Ann Craft Trust Safeguarding Adults Conference 2026
About this Event
Every Voice. Every Choice.
By prioritising choice, safeguarding can become more preventative, build trust, and empower individuals.
Our focus this year is on how co-production is central to safeguarding adults.
We’ll explore how a collaborative approach aligns closely with key principles of the Care Act 2014, such as empowerment and prevention.
A key theme is Making Safeguarding Personal, which prioritises the outcomes for the individuals. It’s all about giving people a voice, and making it their choice as to what happens, and what makes them feel safe.
The conference will contribute to continued professional development for professionals and volunteers working with adults across a range of sectors.
Safeguarding Adults Conference 2026 Programme
The day will bring together inspiring keynote speakers, practical workshops, research insights, and opportunities to network with colleagues from across the sector, as well as hot lunch and refreshments.
- Sarah McClinton, Chief Social Worker for Adults in England at the Department of Health and Social Care, will join Stuart Sale, CEO of Ann Craft Trust, to open the conference. Sarah brings a wealth of experience from across social work, adult social care, commissioning, policy and leadership. Sarah will help set the tone for a day focused on learning, reflection and strengthening safeguarding practice.
- A keynote speaker sharing their personal experience of abuse and the lessons it offers to us all about the importance of both listening and hearing a person’s voice.
- Interactive sessions exploring co-production, including learning from Reach's Voice and Participation Group, who work with organisations to improve services, influence change, and ensure that people's voices are heard and valued.
- New research from Oxcil Research Group on financial abuse and its implications for practice, along with a selection of workshops that will include discussions on key safeguarding topics including hoarding and cuckooing.
- An exclusive training workshop by the Ann Craft Trust, exploring the topic of adult grooming. This will feature excerpts from the new Invisible Scars film, which offers a survivor's experience of abuse in sport, and is normally only screened in private training courses.
- United Response showcasing their Our Life Stories exhibition. Through powerful personal stories, artwork, and film, this celebrates the voices of people with learning disabilities and autistic people, demonstrating the importance of ensuring people are at the heart of decisions that affect their lives.
As with previous conferences, the day will conclude with an inspiring interactive session which we hope will help you think creatively in your approach to learning.
Agenda
🕑: 09:30 AM - 09:50 AM
Every Voice, Every Choice : Opening Remarks
Host: Stuart Sale
Info: Sarah McClinton, Chief Social Worker for Adults in England at the Department of Health and Social Care, joins Stuart Sale to open the conference with a reflection on the importance of listening to every voice and strengthening safeguarding practice through participation, choice and inclusion.
🕑: 09:50 AM - 10:05 AM
The Safer Citizens film - Main Auditorium
Host: Reach Voice & Participation Group
Info: Reach is a Nottinghamshire charity supporting people with learning disabilities to live happier, healthier lives in their communities. The team will talk about their co-production journey so far and feature the Safer Citizens film, highlighting how lived experience and people’s voices can influence change and shape better service.
Don’t miss their Workshop to follow in the afternoon!
🕑: 10:05 AM - 10:35 AM
Safeguarding Matters Live - Listening Beyond Assumptions - Main Auditorium
Host: Lisa Curtis
Info: An interview with FGM survivor Di Richardson, hosted by Safeguarding Matters podcast presenter Lisa Curtis.
Centred on Di’s lived experience, the conversation encourages us to listen, reflect and consider how hearing survivors’ voices can strengthen safeguarding practice.
🕑: 10:35 AM - 11:00 AM
Morning break
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Every Voice Heard: Tackling Cuckooing Together - K3
Host: Fitzroy
Info: Cuckooing is a growing form of exploitation that can leave people’s voices unheard, and choices taken away. Drawing on research, practice insight and lived experience, KeyRing and FitzRoy explore how professionals can better recognise, prevent, and respond to cuckooing through effective multi-agency working.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Listening Beyond Assumptions Workshop: Person Centred Practice - K4
Host: Lisa Curtis
Info: Drawing on her lived experience as an FGM survivor, Di Richardson provides a powerful and thought-provoking perspective on safeguarding. Her story highlights the importance of culturally informed, compassionate and person-centred practice, encouraging professionals to reflect on how support is delivered while challenging stereotypes, perceptions and unconscious bias.
This session will examine exploitation pathways, barriers to effective intervention and practical actions to strengthen prevention, protection and partnership working. Delegates will also hear about plans for a new Cuckooing Prevention Group to support ongoing learning and collaboration across organisations.
🕑: 11:00 AM - 12:15 PM
Adult Grooming: The Invisible Scars of Abuse in Sport - K6
Host: Cath Sykes
Info: Using excerpts from the Invisible Scars film, this workshop explores an adult survivor’s experience of grooming and abuse in sport, highlighting the impact of power and silence, barriers to reporting and missed opportunities to safeguard. The session considers what we can learn from lived experience and why listening to survivors is so important in strengthening adult safeguarding practice.
🕑: 12:15 PM - 01:15 PM
Lunch
🕑: 01:15 PM - 02:00 PM
Nothing About Us Without Us - Main auditorium
Host: United Response
Info: What peer-led life story work taught us about safeguarding, voice, and power.
This session will explore what a peer-led oral history project can teach us about safeguarding, voice and choice. Through Our Life Stories, people with learning disabilities interviewed their peers about their lives, creating a collection of life stories.
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM
Better Services, Safer Lives: Learning From Voice and Participation - K6
Host: Reach Learning Disability
Info: Presented by : Kay Grenwell, Dani Noquet, Tracey Thurlow.
Group participation from: Emma, Isobel, Jamie and Anna.
Supported by Laura Thorpe, Ann Craft Trust
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM
Choice, Control and Collaboration - K3
Host: Kat Band: Hoarding Disorders UK
Info: Reflecting Every Voice, Every Choice, this workshop explores how choice, control and collaboration can improve support for people affected by hoarding behaviours. It considers hoarding as a mental health issue, alongside multi-agency working, personalised care planning and practical harm reduction approaches that empower people and support meaningful change.
🕑: 02:00 PM - 03:15 PM
Safeguarding Adults Against Scams and Fraud - K4
Host: Alice Taylor from OXIL Research
Info: This workshop explores scams and fraud through a safeguarding lens, moving the focus away from blaming victims and towards understanding how people are targeted and exploited. Drawing on OXIL’s research, the session will consider how professionals can work collaboratively and incorporate scam and fraud awareness into safeguarding practice.
🕑: 03:15 PM - 03:30 PM
Afternoon break
🕑: 03:30 PM - 04:15 PM
Consent as a Creative Practice - Main Auditorium
Host: Rebecca Randall from Sense
Info: With resident Dance Artist Rebecca Randall & Stephanie Tyrell, Sense Consent as a Creative Practice.
Our final keynote explores co-production, leadership and consent through movement and dance. The Sense Dance Team will demonstrate how people can communicate choice, lead others, and express consent using movement, eye gaze, gesture, sound, objects and a total communication approach. This inspiring session highlights how creative practice can support autonomy, participation and safeguarding, placing consent at the heart of every interaction.
🕑: 04:15 PM - 04:30 PM
Conference Reflections - Main Auditorum
Host: Keith Ford
Info: Drawing on his experiences of recovery and poetry, Keith Ford closes the conference with reflections on the day, highlighting key learning, insights and conversations.
Where is it happening?
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
GBP 200.00 to GBP 225.00
