Meet the CPSU team
Michelle North
Head of CPSU
Michelle joined the CPSU team in April 2013 and was appointed as Head of CPSU in April 2020. Prior to this she worked for the NSPCC Safeguarding in Education Service.
Before joining the NSPCC, Michelle was an Education Welfare Officer with over 10 years' frontline experience and later a Senior Manager with responsibility for prosecutions and case management.
She is responsible for managing the unit’s staff across England, Northern Ireland and Wales. She also manages relationships with the respective Sports Councils and with our key partners in sport.
Jude Toasland
Senior Consultant England
Jude joined the CPSU in 2009. she's worked for the NSPCC since 2000, in training and consultancy and managing direct services for children and young people. Jude is a qualified social worker.
All England Senior Consultants provide safeguarding support to NGBs and Active Partnerships. Jude leads on safeguarding training for sport, which involves consultation, training and liaison with sports organisations, government departments and other sports bodies. Her work also focuses on external communication and equality and diversity in sport.
Carole Billington-Wood
Senior Consultant England
Carole joined the CPSU in 2005. Prior to joining the unit she was Director of Development for British Triathlon.
Having been a youth swimmer and GB International Triathlete, Carole remains a keen sportswoman. She's taught PE, been a coach educator and practitioner in sports development. Carole is currently a specialist member of the National UK Anti-Doping Panel.
All England Senior Consultants provide safeguarding support to NGBs and Active Partnerships. Carole’s role also involves supporting UK Sport organisations in developing their safeguarding work, working with our Wales team members to support Sport Wales funded NGBs and leads our work on elite athlete wellbeing.
Liza Ware
Senior Consultant England
Liza joined the team in March 2018. She's a qualified social worker with 18 years experience. Prior to joining the CPSU, Liza worked for Lincolnshire Children’s Services, as an advanced Social Worker and previous posts include Children’s Rights manager and Regional Participation Coordinator for Barnardos.
All England Senior Consultants provide safeguarding support to NGBs and Active Partnerships. Liza's work within the team focuses on equality and diversity in sport, involving children and young people and supporting UK Sport bodies with safeguarding guidance.
Paul Stephenson
Senior Consultant Northern Ireland
Paul joined the CPSU in 2001. Prior to joining the NSPCC, Paul managed a probation-funded project working with those involved in the criminal justice system. A number of his previous clients were sex offenders with coaching awards. Paul's also worked directly with young people in the care system who have experienced different forms of abuse.
Paul works to support sports governing bodies in Northern Ireland to help them to achieve safeguarding standards and promotes good safeguarding practice. He is also secretary of the Northern Ireland branch of the National Organisation for Treatment of Offenders (NOTA).
Laura Whapham
Senior Consultant Wales
Laura joined the CPSU in January 2011. Prior to joining the team Laura worked predominantly in the voluntary social care sector with a range of young people with complex needs. This included children with disabilities, young carers and looked after children. She also has a degree in sport and physical education.
Laura works closely with Sport Wales to support the Welsh NBGs with their child protection and safeguarding policies and procedures. She also supports many of the sports through the Safeguarding Standards Framework to enable them to maintain and embed safeguards. Laura also leads on our work around safeguarding deaf and disabled children in sport.
Cerri Dando
Senior Consultant England and National Development Officer Wales
Cerri works as both a Senior Consultant for England and a National Development Officer in Wales. Before joining CPSU in August 2017, Cerri worked as a Senior Officer at Sport Cardiff and has previous experience as a Lead Officer for a couple of NGBs in Wales.
All Senior Consultants for England provide safeguarding support to NGBs and Active Partnerships. In Wales, Cerri works with the lower funded governing bodies, and leads on training.
Cerri is a part time lecturer for the School of Sport and Health Science at Cardiff Metropolitan University. Cerri is also a UK Coaching Tutor specialising in safeguarding.
Additional Consultants
From time to time the CPSU has additional consultants working in the team on specific projects.
Denise Richards is working with Active Partnerships (APs) as part of the Framework for maintaining and embedding safeguarding standards work. She has been carrying out annuals reviews with each AP and supporting them with their safeguarding policies and procedures. She is also working on some good practice around safeguarding at events.
Hannah Mansell
Senior Content Specialist
Hannah has worked for the CPSU since 2007 and took the role of Senior Content Specialist in May 2017.
She manages the content on the CPSU website, working closely with the information officers and the digital producer to develop and review content and find new and informative ways of getting safeguarding information to the sports sector.
Lian Gaten, Mel Addams and Laura Young
Information Officers
Lian began working for the CPSU Information team in 2010, Mel joined in 2016 and Laura in 2019.
The information officers are responsible for making safeguarding in sport information widely accessible through our website and social media.
They also coordinate the development of our e-newsletter, monthly Lead Officer bulletin and help to run the CPSU webinars, podcasts and other digital communication.
John Watson
Digital Producer
John sits in the NSPCC Digital Engagement Team and works to ensure the content on CPSU digital platforms is easy to access and meets the needs of our audience.
John also acts as our link to the wider NSPCC and ensures that safeguarding resources and information are accessible through the CPSU website.
CPSU Administration team
The CPSU administration team triage all enquiries to the unit. They also administer all CPSU meetings, working groups, training, conferences and events run by the team.
