Wrexham Conference – The Consortium of Therapeutic Communities

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
Lil Nuttall, Clinical Manager at Amberleigh Care
Representative from 4C’s- Children’s Commissioning Consortium Cymru
Aliyah Ali, CEO of Daddyless Daughters Project CIC
Dr Caroline Hoskins, FACS
Nikki Holmes, Director of Safer Together
Dr Darren Johnson, Children’s Services

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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.

Lil Nuttall- Clinical Manager – Amberleigh Care

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

This workshop 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 workshop 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.

List item

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- 4C’s
12:30 – 13:30 – Lunch
13:30 – 14:30 – Keynote: Aliyah Ali – Daddyless Daughters
14:30 – 15:15 – Practice Presentation: Dr Caroline Hoskins- FACS
15:15 – 15:45 – Refreshment Break
15:45-16:30 – Practice Presentation: Dr Darren Johnson – Children’s Services

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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To register your interest, please email admin@therapeuticcommunities.org

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The Children’s Network Wrexham Conference