_edited.png){kind=small}
_edited.png){kind=small}
Our Story
We didn't set out to create just another framework
We set out to understand why organisations invested so heavily in change, yet so often struggled to embed and sustain it.
Where it all began
ATA was founded by Avi Versanov and Tracey Hill, two qualified social workers whose careers began on opposite sides of the Atlantic but followed remarkably similar paths.
Like many of the practitioners we work alongside today, we started where safeguarding matters most: working directly with children, young people and families in frontline child protection. Those experiences shaped our values, our professional identities and our belief that lasting change begins by creating the right conditions for children, families and practitioners to thrive.
As our careers developed, we both moved into organisational consultancy, supporting child welfare organisations through whole-system implementation and large-scale practice transformation.
Working alongside leaders, managers and practitioners across Canada, the United Kingdom and internationally, we built trusted relationships with organisations, not simply because of what we knew, but because of how we worked. We became trusted partners, helping organisations navigate complexity, challenge thinking and support meaningful, sustainable change.
The problem we couldn't ignore
Over many years we had the privilege of supporting organisations that were genuinely committed to improving outcomes for children and families.
Leaders invested significant time, energy and resources into implementing new practice frameworks.
Practitioners embraced new ways of working and wanted to make a difference.
Everyone wanted change to succeed.
Yet despite that commitment, we kept seeing the same pattern emerge.
Implementation was too often viewed as a training exercise.
Practitioners left training inspired, motivated and equipped with new knowledge, only to return to organisations where the wider conditions had remained largely unchanged.
Organisational culture continued to reinforce old habits.
Leadership messages were not always reflected in everyday behaviours.
Recording systems, supervision, quality assurance, workforce development and performance measures often reinforced previous ways of working rather than the new practice organisations were trying to embed.
Competing initiatives created uncertainty and diluted focus.
The question we heard repeatedly from practitioners was both simple and revealing.
"What is it that you actually want us to do?"
It would have been easy to conclude that the framework itself wasn't working.
Instead, we asked a different question.
Why do organisations with committed leaders, skilled practitioners and well-designed frameworks still struggle to sustain change?
The missing ingredient wasn't another framework.
It was the organisational conditions that allow great safeguarding practice to thrive.
A pattern far bigger than any one organisation
The more organisations we worked alongside, the clearer the picture became.
The challenge was rarely caused by a single factor.
Sometimes organisations struggled to implement change because the organisational conditions needed to support it had not been created.
At other times, we recognised that existing practice frameworks themselves had limitations. As research, implementation science and learning from across child welfare continued to develop, it became increasingly clear that many frameworks also needed to evolve to better reflect emerging evidence, contemporary safeguarding challenges and what we were learning about how sustainable change happens.
As we continued working internationally, we shared ideas with colleagues from mainland Europe, New Zealand, the United States and beyond. Despite different legislation, policy and organisational structures, we kept hearing remarkably similar experiences.
At the same time, implementation science, organisational development and child welfare research were identifying many of the same challenges we were witnessing firsthand.
We realised we weren't looking at isolated implementation problems.
We were seeing two interconnected challenges.
Organisations needed better support to create the conditions for sustainable change.
And child welfare also needed safeguarding approaches that continued to evolve alongside research, learning and the changing needs of children, families and communities.
We realised we weren't looking at isolated implementation problems.
We were looking at a systemic challenge facing child welfare organisations around the world.
Different experiences. Shared conviction.
Avi's career combined psychology, social work, organisational leadership and advanced study in business and change management. Through this work he became increasingly aware that sectors such as business, healthcare and industry had spent decades advancing the science of organisational change.
These sectors had developed sophisticated approaches to understanding why change succeeds, why it fails and, perhaps most importantly, how organisations create the conditions in which new ways of working become embedded and sustained over time.
That raised an important question.
Why weren't these lessons being applied more consistently within child welfare?
At the same time, Tracey progressed from frontline social work through a range of leadership roles to become an Assistant Director within Children's Services. Alongside more than two decades of practice and leadership experience, she played a key role in England's Innovation Programme, working alongside Professor Eileen Munro to explore how children's services could move beyond compliance-driven systems towards approaches that strengthened professional judgement, organisational learning and better outcomes for children and families.
That experience reinforced an equally important belief.
Sustainable improvement is never achieved simply by introducing a new practice model.
It requires organisations to transform the culture, leadership and systems that surround it.
Together, these complementary experiences transformed our thinking.
We realised that meaningful and sustainable change is never achieved simply by introducing a new framework, delivering excellent training or asking practitioners to work differently.
It happens when organisations create the conditions that allow great practice to grow.
That means leaders who consistently role model the behaviours they expect to see. Organisational cultures that support learning rather than compliance. Recording systems, supervision, quality assurance and workforce development that reinforce practice rather than compete with it. Clear strategic direction. Shared language. Strong relationships. Continuous learning.
Over time, we also recognised that these same principles extended beyond organisations.
The conditions that help organisations successfully navigate change are remarkably similar to those that help families create lasting change in their own lives.
Whether supporting organisations or families, sustainable change depends on engaging people, building trusting relationships, creating shared ownership, strengthening naturally connected networks and enabling people to develop the confidence and capability to sustain change long after professional involvement has ended.
This became the foundation of everything that followed.
The principles that create sustainable organisational change are the same principles that help families create sustainable change.
Bringing it all together
The foundations of what would eventually become Safeguarding Together had already been taking shape for many years.
Every implementation, every leadership conversation, every discussion with practitioners, every organisational success and every challenge refined our thinking.
Then came the COVID-19 pandemic.
Working from our homes on opposite sides of the Atlantic, we suddenly had something that had previously been in short supply: uninterrupted time to think.
Across countless hours of Zoom conversations, we challenged one another's thinking, debated ideas, tested concepts against our combined experience and gradually brought together more than a decade of learning into one coherent approach.
We didn't create Safeguarding Together overnight.
We brought together everything we had learned about safeguarding practice, organisational transformation, implementation, leadership and sustainable change into one integrated safeguarding ecosystem.
What continues to guide us
Children do not experience their lives through separate services, thresholds or organisational structures.
Their safety, wellbeing, relationships and development are interconnected. Yet child welfare systems often divide prevention from protection, support from risk and immediate safety from longer-term wellbeing.
We believe safeguarding must reflect the reality of children’s lives.
That means bringing together protection from harm and the conditions children need to experience lasting safety, stability, connection and wellbeing.
It also means recognising that good safeguarding practice cannot be separated from the organisational conditions in which it happens.
Leadership, culture, systems, learning and everyday practice must work together rather than pull people in different directions.
Everything we do is guided by that belief.
Today
Today, we continue to work alongside child welfare organisations across the UK, Canada and internationally, helping leaders create the organisational conditions in which safeguarding practice can flourish.
Our role has never been to deliver training and walk away.
It is to partner with organisations, challenge thinking, build capability and support lasting transformation that improves the lives of children, families and communities.
Whether we are implementing Safeguarding Together, supporting organisational transformation or developing Connected Practice Solutions, our purpose remains the same: helping organisations create sustainable change that continues long after our formal involvement has ended.
Safety is essential.
Safeguarding is what sustains it.
Children deserve more than protection from immediate harm.
They deserve the relationships, support and conditions that enable them to experience lasting safety, connection and wellbeing.