Meet the RAV team

Elizabeth Dartnell

Elizabeth Dartnall is a health policy specialist and has postgraduate degrees in Psychology and Science. She manages the Sexual Violence Research Initiative (SVRI) in South Africa. With over 6500 members the SVRI is one of the largest global networks for advancing research on violence against women (VAW), violence against children (VAC) and other forms of violence driven by gender inequality. Liz previously worked as the Senior Programme Manager for the African Medical and Research Foundation, in the Mental Health Research Unit at Centre for Health Policy, University of the Witwatersrand and for both the South African and Western Australian Departments of Health. Her research interests include vicarious trauma and the prevention of sexual violence.

Dr Geoff Debelle

Dr Geoff Debelle (MB, BS, FRACP, FRCPCH) is a consultant paediatrician, based in Birmingham, UK. He began as a consultant paediatrician at Monash University Department of Paediatrics and then at the Royal Children’s Hospital Melbourne, Australia, in 1981. In 1989, he joined Birmingham Children’s Hospital, where he worked until retirement from full-time practice in 2017. He has practiced in both general and community paediatrics paediatric since 1974, specialising in child protection. He currently chairs Birmingham Children’s Hospital’s Child Protection peer review meetings.

Geoff is currently Designated Senior Doctor, Child Safeguarding in Birmingham, a position held since 2000 and was a member of the Birmingham Children Safeguarding Board’s Child Death Overview Panel until July 2017. He was a member of UK’s NICE Guideline Development Group for Child Maltreatment and sat on the National Executive Committee of BASPCAN (British Association for the Study and Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect). He was a founding member of West Midlands BASPCAN and chaired the branch on two occasions.

Geoff was appointed Honorary Clinical Research Fellow in the Institute of Clinical Sciences’ Risk Abuse and Violence programme, University of Birmingham in October 2016, where he is currently engaged in research into self-harm and adverse childhood experiences (ACEs). His other research interests include abusive head trauma, FGM, FII and evaluation of ‘place-based’, trauma-focused interventions.  He is a UK member of Euro-CAN.

Geoff was the Officer for Child Protection, Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health (RCPCH), UK, and chaired the Standing Committee on Child Protection for the College from 2014 - 2018. He has represented the College on many UK governmental child and independent sector child protection committees and working groups, including a recent Department of Health working group on primary prevention of child sexual abuse.

Geoff has extensive experience in child protection and has contributed to primary research and the medical literature. He provides advice to colleagues, Police and Social Services, regionally and nationally. He is very much looking forward to contributing to Inter-CAP.

Claire O’Reilly

Claire O’Reilly (BDS BSc MFDS RCPS (Glasg)) is a qualified dentist and Academic Clinical Fellow in the specialty of Paediatric Dentistry at Birmingham Dental Hospital.  She is an expert member of the Solihull Research Ethics Committee for the Health Research Authority and she also has an interest in patient safety, sitting on the Patient Safety Faculty within Dental Services at Birmingham Community Healthcare NHS Trust.  Her previous recent involvement in oral health epidemiology field work with five-year olds, seeing the levels of unmet dental need, has sparked her interest to hopefully pursue her own research in this area.

Richard Salkeld

Richard has been an RMN for over 20 years, working in services for those with severe and enduring mental illness, including Acute Inpatient, Crisis Resolution and for the last 10 years managing Assertive Outreach services, covering complex inner city communities. He has a passion for person-centred service delivery, designing and evaluating shared training programmes for staff and service users, with a strong focus on co-production.

Richard completed his Master’s programme in 2010 and has since maintained his interest in clinical research and its application to practice within his role in Assertive Outreach, with a particular focus on personal recovery, exploring issues around managing risk, engagement and substance use.

Richard is currently undertaking research on the experience of Older people using substances within the Masters to Doctorate Bridging Programme via UHB/UoB, with a view to develop funding toward his PhD.

Dr Christine Christie

Dr Christie is an independent child and adult safeguarding consultant with expertise in the emotional and psychological trauma resulting from adverse child and adult experiences. Christine's focus is on resilience and recovery. Her interests, qualifications and practice expertise range across behavioural neuroscience, psychotherapy, sociology and the social construction of identity, public health, safeguarding and grief recovery; as well as economics, finance, public sector management and contract law.

Christine has a long-standing collaborative relationship with the University of Birmingham. She specialises in mixed-methods qualitative primary research, including in particular, ethnography. Independently, hse works with central and local government, the police and criminal justice system, the NHS, and voluntary and community sector organisations across the country. Commissions range from designing and implementing new services, evaluating/reviewing services and systems, and developing practice toolkits and training. The majority of these commissions have involved on/offline child sexual abuse and exploitation, youth violence, domestic abuse/rape, suicide and child death review. 

Prior to working independently Christine set up and managed the London Safeguarding Children Board and wrote the London Child Protection Procedures. She held senior management positions in several Department of Health Violence, Social Exclusion and Cross-Government Working initiatives and wrote the Children’s National Service Framework. Christine commissioned local authority children’s services; worked with high risk families in NSPCC, and managed services for the national domestic abuse charity SafeLives. She delivered the IDVA/ISVA and MARAC Development programmes and quality assured DHRs for the Home Office. She also has significant experience of reviewing serious case reviews/local safeguarding children practice reviews.

Christine brings an understanding of the impact on safeguarding service delivery of multi-agency cultural, political and resourcing pressures. She is skilled at identifying and translating good outcomes as expressed by service users and frontline staff, into innovative strategic and operational solutions, which also address the demands on service commissioners and providers.

Dana Sammut

Dana is a registered nurse and PhD student in the Centre for Healthcare and Communities at Coventry University. Her research interests include gender-based and workplace violence, and her doctoral research explores violence against healthcare workers, with a focus on tertiary prevention strategies. Alongside her studies, she holds a part-time role at a domestic abuse support service.