Dr Catherine Powell is a freelance Safeguarding Children Consultant and a visiting senior lecturer at the University of Southampton. She is a Trustee of the British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect (BASPCAN); holding Office as Chair from 2009-2012.

Catherine’s portfolio career has embraced clinical practice, clinical leadership, academia and national policy. She was a member of a working group for the Munro Review of Child Protection. Her research activity has included work on Early Help and Secondary Prevention, Child Death and Serious Case Reviews.

Current projects include the audit of health staff knowledge of Child Sexual Exploitation (with Oxford Brookes University); an NSPCC project on the importance of follow up for children who miss their health care appointments and the development and delivery of a package of training on domestic violence and abuse for the Institute of Health Visiting.

Catherine has published and presented her work to a wide variety of professional audiences in the UK and elsewhere and is the author of two safeguarding children textbooks for health professionals.