Keep Safe Programme

Keep Safe is a manualised intervention for young people, 12 years and over, with learning disabilities who display harmful sexual behaviours. The Keep Safe development and its feasibility trial (2014-2017) was led by a collaborative of practitioners and researchers and an advisory group of people from the learning disabilities community, hosted by the Tizard Centre with support from the Paul Hamlyn Foundation.

Keep Safe development workshop, from left to right – Lesley Ayland (co-developer of Good Way Model) with Rowena Rossiter, Glynis Murphy (Tizard Centre) and Sharon Jennings (Bristol’s Be Safe Service, the first trial site for our Keep Safe intervention)

The first Keep Safe public training and manual launch were co-ordinated in Bristol in 2017 by the Be Safe Service, who had played a massive role in the Keep Safe development and feasibility trial, and secured additional funding from the Avon and Somerset Police and Crime Commissioner and Safer Bristol Partnership.

Since then, we’ve held 2-day public or commissioned trainings in London, Avon and Wiltshire, Glasgow, Tizard Centre University of Kent and Japan.  During the pandemic, our first remote training was commissioned and delivered to practitioners in South Wales across 4 half days, and we are currently half way through our second.

Over 300 practitioners have now been trained from children and young people’s services including CAMHS/CAMHS-LD, education, police, probation, social care, Youth Justice Services/Teams, as well as voluntary and community sector and private providers.