The University of Kent has a well-established tradition of public engagement. It continues to build a national and international reputation for excellence in education and research though engagement with a wide range of partners, and has pledged to be a leading civic university by 2025.
With this in mind, the division for the study of Law Society and Social Justice introduced a Public Engagement Award 2002, to acknowledge how staff’s public engagement work has contributed to the achievement of social justice, and to celebrate their successes.
With several worthy applications from the division’s Schools and Centres, it was a tough decision for the award panel to choose the winning entry. However, the submission from the Centre for Child Protection (CCP) team – relating to a particularly acute aspect of social justice; the need to protect children from exploitation – stood out and won the £1,000 prize.
The CCP team’s nomination was for their 2021 national conference: ‘Exploitation 2021: Tackling the culture and challenges of trafficking, slavery and county lines’ – a national conference that brought together practitioners, victims, affected families, policy and strategic leads, researchers from across the UK and abroad. The conference enabled participants to share learning around challenges in tackling exploitation and provided an opportunity for the growing community of practitioners to collaborate and support one another’s work.
The Centre’s application demonstrated the highest level of co-production with an external partner, with initiation, responsibility and tasks equally shared across CPP and the Association of Child Protection Professionals (AoCPP). It also showed adaptiveness to the restraints imposed by Covid whilst at the same time maintaining a high level of inclusion and diversity. The collaboration clearly cemented ties with the external partner as they had nothing but praise for the whole team.
The prize – to be used for further public engagement activity – was awarded for activities that fit into the three work areas of the division’s Public Engagement Plan: public events, policy impact and civic action.
Congratulations to the team and the amazing public engagement work that’s being carried out across the division.