OUR VISION
The Independent Safeguarding Service is an organisation with a very singular vision, to enable a transformation in the quality of safeguarding in the UK through the provision of industry leading training, policies and procedures regardless of industry sector.
We are a Community Interest Company (CIC) and, as such, reinvest profits back into the business and the safeguarding community to create the best and most affordable products possible.
OUR TEAM
Steve Hall
(HEAD OF QUALITY ASSURANCE)
Steve is a qualified social worker with nearly 40 years’ experience in children's services, having held senior management positions across several local authorities. His extensive background includes child protection, children in care, disability services and quality assurance.
An experienced Local Authority Designated Officer (LADO) and Chair of the National LADO Network, Steve brings considerable national expertise in managing allegations against professionals and strengthening organisational safeguarding practice.
Through ISS, Steve provides specialist safeguarding consultancy, training and quality assurance across a diverse range of sectors. He also plays a key role in developing ISS's services and maintaining the highest standards of safeguarding practice.
Nick Pratt
(DIRECTOR / HEAD OF SAFEGUARDING)
Nick is also the Chair of Governors for the TCES Group of Schools and Services, which all boast an outstanding OFSTED rating across their registration.
Nick has extensive safeguarding consultancy experience in Education, Early Years, Health, Police, Third Sector, Faith Settings, Premier League Football, other Sporting Regulatory Bodies and Commercial Private Sector organisations.
Jen Miller
(HEAD OF TECHNOLOGY AND DIGITAL DEVELOPMENT)
Jen leads the technology and digital development of the Independent Safeguarding Service, overseeing the systems, infrastructure and innovative platforms that underpin our work.
With extensive experience in digital development and online business solutions, Jen plays a central role in shaping the technological future of ISS. From managing our existing digital services to designing and developing new platforms, her expertise is fundamental to how we operate, innovate and grow.
Jen is passionate about harnessing technology to make our resources, training and support accessible to members.
Rita Domingues
(HEAD OF CONSULTANCY)
Rita qualified as a Social Worker in 2006. For the past 11 years, she has worked in frontline teams across Children’s Services, the last 5 managing Court and Safeguarding teams. Her expertise is in Care Proceedings and Court reports. She is steadfast in her commitment to good practice in safeguarding vulnerable children and families. She has also spent the last three years in postgraduate studies and building her expertise in Leadership and Management.
Sam Bissett
(PROJECT MANAGER)
Samantha is a EYFS specialist who has extensive experience as a childminder and working within EYFS group settings. Sam has also worked as an independent advocate for ACE Anglia and as an advocate and interpreter for Sense, assisting individuals with sensory impairments to access services. She is qualified in BSL and is a Deafblind interpreter. Samantha leads on quality assuring our early years training, policies and services, as well as coordinating our wider safeguarding portfolio of services to ensure full sector coverage and equality of access. Samantha also acts as relationship manager for our portal services.
Anna Mwiluki
(ADULT SAFEGUARDING LEAD)
Anna has worked as a Head of Strategic Safeguarding and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. She is a qualified Social Worker, Best Interest Assessor, and signatory for Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards. She has experience in adult safeguarding at operational and strategic/board level. She is an accredited chair of Domestic Homicide Reviews, Safeguarding Adult lead Reviewer, a non-executive director, and a Fellow in Public Health Research with a specific interest in Domestic Abuse. Her recent consultancy includes overseeing People in Position of Trust, Organisational Abuse procedures, Making Safeguarding Personal and improvement, supporting providers in meeting CQC requirements.
Carol Frederick
(EXECUTIVE CONSULTANT)
Carol is an experienced social worker with 25 years’ experience in Youth Offending , Leaving Care, Family Counselling, Extended schools, and has 7 years’ experience in a London local authority as a Head of Service for Early Help , managing 4 multi agency neighbourhood children and family centre hubs, including oversight of the safeguarding practice. She is an accredited train the trainer and currently delivers Safeguarding training and supervision.
Nigel Taylor
(EXECUTIVE CONSULTANT)
Nigel is an experienced school governor and is currently safeguarding board member on the Court of The Mill Hill Schools’ Group, and the Association of Governing Bodies of Independent Schools (AGBIS). Accredited by the NSPCC, he works with GBH Law’s school team and was the Independent schools adviser to CPOMS. He is Non-Exec Chair of The British Academy School Marrakech and Chair of Trustees of Education For All Morocco, a charity dedicated to transforming the lives of marginalised girls and young women by providing them with access to education and the workplace. He was an Independent Head for 26 years, DSL, ISI Inspector and Board member of Surrey Safeguarding Children’s Partnership.
Thomas Robinson
(PREVENT LEAD)
Thomas is an experienced safeguarding expert, with a specialism in radicalisation. He holds extensive experience tackling a wide range of complex radicalisation cases in various roles, including as a Social Worker within Children’s Services, as Channel Coordinator within Prevent and as the Prevent Practitioner/Deputy Named Safeguarding Professional for Adults within an NHS mental health Trust. Furthermore, Thomas is a PhD candidate in Social Work and Social Care investigating the radicalisation of men and the role of masculinity in violent extremism through interviews with frontline professionals across healthcare, social care and Prevent. Thomas has extensive experience in developing and delivering training to professionals on safeguarding against radicalisation
Kathy Dee
(EXECUTIVE TRAINER)
Claire Stewart
(EXECUTIVE TRAINER)
Claire Stewart is a former Trust Director of Safeguarding and an NSPCC-trained Safeguarding Supervisor, with over two decades of experience as a senior school leader in inner-city London. Throughout her career, Claire has been unwavering in her commitment to championing safeguarding and personal welfare.
In her leadership roles, she played a pivotal part in shaping safeguarding policies, embedding best practices, and fostering a culture of openness and trust through a restorative approach. Her work reflects a deep and nuanced understanding of the complexities surrounding child protection, safeguarding, and wellbeing in diverse educational settings.
Beyond education, Claire volunteered for several years as a Samaritan, an experience that broadened her perspective on crisis intervention, empathetic listening, and the wider challenges of mental health support. This work continues to inform her holistic approach to safeguarding and wellbeing.
Adam Fearon-Stanley
(EXECUTIVE TRAINER)
Adam qualified in social work in 2003. He has had a diverse career as practioner and manager having worked on behalf of children in frontline child protection, youth offending services, children with disability teams and hospital based social work. For the last 11 years Adam has been in Safeguarding and Quality Assurance roles including the LADO, leading an Independent and Fostering Reviewing Officer Service, Participation Team and an Independent Visitor Service. His knowledge of working with Children Looked After (CLA) and Care Experienced Young People (CEYP) is extensive as is his insight into Ofsted Inspection Frameworks. Adam passionately believes in participation, having facilitated the inclusion of CLA and CEYP in improvement work for local authorities, Children in Care Council, and CEYP forum and working closely with national providers of advocacy which has enabled a deep appreciation of the complexities of hearing voice in practice.
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“The trainer's willingness to work with me to incorporate organisational challenges and safeguarding business priorities was exceptional and made for a far more meaningful and useful delivery. That, coupled with the presenter's wealth of knowledge and presentation of current case studies, helped cement knowledge and understanding.”
- West Ham United Football Club
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“Training was at a high standard, information was completely up to date (hot off the press in fact) and delivered in an engaging, manageable way.”
- Portsmouth High School
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“Nick has a unique competence in so many areas of safeguarding, both with children and adults. We could not have fine-tuned our practice without his help. The online training by ISS is engaging, cutting edge and professional. The fact you can log on remotely while still asking questions for a tailored experience suited us so well. Thank you!”
- Frontline19
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“We felt that the training was very useful and has given us more context to our safeguarding duties and a lot of useful and important pointers to materials to go through as well as ideas for areas of improvement. Most importantly, it has made us more confident in our roles as DSL and DDSL.”
- Eton-X
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“This was the best safeguarding training I've been on. Lack of personal stories or scaremongering - astute observations of how things go in schools in practice and firm conviction in what responses would be appropriate. Empathy with the audience, not patronising, but confident. ”
- Croydon High School
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“Nick and ISS have supported Frontline19 so incredibly well to develop effective and robust safeguarding systems for our newly established organisation. From patiently helping us with policies and procedures, to offering high quality training and support around safer recruitment, we feel extremely reassured at every step that we are in great hands.”
- Frontline19
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“Professional and reliable service from true experts in safeguarding. Would highly recommend ISS's services to anyone.”
- Tribus Consulting
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“I was very impressed with the DSL training & how it was delivered. It kept my attention & was stimulating unlike previous training I have completed.”
- Brighton Girls
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“I would highly recommend ISS for their safeguarding consultancy, advice and training. Really friendly and reliable service with the most updated staff members working in their respective fields”
- Health & Safety Assured
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“Excellent trainer, easy to listen to and great delivery of information - great format to learn in - courses more accessible being online”
- Norwich High School for Girls
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“A really engaging presenter and it really was the most useful training on safeguarding that I've attended. Rarely does it really offer practical advice on implementing policy.”
- Northampton High School
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“The trainer was experienced and presented the material well. I felt that this was a more useful course than the similar one I attended 3 years ago because it made the processes at local authority level clearer.”
- Streatham & Clapham High School
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“We have used the Independent Safeguarding Service for a few years now as we needed to ensure our safeguarding procedures and policies were up to date and kept that way. They have proved to be an informative and reliable source of information that has proved invaluable. Thanks ISS. ”
- Accability
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“I wanted to thank you for your support over the years on your Safeguarding knowledge and expertise. In particular on the development of our policy as well as the resources your service provides as an addition to our mandatory training. ”
- G4S
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“Nick at ISS has been a real lifeline to me in sharing his expert safeguarding knowledge and helping me to carefully consider the often complex nuances of safeguarding in the context of therapeutic work with clients. He is incredibly knowledgeable, friendly and always goes that extra mile to support small businesses with their safeguarding practice.”
- Heartful Therapy
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“It was by far the most interesting and potentially useful Level 3 course I have completed: I have completed at least five in my career so far. Thank you so much for organising such a superb training.”
- Kensington Prep School
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“Thank you for your safeguarding consultancy. It has been so helpful for our whole team. The online training resource has been invaluable for our staff to tap in to and has been really well received as CPD.”
- Limetree Solutions UK
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“Thanks so much for your helpfulness - and for the excellent training on Saturday. We so appreciate working with ISS and it's going to help us up our game in lots of ways.”
- YWAM The King's Lodge
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““We have used the Independent Safeguarding Service for a few years now as we needed to ensure our safeguarding procedures and policies were up to date and kept that way. They have proved to be an informative and reliable source of information that has proved invaluable. Thanks ISS.”
- London Borough of Waltham Forest
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“DSL Traning objectives met and surpassed - best safeguarding training I’ve been on to date!”
- Wimbledon High School
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“The DSL training was very very good. Very knowledgeable trainer, I now feel more confident in my role as deputy DSL, Thank you.”
- Birkenhead High School Academy
