The Children’s Network
Wrexham Conference

From Criminality to Compassion: Trauma Informed Responses to Children and Young People.

Tuesday 19th May 2026
Wrexham University
08:30-16:30

A 1-day professional CPD event supporting practitioners.

How can we respond more thoughtfully with and for children and young people involved in the criminal justice system? Are there ways we can work to help intervene before justice processes are necessary?
This event explores trauma-informed, relational approaches, especially for care-experienced children who are over-represented in the justice system. We’ll highlight innovative practice, collaborative approaches, and how services can work together when justice processes are necessary.

Hear from multidisciplinary practitioners with examples of good practice across different needs.

Suitable for professionals in children’s social care, education, and justice sectors.

Confirmed Speakers

  • Mark Cox (Chair), Head of Oversight at YJB Cymru
  • Li Nuttall, Clinical Manager at Amberleigh Care
  • Karen Benjamin, Head of 4Cs and Andrea O’Shea, National Strategic Commissioning Officer
  • Aliyah Ali, CEO of Daddyless Daughters Project CIC
  • Dr Caroline Hoskins and James Perdue, FACS
  • Nikki Holmes, Director of Safer Together
  • Katherine Proudman (Specialist Advisor for Exploitation) and Alexandra Cometson (Exploitation Worker) – Keys Group
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Mark Cox – Head of Oversight- YJB Cymru

Mark Cox has worked within youth justice in Wales for over two decades, developing a career that spans frontline delivery, system oversight, policy development, and national leadership.
Since joining the Youth Justice Board, Mark has held a range of strategic oversight and advisory roles, supporting youth justice services across Wales to improve performance, strengthen practice, and respond to emerging risks.
 
In his current role as Head of Youth Justice Oversight for Wales, Mark provides strategic leadership across the Welsh youth justice system, ensuring delivery of a Child First approach aligned with Welsh Government policy and YJB priorities.
 
A key aspect of Mark’s career has been the development of national guidance and frameworks that support consistent, high‑quality practice across Wales.
Mark has also played a central role in delivering the Youth Justice Blueprint for Wales, working in partnership with Welsh Government to translate national policy into improved local practice and better outcomes for children and leads Hwb Doeth the effective practice partnership between policy, practice and academia in Wales.

Throughout his career, Mark has maintained a strong connection between strategic decision‑making and frontline realities. His approach focuses on collaboration, evidence‑led improvement, and keeping children’s rights and participation at the heart of youth justice services.
 
Outside of work, Mark is an active cricketer and coach, working with Port Talbot Town Cricket Club, Cricket Wales and Glamorgan County Cricket Club players. He also holds several voluntary leadership roles at Port Talbot Town CC, including Trustee, Vice‑Chair and long‑standing committee member, alongside his continued involvement in junior and senior cricket development.

Li Nuttall- Clinical Manager – Amberleigh Care

From Risk to Responsibility: Trauma-Informed, Multi-Agency Approaches to Reducing Criminalisation

This presentation explores how trauma-informed practice can support children and young people who display harmful or risky behaviours, with a focus on reducing criminalisation and promoting long-term positive change. Drawing on practice experience, the session will outline how the AIM3 framework and the Good Lives Model are used together to understand risk, build strengths, and support safer decision-making.

The presentation will highlight the importance of strong multi-disciplinary and multi-agency working in managing risk proactively rather than reactively. Participants will hear how clear roles, shared language, and collaborative planning can improve engagement with young people, reduce system drift, and prevent escalation into the criminal justice system.

Practical examples will be used to show how compassionate, consistent responses can hold boundaries while recognising trauma, supporting accountability, and helping young people move towards safer, more meaningful lives. This workshop is designed for practitioners, leaders, and commissioning teams seeking effective, evidence‑aligned approaches to supporting vulnerable young people with high levels of need.

Aliyah Ali- CEO – Daddyless Daughters Project CIC

It’s Bigger Than Me

It’s Bigger Than Me is a keynote delivered by Aliyah Ali, lived-experience founder and CEO of The Daddyless Daughters Project CIC, and a specialist in working with care-experienced girls and young women affected by trauma, exploitation, and criminalisation.

Drawing on over a decade of lived and professional experience, Aliyah speaks from the intersection of frontline practice, system impact, and influencing policy and decision-making across social care and the criminal justice system. Her work focuses on girls and young women whose lives are shaped by care, custody, and statutory intervention, and whose needs are routinely labelled as “complex”.

The keynote explores how girls’ experiences are shaped not only by personal trauma, but by the systems responding to them. Aliyah introduces fatherlessness as a recurring but often unrecognised thread within care and justice pathways, and reflects on how risk, vulnerability, and responsibility are understood and acted upon in practice.

It’s Bigger Than Me invites professionals and leaders to step back from individual narratives and consider the wider structures, assumptions, and responses that shape outcomes for care-experienced girls and young women.

Nikki Homes- Director – Safer Together

Dying to be a man: Exploring how serious youth violence and weapon carriage are symbolic of masculine identity in adolescence.

Boys and young men are consistently disproportionately represented within both victimisation and perpetration profiles associated with serious youth violence. During this session, Nikki explores the extent to which violence, gang affiliation, and weapon carriage operate as socially meaningful practices embedded in gender identity formation and the role that performative masculinity plays in maintaining a sense of status and perceived protection from harm. 

Drawing on extensive practice-based research and applied work with boys and young men, the session analyses how dominant norms of masculinity, shapes young men’s engagement with violence-related behaviours. The presentation also explores the critical importance of creating and providing socially safe spaces for boys and young men, where they can critically reflect upon, renegotiate, and re-map constructions of masculinity and authenticity, and why such work should be central in all strategies that aim to prevent and reduce serious youth violence.

Dr Caroline Hoskins and James Perdue – FACS

Enhanced Case Management (ECM): Putting Relationships at the Centre for Wales’ Most Vulnerable Children

Children presenting to youth justice services consistently show some of the highest levels of adversity and trauma exposure of any group in children’s services. Many have experienced multiple Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs), school exclusion, care experience, poverty and exploitation. Eighty percent of children referred to the Tier 4 Wales national forensic CAMH Service (Forensic Adolescent Consultation Service for Youth Justice, FACS YJ) had experienced 4 or more ACE’s signaling a high risk profile for emotional, social, cognitive and physical health difficulties in the future. As well as presenting with high levels of emotional distress, suicidal behaviours, nearly 70% of those referred were engaging in substance misuse and a staggering 58% of those referred were victims of child exploitation.
 
This session will present a practical, trauma-informed consultation model developed to respond to this level of need: Enhanced Case Management (ECM), now implemented across Wales. At the core of ECM is the Trauma Recovery Model (TRM; Skuse & Matthew, 2015), which provides a structured framework to support children affected by developmental trauma and adversity. The session will outline the model in practice, illustrating how psychologically informed consultation can be embedded within Youth Justice Services. Through a case narrative, we will demonstrate how ECM integrates formulation, relational practice and multi-agency collaboration to strengthen the support provided by Youth Justice case managers and improve outcomes for vulnerable children.

Katherine Proudman and Alexandra Cometson – Keys Group

Safeguarding children from exploitation: A specialist placement offer and exploration of the use of drill music with children in care

Presenting their specialist placement framework for criminally exploited young people, the speakers will share testimonials from young people who have experienced the specialist program offer and explore themes arising from their experiences. They will share innovative responses to social media, digital resilience and shaping stepping towards plans through the eyes of a child experiencing child exploitation.
This will lend itself to speaking about their research investigating carer’s experiences of drill music within residential children’s homes and with the children they care for. They will consider the therapeutic effectiveness of drill music and how children in care engage with the genre of music.
Katie and Alex are members of the MET Hub at Keys Group. The MET (Missing Exploited Trafficked) Hub is a specialist provision that supports the various services within Keys Group who require support regarding exploitation and related needs. The team offer consultation, rapid response, risk management, training, programmes and toolkits to support children and adults regarding missing, exploitation and trafficking needs.

Karen Benjamin, Head of 4Cs and Andrea O’Shea, National Strategic Commissioning Officer.

Embedding an approach to reducing criminalisation of care experienced children and young people from a commissioning perspective.

The Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru (4Cs) is working to embed a child focused approach to proactive diversion by providers, carers and partner agencies, reducing the disproportionate and unnecessary criminalisation of children looked after. The child’s voice is central to driving this approach through the 4Cs’ Young Commissioners Group as they advocate for change by sharing their experiences of contact points with police and criminal justice.

Running order

  • 08:30 – 09:25 – Registrations and Coffee
  • 09:15 – 09:30 – Chairs Opening Remarks- Mark Cox – YJB
  • 09:30 – 10:30 – Practice Presentation: Nikki Holmes – Safer Together
  • 10:30 – 11:15 – Practice Presentation: Lil Nuttall – Amberleigh Care
  • 11:15 – 11:45 – Refreshment Break
  • 11:45 – 12:30 – Practice Presentation- Karen Benjamin – 4Cs and Andrea O’Shea – National Strategic Commissioning Officer
  • 12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch
  • 13:30 – 14:30 – Keynote: Aliyah Ali – Daddyless Daughters
  • 14:30 – 15:15 – Practice Presentation: Dr Caroline Hoskins and James Perdue- FACS
  • 15:15 – 15:45 – Refreshment Break
  • 15:45-16:30 – Practice Presentation: Katherine Proudman and Alexandra Cometson – Keys Group

Getting there

By road:
Mold Rd, Wrexham LL11 2AW
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There is ample parking on site.

By Train:
The nearest train station is Wrexham General

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