Who’s Angela Assor?
Angela Assor is a Strategic Safeguarding Lead within the NHS and a qualified social worker with over fourteen years of experience across CAMHS inpatient and community services. Known for her values-led leadership, she champions safeguarding as a lived culture rather than a regulatory exercise. Angela is the founder of Advancing Ethnic Minorities into Leadership Roles within Health and Social Care and Young Crown Foundation, an international charity focused on education, mentorship, and youth empowerment.
The moments that shape a leader are rarely loud. More often, they arrive quietly, embedded in familiar rooms and routine processes. For Angela Assor, one such moment came during an escalation meeting where she found herself as the only Black professional on a call with a large group of senior leaders. As discussions unfolded, subtle but persistent questions emerged around equality, representation, and whose voices carried weight in decision making. What stayed with her was not a single comment, but the wider realization it prompted. Systems designed to protect and support did not always reflect the diversity of the people within them. That moment crystallized a truth that has since defined her work. Safeguarding people and safeguarding systems cannot be separated. From that realization, Angela’s leadership evolved with intention, clarity, and a deep commitment to systemic change.
A Career Grounded in Protection and Purpose
With over fourteen years of experience as a qualified social worker, Angela’s professional foundation is rooted in direct practice with children, young people, and families navigating complex mental health challenges. Educated at The Manchester Metropolitan University, she developed an early commitment to social justice, advocacy, and ethical responsibility. These values were not abstract ideals but daily requirements of the work she chose.
Her early career spanned both inpatient and community Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services, where she built a comprehensive understanding of the clinical, social, and emotional realities facing young people experiencing mental ill health. Working across high acuity inpatient environments and community-based settings gave her a rare perspective. She saw how decisions made at a strategic level could either strengthen or weaken the safety net surrounding vulnerable individuals. This experience shaped her belief that safeguarding must move beyond compliance and become a lived organizational culture.
Angela’s grounding as a practitioner has always informed her leadership. She understands safeguarding not as policy alone, but as practice th at requires professional curiosity, reflective thinking, and shared accountability. These principles would later become central to her strategic work.
From Practice to Strategic Leadership
Angela currently serves as Strategic Safeguarding Lead within the NHS, where she provides senior leadership across safeguarding practice within CAMHS inpatient services. In this role, she leads the development and implementation of safeguarding frameworks, policies, and procedures, ensuring robust legislative compliance while embedding trauma informed safeguarding into everyday clinical and operational decision making.
Her leadership approach is deliberate and relational. She works closely with multidisciplinary teams to strengthen professional confidence, reflective practice, and shared responsibility for safeguarding outcomes. Angela is known for creating psychologically safe environments where difficult conversations can happen honestly, always with the wellbeing of young people at the center.
This strategic role followed years of frontline and senior clinical experience across NHS and independent settings, including her time at Manchester University NHS Foundation Trust and Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. Across each position, her focus remained consistent. Safeguarding is strongest when culture, leadership, and accountability align.
Angela’s work reflects a belief that leadership in health and social care must balance governance with humanity. Protection without voice is incomplete. Policy without inclusion is fragile.
Advancing Equity, Representation, and Voice
Alongside her safeguarding leadership, Angela is deeply committed to advancing equality, diversity, and inclusion within health and social care. She is the founder of Advancing Ethnic Minorities into Leadership Roles within Health and Social Care, a professional network created in response to what she repeatedly witnessed across the sector. Capable, experienced ethnic minority professionals were often overlooked, unsupported, or excluded from leadership pathways due to lack of access, mentorship, and honest dialogue about systemic barriers.
What began as a response to inequity has grown into a community of over four hundred professionals across health and social care. The network provides a platform for peer support, leadership development, advocacy, and collective learning. It has become a trusted space for honest conversations about progression, power, and representation.
One year after its founding, the initiative marked a significant milestone with its inaugural annual awards ceremony. The event was created to recognize individuals and organizations demonstrating genuine commitment to advancing equality and inclusive leadership. The awards were not designed as symbolic gestures, but as mechanisms for accountability, visibility, and the amplification of best practice.
At its core, this work is about fairness and voice. Angela believes leadership structures should reflect the diversity, talent, and lived experience of the workforce and the communities they serve. Inclusive leadership, in her view, is not optional. It is fundamental to safe, effective, and compassionate care.
Beyond the System: Community and Global Impact
Angela’s commitment to equity extends beyond professional settings. She is the founder of Young Crown Foundation, an international charity established to empower young people through education, mentorship, leadership development, and community engagement. The foundation was created in response to the inequalities she has witnessed both professionally and personally, where potential is limited by circumstance rather than capability.
Young Crown Foundation focuses on early intervention, confidence building, and access to opportunity. Its work spans education, mental health, mentorship, and menstrual hygiene advocacy, with a strong emphasis on dignity and inclusion. For Angela, menstrual health is a leadership issue and a human rights issue. She has led initiatives addressing menstrual poverty in Ghana and the United Kingdom, grounding this work in education, sustainability, and community partnership.
Founding the charity reflects her belief that meaningful social impact begins with equity and long term investment in people. It also reflects a leadership philosophy that does not separate professional responsibility from personal values.
Vision for the Future
As Angela looks ahead, her focus remains clear. She is committed to building safeguarding cultures where young people feel protected and empowered, and where professionals are supported to lead with integrity and confidence. She continues to expand the reach and influence of Advancing Ethnic Minorities into Leadership Roles, ensuring that conversations about representation translate into structural change.
Her work with Young Crown Foundation will continue to grow, with a focus on education, mentorship, and dignity driven initiatives that equip young people not only to succeed, but to lead. Across every role she holds, Angela remains guided by the same principle. Leadership should create safety, opportunity, and voice.
Editorial Note
Angela Assor’s journey is a reminder that the most effective leaders do not seek the spotlight. They step into it when silence becomes a risk. Her work challenges organizations and individuals alike to rethink what safeguarding, inclusion, and leadership truly mean. The invitation is clear. Build cultures that protect people, amplify voices, and reflect the communities they serve.
