to running The Essential Safeguarding Company, I am a certified coach supporting educators and activists in leadership and empowerment.
My favourite things include learning, being out in nature, debating politics, adoring Vlodi our pet rabbit and socialising with family and friends.
After working with children of various ages in various sectors, it became clear to me that my passion lay in pastoral care and safeguarding. It’s a hugely complex area and I’m proud to be able to share my experiences and skills with others to help support them in both the practical side of their role and processing the emotional impact that is so often ignored in favour of all of the tasks on the ever growing to-do list.
As a mum of two young boys I often struggle to tell people what my hobbies are because, quite honestly, I’m not sure. I know my time is taken up with story books, crafts, looking at lots of different things on lots of different Playstation games and a 100 ‘would you rather’ questions each day… and I wouldn’t have it any other way!
When I do get time to myself I love to read, enjoy good food (extra points if it’s been cooked by somebody else) and binge on box sets with my Husband. I adore spa days and city breaks and I will never, ever turn down a night at the theatre… especially if there’s the option to go in fancy dress.
In July 2022 I made the decision to leave my Executive Headteacher post. I decided it was time to completely change my life. I wanted to make a much bigger impact on the education system. I have therefore set up MW Education, our vision is to eradicate the need for offsite Alternative Provision for those children who have experienced Trauma. Through my own experiences I am dedicating my life to expand the knowledge and understanding of all school staff about Trauma and how it impacts a child’s ability to learn, their behaviour and how it impacts on us as adults in those environments. How do we as adults regulate our own emotions and triggers to meet the needs of the children in our care. How we teach behaviour is as fundamental as any other subject. You can contact Mandy Wilton at Mandy@mweducation.co.uk.
I am honoured to have worked with many babies, children and young people (with their families) and adult learners alike. During my deeply rewarding career I have had a variety of roles supporting teaching and learning, lecturing, coaching and mentoring student teachers across Early Years settings, Schools, Colleges of FE & HE and Consultant/Advisory roles in Local Authorities.
These experiences and numerous safeguarding cases have taught me there is nothing more important than the welfare of the children and young people and all deserve the very best opportunities to achieve their full potential.
The role of adults working with children and young people is key to achieving these goals and I thoroughly enjoy supporting, enabling and empowering colleagues to be the best versions of themselves to safeguard children and young people.
I love to swim, do Pilates and every day walk our dogs on the local beaches and countryside. We grown our own fruits, vegetables and flowers, love a good read and paint watercolour portraits.
I am delighted to join The Essential Safeguarding Company team as an Associate.
I’m Gemma and I am a trained social worker and have been qualified for nearly 7 years. I have worked predominately in safeguarding for many years in various local authorities. I am also a trained assessor for prospective foster carers.
I have quite a passion for contextual safeguarding and supporting families to finding the solutions themselves. I appreciate a restorative approach to working with children and their families where compassion can be held even during challenging conversations! Safeguarding can be tricky and hard and most days, emotive. I’m always of the view that a critical friend can help to unpack and unpick our worries and be able to consider holistically how families can move forwards.
In my personal life I have my 8-year-old dog Lunar who is wobbly due to a disability who I enjoy taking on adventures. I also have two new additions to the household, Yoshi and Gyoza my tortoises. I very much enjoy the small things in life and binge watching a good series or going for a walk in the Peak District.
You can reach Gemma at RyderGemma@outlook.com or connect with her via LinkedIn.
I earned my law degree in Lincoln in 2017, a pivotal experience that sparked my passion for working with people.
I began my career in the civil service as a probation service officer, honing vital skills in supporting vulnerable individuals and ensuring the safety of both them and the wider community.
Additionally, I worked as a pastoral support officer in a school setting, which deepened my expertise in this field. It was during this time that I realised my desire to make a meaningful difference in safeguarding.
My professional journey has been rooted in both adult and child safeguarding, where I discovered my dedication to supporting and protecting children. This experience showed me the complex needs of vulnerable adults and children and my want to advocate for on-going support and intervention work.
It is a privilege to be an associate with The Essential Safeguarding Company and continue to share my skills.
You can reach Alex at hulkorey96@googlemail.com or connect with him via LinkedIn.
We are able to do what we do because we are ably supported by other brilliant professionals. Our wider support team who offer us invaluable advice and guidance, as well as sometimes just the listening ear we need, includes people we’ve worked with in the past and whom we now count among our friends.
We’re proud to introduce you to our wider team, which includes:
Website developer, IT consultant & Safeguarding 24 partner
As a software engineer I have built myself a strong reputation in the industry for creativity and technical problem solving. I’ve developed cloud-based and stand-alone applications for multiple sectors including education, automotive, child safety, medical and gaming, and have two number 1 best selling apps on the App Store. My 20 years of experience in Further Education hopefully enables me to explain complex, technical instructions in an easy-to-understand way.
My day usually consists of caffeine, hoodies and code.
Safeguarding 24 partner
Innovative leader helping people to be more impactful with technology that’s simple to use, trusted, and makes life better.
Passionate about education, digital, people, new thinking, disruptive technology and innovation.
On a technology enabled but people driven mission to empower organisations to achieve more.
Honorary Doctor of Technology, Board positions in both the public, private and charitable sectors, keen mountainbiker and gamer.
If my camera isn’t on, I’m likely joining the meeting from my bike.
Our wellbeing champions
OK, so their advice is limited, and we wouldn’t necessarily trust their guidance, but our faithful friends are along side us in (separate) offices and give us much-valued furry cuddles throughout the working day.
Despite facing some tough challenges—including a ruptured disc in her spine that required physiotherapy and rehabilitation—Lunar never lost her gentle spirit or her wagging tail.
She’s also blind in one eye but navigates the world with grace, curiosity, and a little extra help from her amazing human, Gemma. Her strength, charm, and determination inspire everyone she meets, and she brings comfort and joy wherever she goes.
When Wickes isn’t attacking Emma with his teeth, Lunar isn’t off on a wobbly adventure, and Vlodi isn’t attempting to bite through Trudie’s ethernet cable, they truly are our wellbeing champions.
Our values guide our lives. For us, our core life values sit also at the heart of our work, informing what we do and how, who we work with and how we show up in the world.
So what are our core values? They are:
Safeguarding people effectively means exercising compassion. For children, young people and vulnerable adults. For the staff supporting them. For ourselves. For all.
Having compassion for all does not mean that we don’t recognise right and wrong. We most certainly do, and we advocate passionately for justice. We call out wrongdoing, we stand up for the vulnerable, abused and oppressed and we use the fire in our belly to fight to protect those who need help. We use our rage at wrongdoing to power our work for good.
Who was it who said that integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching? Whoever said it, amen to that. We seek to be our authentic selves. We take responsibility. If we make a mistake, we own it. We say sorry. We learn from it. We do better next time. If we don’t know the answer, we find it out. We stay honest with you, and honest with ourselves. In our company, we feel safe to be seen for who we really are and our wish for you is that you feel the same with us.
Sometimes people ask us how we cope with the difficult emotions and feelings which safeguarding cases can evoke. Quite simply, we top ourselves up with joy. We seek glimmers of joy in the everyday. The soft fur of our office pets, the laughter of our children, lovingly teasing one another about our funny quirks, the positive difference we know our work makes to clients. Amongst the toughness there is a world of joy. Our job is to look for it, savour it and spread it.
Our cultural paradigm puts huge emphasis on romantic love. We like a bit of that, but actually when we speak of love as our value, we mean ALL love. The energy of who we are. How we show up in the world. The good we wish for others. The hope, kindness, support, generosity and positivity that we seek to be in the world.
We want the spaces that we create for our clients to always be supportive, even when we challenge as critical friends, and we want you to feel that we’ve got your back. We check our intentions to make sure they’re good. If we get a bit bogged down or uncertain, we lift ourselves up by remembering that we love what we do and we do it with love.
Our core values – Compassion, Justice, Integrity, Joy and Love – mean we feel particularly strongly about some things. We feel called to take action and operate in particular ways. Here are some examples:
Climate change is here. The impact, especially on some of the world’s poorest countries and most vulnerable communities, is already plain to see. It makes us feel rather sad and sometimes despairing to be honest. But when we feel like that, we remind ourselves of the question we could ask of our clients if they told us they felt like that: What can you do to make a difference?
In light of this, what we are doing is as follows:
We are passionate advocates for ensuring that statutory duties to safeguard children and vulnerable adults are upheld. We worry that the diminution of local government budgets is significantly affecting local authorities’ ability to do that effectively.
Our clients in education tell us repeatedly that they are concerned about capacity in the social care system. They see a lack of social workers, high staff turnover rates and high numbers of complex cases with inexperienced social workers attached to them. This makes our clients scared that something could go dangerously wrong for a vulnerable child or adult in their setting or their family. This adds to the pressure of already demanding roles for Designated Safeguarding Leads and their deputies, creating unnecessary stress for them.
It’s not good enough. It’s stressful for the responsible adult and deeply dangerous for the children and vulnerable adults who need and serve the protection of the state.
We won’t just observe this and stay quiet about it. We are building a profile of what we are witnessing and we will use it to campaign for justice for children who need protection. Our social care system needs:
In the 2023/24 academic year we produced our first UK Report on Safeguarding. Sharing our findings helped us to gather support for our campaign for justice for children. In 2024/25 we shall continue this.
We are grateful that we get to do the work that we love and that it has just a positive impact on our clients.
Our gratitude makes us want to give even more and so we do. We give in a number of ways:
All of the information was highly relevant and important to know.
My first contact with Trudie demonstrated her passion and genuine desire to work with young people. We received glowing feedback from our students who participated in Trudie’s workshops and we’re looking forward to welcoming her back into school. I’d highly recommend Trudie.
Julie Poppleton
Head of CEIAG at Chase Terrace Technology College
Unless you attend something like supervision you don’t always get the space to think about cases. It’s especially helpful for cases that don’t meet threshold and you know you need to do something yourself, but don’t always know what
The awareness was spot on, someone like myself who went into this training with no knowledge, I have definitely gained lots of in-depth information which I can share with others and will look to develop in further trainings.
Trudie McGuinness at The Essential Training Company is at the top of my list of ‘go-to’ people when it comes to all aspects of safeguarding and issues related to vulnerable children and adults. Her advice is always current and in an area of legislation that can easily generate organisational panic and overreaction, she can be relied upon to provide clear, calm considered guidance to both individuals and teams.
Graham Morley
Former Principal
I have really appreciated your wisdom and support as we have gone through this process of safeguarding training – it has been more than a training programme, more like guidance and support as we go through a really important change in our ways of working.
Rachael Saunders
Education and Policy Director at Speakers for Schools
It was really brilliant CPD. You can sit in training and hear the theory but to hear it in real time, from real staff about real families, is just so valuable
Listening to other leaders talk was so useful. It was a listening and learning exercise for me as a new headteacher and I found a lot of value in hearing what others were saying
Trudie is a passionate advocate for equality and diversity, safeguarding and the prevent agenda and is a recognised expert practitioner in these fields.
Jamie E. Smith, MBA, FRSA
Executive Chairman C-Learning. CEO S24
The Essential Training Company have truly delivered a difference to us. We gave them a seemingly impossible safeguarding assessment task in a rapid timescale and were thoroughly delighted by the level of quality, rigor and service they gave us. This was a mission critical activity for our charity and the 1600 schools we support. Not only are they essential, they are our trusted partners and we now couldn’t be without them.
Cailean Carvalho
Chief Customer Officer at Speakers for Schools
