Newcastle University

What can scaffolding, usually associated with the construction industry, teach us about social care? In this lecture, leading children’s campaigner, Camila Batmanghelidjh, draws on potential new models for the care of Britain’s vulnerable children, illustrated with examples from the minds of the children themselves.

Camila Batmanghelidjh is founder of two children’s charities – The Place 2 Be, and Kids Company, where she works with some of the most traumatised young people living in London. Kids Company was set up in 1996 and now employs more than 550 staff. It also benefits from some 11,000 people volunteering annually, and reaches 36,000 children a year with its therapeutic care.

Camila trained as a psychotherapist, engaged in 20 years of psychoanalysis, and has become an advocate for vulnerable children. She was named Business Woman of the Year in 2009 for the Dods and Scottish Widows Public Life Awards, Social Entrepreneur of the Year by Ernst and Young, and Coutts, and Most Admired Chief Executive by Third Sector Magazine. She has also won the lifetime achievement award from the Centre of Social Justice.

Kids Company has been awarded the Human Rights Awards by Liberty & Justice and Child Poverty Champion Status by the End Child Poverty Action Group. In 2010, Camila and Kids Company were given the Award for Innovative Excellence by Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Now and in 2012 Kids Company received the Royal Society for Public Health Arts and Health Award. Kids Company currently has a partnership with the University of Cambridge and University College London involving research into neurodevelopmental trauma.

Camila considers herself very privileged to be working with what she describes as extraordinarily courageous and dignified children. She has a good sense of humour and enjoys cutting up other people’s curtains and wearing them!