EJ Renold is Professor of Childhood Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales. Their research and practice takes a rights-based approach to understanding how sexuality and gender shape children’s and young people’s lives, in school, online, and in their communities. Specialising in creative and participatory methods, they work alongside children and young people to conduct and communicate research in the field of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) – see https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/how-young-people-are-learning-about-relationships-sex-sexuality They also co-produce a wide range of RSE resources and professional learning materials for practitioners, including the AGENDA: Making positive relationships matter resource hub (agendaonline.co.uk/crush) and most recently, a new RSE Youth Voice toolkit with the NSPCC (Talk Relationships).

Rebecca Cant is the Product Development Manager at Brook, leading the charity’s education and training offer. She joined Brook in 2019 after 15 years of working in rights-based education and social change. As Brook’s RSE curriculum lead, Rebecca specialises in developing inclusive, trauma-informed, and accessible resources that reach over 150,000 people each year. By collaborating closely with young people and professionals and staying attuned to evolving digital landscapes, she ensures Brook’s RSE resources are rooted in real-world needs and supported by a strong evidence base. An experienced safeguarding professional with expertise in complex contextual cases, Rebecca is dedicated to creating safe and supportive learning environments for young people and the professionals who work with them.

Jenny is a Senior Subject Specialist at the PSHE Association, working closely with the Director of Education to lead the Subject Specialist team. She led PSHE education in two London schools, and has a Masters in Teaching and Learning. Since joining the PSHE Association, she has worked with a range of agencies, from the NSPCC, to the Home Office, to the National Crime Agency, developing materials that support schools to deliver highly effective, safe PSHE education

Hayley started her 25 year career in third sector organisations as a support worker in youth homeless organisations. During her 9 years at the NSPCC she has developed a methodology using implementation science to scale NSPCC evidence based programmes across range of sectors in the UK.

She is passionate about using the best evidence and research to inform practice and influence policy. She currently oversees development and scaling of services in the areas of prevention of abuse and neglect in the early years, child sexual abuse, sex and relationships education and child safety online.

Hollie Williams has been teaching for 17 years at The Warriner School. She has been Head of RPE/PSHE since 2014 and is now solely Head of PSHE. Hollie is really keen to work with other specialists and has been a Member of SCiB (Safeguarding Children in Banbury) – a local project involving community stakeholders including social services, police, educators and more professionals. Hollie recognises PSHE as an opportunity to equip young people with tools and knowledge to make good healthy decisions. Hollie also sees PSHE as fundamental safeguarding.

The Warriner School is a large rural 11-18 secondary school, in the heart of the Oxfordshire countryside. It is part of The Warriner Multi Academy Trust family of schools, which comprises of seven primary schools and one secondary school.

Dr Emily Setty is an Associate Professor in Criminology at Surrey University, with expertise in harmful sexual behaviour and digital sexual cultures. Her research focuses on how technology, gender and power intersect to influence young people’s experiences of online harm. As the lead of the ‘Reimagining Relationships and Sex Education’ project, Dr Setty is advocating for approaches that embed ‘safe uncertainty’ to address the complexities of navigating digital intimacies, promoting both prevention of harm and the protection of young people’s rights. 

Jess is a highly experienced qualified teacher with over 20 years in the education sector. She has a PGCE in Citizenship & PSHE from the Institute of Education and an MA in Education from King’s College London. She has taught in both the state and independent sector and is a Governor at The Bridge School, a special school for children with severe learning difficulties and/or autism. Jess is passionate about making Relationship, Sex, and Health Education (RSHE) more accessible, positive, and inclusive. Her career began in Social Work in New York City, where she led workshops on sexual health and substance abuse, which shaped her awareness of the importance of creating supportive spaces and being an empathetic listener. Jess is dedicated to creating nurturing learning environments that empower students to make informed, healthy choices. 

Amy Forbes-Robertson (BA MPhil PGCE QTS) is a qualified teacher, author of ‘Brilliant Questions about Growing Up’ and Founding Director of It Happens Education. Amy leads the team, devises content, and is often out & about delivering RSHE work in schools to teachers, parents and students. She is also a regular speaker at conferences and events for the likes of IAPS, GSA, HMC & BSA. Amy leads on our consultancy work for programmes, resources and projects with organisations such as Channel 4, BBC Teach, BBC Bitesize and Operation Ouch. She is also involved with academic research in the sector, recently collaborating with The University of Westminster and The University of Surrey. Amy is consistently amazed by brilliant young people and their words & worlds, and she is very hopeful about the next generation…

Zoe joined It Happens Education in 2019 as a freelance speaker and became the second Director of It Happens Education in 2021. Zoe is the drug & alcohol specialist – It Happens Education explore a range of different substance topics from medicines and the law through to illegal drugs, festival safety and harm reduction.

Zoe spent 15 years working directly with people experiencing addiction issues, supporting them to address their substance use and helping them to rebuild their lives. She has worked in a range of settings: police stations, prisons, courts and the community.

Zoe is passionate about sharing evidence based, non-judgmental information with young people that can help them make well informed, and, hopefully, safer choices. The message is predominantly one of assessing risk, thinking through the consequences and encouraging young people to ask for help as soon as it is needed.

Monica practised as a solicitor for 15 years, specialising in defamation and privacy claims. She is the Director of the Schools Consent Project, a charity which sends lawyers into schools to teach 11-18 year olds the legal definition of consent and key sexual offences, such as rape, sexual assault, and ‘sexting’, through interactive workshops. She is passionate about educating and empowering young people, by ensuring they have accurate and comprehensive knowledge to enable them to enjoy respectful, fulfilling relationships. By making the next generation confident of their legal rights, able to communicate their boundaries, and respectful of those boundaries in others, she believes we can support the wider cultural change that we are all looking to achieve, not just in our schools but in society as a whole.

Jason Kew is a former Senior Police Leader and Drug Strategy Lead in Thames Valley Police, and UK Home Office. With an extensive career in Policing and Health, he has led the development of pre-arrest drug diversion schemes. Now, with the Centre for Justice Innovation, he works with a variety of international organisations, and the UNODC, helping implement innovative harm reduction and social justice strategies. Jason is a guest lecturer at the University of South Wales and Queen Mary’s St Bartholomew’s.

Charli is Lead for PSHE/Life Skills at Bishop’s Hatfield Girls School in Hertfordshire. She was previously PSHE Lead in a variety of schools including a mixed comprehensive in Camden, an Alternative Provision in Westminster and an Independent school in Cheshire. Prior to teaching, Charli worked as a facilitator for Brook, the Camden and Islington Sexual Health Education Team (SHET) and Education for Choice, as well as working as consultant for a number of London academies, creating their RSE modules and training staff on best practice delivery. She also worked at City YMCA Young Person’s Sexual Health Clinic and as an Education Researcher in Parliament. Her university thesis was ‘Putting the R into RSE: Improving Relationships and Sex Education in Schools and Beyond’.

Valentina Levi is a Senior Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist and the CEO of the Brent Centre for Young People, a mental health charity for adolescents. 

Valentina has been working at the Brent Centre for Young People for over a decade, holding various positions across the organisation’s diverse range of programmes and services. Valentina stepped into the Chief Executive Officer role for the Brent Centre in 2024, after serving as the Head of Clinical Services for four years.

Valentina has significant experience working as a Child & Adolescent Psychotherapist, having worked with young people through the Brent Centre, CAMHS, and in private practice.

She completed her doctoral-level training in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Psychoanalytic Observational Studies at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust and the University of East London.

Valentina has extensive teaching experience in the field of Child & Adolescent Psychotherapy, having been involved in teaching and training at the Association of Child Psychotherapists, Scottish Child Psychotherapy Training, Anna Freud Centre, and the Tavistock Clinic.

She has been a full member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists (ACP) since 2010.

Katy-Anne Waite is an Assistant Headteacher and SENDCo at Mayesbrook Park School in Dagenham, with a strong focus on PSHE and inclusion. With over a decade of experience across mainstream, special education, and local authority roles, she is passionate about supporting vulnerable pupils through accessible, relevant RSHE. An award-winning practitioner, Katy-Anne is committed to ensuring every young person feels seen, heard, and valued in the curriculum. 

London Borough of Tower Hamlets, Head of Healthy Lives, overseeing Healthy Schools and PSHE

Top Performing Borough in London for Healthy Schools

Winner of National Sex Education Forum Annual Award

Winner of Outstanding Team Tower Hamlets Council

Winner of Best New Innovation Tower Hamlets Council

Life Education – Education Advisor, Programme Support, Tower Hamlets 

Greenwich NHS – Manager, Young Peoples Team. 

Managed the Young Peoples Teams including Drug Education, Teenage Pregnancy and Sex and Relationships Education and Healthy Schools. 

Freelance Consultant for Greenwich NHS on Teenage Pregnancy and Drug Education

Greenwich and Bexley Council on Alcohol and Drugs

Manager of the Young Peoples Teams, managed the Young Peoples Team which was responsible for delivering Drug, Alcohol and SRE Education in Greenwich and Bexley Secondary Schools. 

Sarah joined the Breck Foundation Board of Trustees in September 2023, having been involved with the charity since 2018. Her journey began after attending a school talk about Breck’s story, which inspired her to volunteer. Over the years, she has taken on a range of roles including Foundation Speaker, and later served as Head of Education and Partnerships, helping shape the Foundation’s schools outreach and safeguarding collaborations.

Before her work in the charity sector, Sarah spent two decades as a journalist, working across publishing and newspapers. A committed advocate for online safety, she brings her deep understanding of media, communication, and digital culture to both her professional and voluntary roles.

In addition to her work with Breck Foundation, Sarah now leads a significant project at the Lucy Faithfull Foundation, working in partnership with tech companies to deter and redirect individuals engaging with online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) and grooming behaviours. Her work focuses on reducing online harm by tackling offending at its source.

As a lifelong gamer, and parent to two boys, Sarah is passionate about helping young people build the critical thinking and resilience needed to navigate the online world safely and confidently.

EJ Renold is Professor of Childhood Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales. Their research and practice takes a rights-based approach to understanding how sexuality and gender shape children’s and young people’s lives, in school, online, and in their communities. Specialising in creative and participatory methods, they work alongside children and young people to conduct and communicate research in the field of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) – see https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/how-young-people-are-learning-about-relationships-sex-sexuality They also co-produce a wide range of RSE resources and professional learning materials for practitioners, including the AGENDA: Making positive relationships matter resource hub (agendaonline.co.uk/crush) and most recently, a new RSE Youth Voice toolkit with the NSPCC (Talk Relationships).

EJ Renold is Professor of Childhood Studies in the School of Social Sciences at Cardiff University, Wales. Their research and practice takes a rights-based approach to understanding how sexuality and gender shape children’s and young people’s lives, in school, online, and in their communities. Specialising in creative and participatory methods, they work alongside children and young people to conduct and communicate research in the field of relationships and sexuality education (RSE) – see https://learning.nspcc.org.uk/research-resources/2023/how-young-people-are-learning-about-relationships-sex-sexuality They also co-produce a wide range of RSE resources and professional learning materials for practitioners, including the AGENDA: Making positive relationships matter resource hub (agendaonline.co.uk/crush) and most recently, a new RSE Youth Voice toolkit with the NSPCC (Talk Relationships).