Child protection expert to deliver 2015 Kilbrandon Lecture in Glasgow

Child protection expert and Visiting Professor at the University of Strathclyde, Alexis Jay, will deliver the 2015 Kilbrandon Lecture next month.

In this year’s lecture, taking place on Thursday 19 November at The Barony Hall in Glasgow, Professor Jay will acknowledge that for those responsible for children and families, there has never been such challenges in protecting children, preventing their abuse, and promoting their wellbeing.

In her lecture Alexis will draw on her experiences in Scotland and elsewhere over four decades, focusing mainly on child protection, to illustrate good and weak leadership and its impact on positive outcomes for children and young people.

Alexis Jay is the Independent Chair of the Centre for Excellence for Looked After Children in Scotland (CELCIS) and was previously Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government.

In 2005 she took up the post of Chief Social Work Inspector at the Social Work Inspection Agency (SWIA), a government organisation scrutinising all aspects of social services provided by local authorities in Scotland. She served as Chief Executive and Chief Social Work Inspector until the functions of SWIA and the Care Commission were taken over by the Care Inspectorate in 2011. She then remained as Chief Social Work Adviser to the Scottish Government until early 2013.

More recently, she led the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Exploitation in Rotherham, an investigation into child sexual abuse in the Metropolitan Borough of Rotherham in South Yorkshire. She is the author of the investigation’s report, published in August 2014.

In September 2014, she was appointed to act as an expert adviser to an independent panel inquiry which was intended to examine how the UK’s institutions have handled their duties to protect children from sexual abuse. Following the abandonment of the initial panel inquiry in favour of a statutory inquiry, she was re-appointed as an adviser to the subsequent Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse chaired by Dame Lowell Goddard.

The Kilbrandon Lecture Series

The Kilbrandon Lecture series was inaugurated in 1999, and is supported by the Scottish Government and the University of Strathclyde.

Lord Kilbrandon chaired the committee which led to the formation of the Scottish Children’s Hearings system, a unique framework of care and justice designed to ensure that children’s ‘deeds and needs’ are considered whenever formal legal proceedings related to care and justice arise.

It is 50 years since Charles Shaw, Lord Kilbrandon, produced his Committee’s report which led to the abolition of juvenile courts in Scotland and their replacement by lay panels – ‘children’s hearings’ as they have come to be known. This was a radical change especially when considered in the context of 1960’s conservative Scotland.

If you wish to attend, register on the University of Strathclyde website.