Debra steers NSPCC forward to continue 'transformational' work

Debra Radford's first stint with the NSPCC was as a 23-year-old student social worker on placement at a modest Portakabin 'office' in Basildon, Essex, in the 1980s. These days, she's based at the charity's modern hub in Leeds, overseeing its vital work to stop child abuse and neglect across the Yorkshire region.

- by Laura Reid

Debra Radford has been with the NSPCC for 35 years.

"I suppose the way we work and the size of teams and who we're working with changes over time," Debra reflects, as she marks 35 years since her first staff role with the charity in 1990.

"But what's at the core and I think what has never changed is that commitment to working with children where child abuse and neglect has taken place and also trying to prevent that from happening in the first place. Being there for children, essentially."

Debra was at what is now Hertfordshire University, undertaking a social studies degree alongside a social work qualification, when she first stepped foot into that NSPCC office. Straight away, she began working directly with children who had been sexually abused.

"It was daunting to begin with," she recalls, "but I knew this was the work that I wanted to do. That first role shaped everything that followed."

"The work that the NSPCC were doing at that point with children and families, I could see the impact that it was having," she adds. "I could see the commitment that the staff had to being creative and innovative and doing things to really try and make a difference to children's, and families', lives and I thought I really want to do that."