Child welfare expert to head Calderdale safeguarding board

Prof Nick Frost will replace Richard Burrows, who held the position from 2013, and at a time when the board launched a harrowing report into the sexual abuse of a Halifax schoolgirl who was the subject of child sexual exploitation by 17 men.

That report, released in November last year, several months after the men were jailed for a total of more than 175 years, outlined the failures and inadequacies of agencies and professionals, including Calderdale Council’s Children Social Care team, the NHS and West Yorkshire Police, who “initially failed to protect” the girl.

Prof Frost, who is a professor of social work at Leeds Beckett University and a qualified social worker with 15 years’ experience before he moved into academia, said he would ensure children and young people in the district were “actively heard and effectively safeguarded”.

He said: “As a social worker and academic I have worked with children and young people for all of my adult life, experience which I hope will be useful in working together with partner organisations across Calderdale.

“We face a period of great change as the Children and Social Work Act 2017 is implemented. I am confident that we can utilise this process of change to ensure that children and young people in Calderdale are actively heard and effectively safeguarded.”

Calderdale Council’s Cabinet Member for Children and Young People, Coun Megan Swift said: “Children’s Services in Calderdale is going from strength to strength and we have received national recognition for our safeguarding. Nick’s involvement will ensure we continue to make excellent progress.”

In May, leading children’s charity the NSPCC claimed that child sex abuse scandals in Yorkshire, including that in Rotherham and the Jimmy Savile scandal, had helped to raise awareness of the “silent problem” that is plaguing every section of society.