About Us

Dr Angie Heal

Angie has 40 years’ experience of working with adults and children in public and voluntary sector organisations, including NHS, drug services, police and local authority posts. She has previously been an associate researcher at the School of Law, University of Sheffield, a trustee and volunteer with an organisation working with women involved in street prostitution and is currently a volunteer vaccinator during the COVID-19 pandemic. She is involved in ongoing operations in relation to Rotherham child sexual abuse / exploitation, as a result of work she undertook whilst working for South Yorkshire Police. She has authored a number of publications, including  Child Sexual Exploitation After Rotherham: Understanding the Consequences and Recommendations for Practice, (Gladman and Heal, 2017, Jessica Kingsley Publishers).

Key areas of practice include:

• policy and procedure development in both children’s and adults services;
• working with adults with complex needs;
• social policy and criminological research.

Lucy Edwards

Lucy has ten years’ experience supporting a large number of local authorities and safeguarding partnerships to review, maintain and promote the use of their policies, procedures and practice guidance. Before this she worked for Sheffield Safeguarding Children Board for 6 years in a quality assurance role and was responsible for devising and implementing the framework used by the Board to review and monitor the quality of safeguarding work across the city. In the earlier part of her career, Lucy worked in criminal justice, with roles as a Policy Officer with Nacro (the national crime reduction charity), as a Senior Research Officer with the Home Office (working on projects to improve support provided to the families of prisoners and to help young adult offenders serving long sentences with the transition to adult establishments) as well as research posts with the criminology departments in Hull and Sheffield Universities.

Key areas of practice include:

• policy and procedure development in both children’s and adults services;
• working with adults with complex needs;
• social policy and criminological research.

Sam Mayne

Sam has 20 years’ experience as a social worker and 12 years experience as a senior manager in Adult Social Care. Senior management posts included Head of Service for Intermediate Care and Hospital Discharge; Head of Service Transformation; Head of Safeguarding and Performance.

Her key areas of practice interest are:

• management and leadership;
• putting policy into practice;
• integrated working;
• care pathway redesign.

Neil Humphreys

Neil has 14 years’ experience of working in adult social care. He has worked in several adult social work teams including community, hospital discharge, learning disability and mental health. Neil has over eight years’ experience managing the Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards and has also worked as a Principal Social Worker. Prior to working in statutory services he worked as a mental health support worker, assisting adults experiencing mental health crisis. Neil now works with several local authorities assisting with the DoLS and Care Act compliance, as well as training to assess adults for autism and ADHD.

Key areas of practice:

• Mental Capacity Act / Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards / Liberty Protection Safeguards;
• Care Act (Assessment / Support Planning / Safeguarding / Safeguarding Adults Board);
• workforce development;
• policy and procedures;
• troubleshooting.

Deborah Whitehead

Deborah has thirty years’ experience of working in health and social care. She has worked in a range of roles, including support worker, refugee integration advisor, nanny for a child with learning disabilities, head of older persons and residential services, quality assurance manager, assistant director, learning disability community manager and mental health, child protection, IMCA (including Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards) and Care Act advocate. Deborah currently works as a contract manager for an advocacy service within a national charity.

Key areas of practice:

• care quality improvement;
• advocacy delivery;
• community development;
• coaching and mentoring;
• Mental Capacity Act;
• Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards ;
• Care Act.