Joanna Nicolas Joanna Nicolas

Joanna is a child protection consultant and trainer. She develops and delivers safeguarding training for her local safeguarding children board (LSCB) and nationally. Joanna has been a social worker for 19 years.

Joanna is an author, a national commentator on safeguarding children for the media and speaks at national conferences. Her first book, “Conducting the Home Visit in Child Protection” was published in 2012. Her second is a practical guide to child protection, and is due to be published in September 2015. Her books focus on the practical issues social workers face.

Joanna undertakes a range of consultancy work, which includes: updating the Department for Education's guidance for professionals, the public and children on the “What to do if... series”; conducts serious case reviews, becoming one of the first accredited lead reviewers in the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) systems approach to serious case reviews and recently reviewed a local authority’s looked-after children strategy.

Much of Joanna's work is focused on how to train professionals, including the judiciary, to work more effectively with child neglect, and how to present evidence and use research. She has recently become Community Care Inform’s neglect consultant.

All posts by Joanna Nicolas

Webinar: neglect – how to gather and present your evidence

Child development: quick guide

Different types of neglect: quick guide

Home visits: quick guide

Presenting evidence on neglect in court: quick guide

Thresholds for neglect: quick guide

Thresholds of neglect reminder

Using research to evidence neglect: quick guide

Joanna Nicolas, a child protection consultant and trainer gives tips on carrying out and quoting research to evidence neglect, as well as checking its validity. She also advises on which organisations provide reliable sources of information.

Child protection conferences

This guide outlines the procedure required for how to plan and conduct a child protection conference.