Anti-racist practice: what happens when senior leaders take action

Millie qualified as a social worker in 1994 and has worked as a social worker, team manager and children’s services manager within local authority children’s services and adult social care.  She has worked across a range of disciplines including safeguarding and child protection, HIV, palliative care, child asylum and child trafficking, leaving care and for a specialist FGM and safeguarding service. 

She took up the role of anti-racist lead practitioner at Brighton & Hove City Council in November 2020 and was made strategic anti-racist lead – business improvement in spring 2023. She is also a practice educator and delivers training on anti-racist practice and cultural competence within social work and more widely.

Tom Stibbs is the principal children and families social worker and head of specialist services for Brighton & Hove City Council. He has been a qualified social worker for 20 years, working in London and Brighton & Hove.  

At Brighton & Hove, he has led the implementation of relationship-based practice in children’s social work where recognising and challenging the impact of inequity and oppression are fundamental to the authority’s model. With other members of the senior leadership team, he has made an ongoing commitment to anti-racist practice. The children’s social work department has had an anti-racist project since 2019 with England’s first anti-racist lead practitioner recruited the following year.