Carlene is a professor of social work, Director of the Global Centre for Contextual Safeguarding at Durham University, and Co-Editor in Chief of the British Journal of Social Work. An academic, author and activist seeking social justice and equality for all, she works to ensure that social policy and state institutions recognise and alleviate social injustice, abuse, and oppression in all its forms. Carlene is most known for her work to
- develop and implement Contextual Safeguarding and to increase recognition of harms young people face beyond their front doors (often termed extra-familial harms or risk outside of the home)
- support Black people who, through practice, policy or academia, seek to create safer and more inclusive societies for young people - and who often face racism in the process
She pursues these goals in various ways, spending much of her time identifying the policy and system implications of her and her team’s research findings, and sharing what she and they are learning with multiple advisory groups. At present these groups include: the Ofsted Insights and Evidence (Social Care) External Reference Group, Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit Strategic Board, the Youth Endowment Board Children’s Services strategic advisory group, the Esmée Fairbairn Fairer Futures Advisory Panel, and the UNICEF UK Child Friendly Cities and Communities Panel.
Carlene is also co-convener of a special interest group on Social Work and Adolescents for the European Social Work Research Association, a Global Ashoka Fellow, a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, and a member of the Churchill Fellowship Advisory Council; she uses all of these opportunities to influence the knowledge she and the team pursue and the systems they shape.
Carlene coined the term Contextual Safeguarding in 2014 to describe a vision for improving safeguarding responses to young people at risk of harm beyond their family homes, and has written about this through four books and over 50 peer-reviewed papers, book chapters and reports.