Emily Aklan is the founder and chief executive of Serenity Welfare, an organisation that offers comprehensive welfare services for children and young people.

...dcuffs’ campaign to end the handcuffing of children. Emily's work and campaigning led to her being named as the Social Enterprise Businesswoman of the year at the Great British Businesswoman Awards in 2023. Early Life Emily was born in Holloway, London, residing in Palmers Green with her family before settling in Enfield. At the age of 18, Emily embarked on a career as an estate agent. Discovering that she had a natural entrepreneurial streak, Emily quickly excelled in the industry and progressed to working for large UK housebuilders and boasted an enviable profile in the sector, becoming a director of the company she worked at by the time she was 31....

Tackling exploitation with mentoring: Serenity Welfare’s Emily Aklan to speak at The Children in Care Conference 2021

...andcuffs campaign. Speaking to The Leaders Council, Aklan commented: “We are delighted that Serenity Welfare has been recognised as market leaders through our current campaign, and that considering this I have been requested to be a guest speaker at this year’s Children in Care Conference. This is truly a privilege.” Aklan intends to use the platform as an opportunity to address the emerging issue of county lines gangs targeting children and young people to become new recruits, a topic which was given wide publicity in 2020 through the television soap opera, Hollyoaks. Reflecting on the issue, Aklan said: “County lines gangs are an epidemic in Great...

MP writes to Secretary of State in support of Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign

...This week Marsha de Cordova, MP for Battersea, asked in a written question to the Secretary of State for Education,  "what steps he is taking to end the handcuffing and restraint of children in the care system by private secure transportation providers". This follows a successful drop-in session hosted last week in the House of Commons by Serenity Welfare in the name of the Hope Instead of Handcuffs campaign which was attended by 22 MPs....

Hertfordshire children’s rights campaign named Social Enterprise Businesswoman of the Year 2022

...  Hertfordshire based Emily Aklan has been recognised as one of this year’s most exceptional women in business at the second annual Great British Businesswoman Awards. Emily, CEOat Serenity Welfare was honoured as Social Enterprise Businesswoman of the Year.   Emily is one of the UK’s leading children’s rights campaigners. After discovering the appalling way children in care were treated when her nieces narrowly escaped the care system six years ago, Emily devoted herself to helping the UK’s vulnerable children.   As part of her work, Emily founded Serenity Welfare in 2016 after being horrified to discover that children in care – some as you...

Children in care are being handcuffed on their way to school and foster homes

...Children in care are being handcuffed on their way to school and foster homes Children in care can be handcuffed under the law as a last resort. Image: Pixabay MPs are backing a campaign to make private companies accountable for handcuffing children in care while transporting them. MPs want to ban vulnerable children as young as 10 from being handcuffed and “treated like animals” while being taken to and from school and foster homes. Private companies transporting children between care and foster homes, schools and hospitals – often in “caged” vehicles – are legally allowed to handcuff and physically restrain them as a last resort to stop a...

Children in care should not be put in handcuffs when being transported

...On World Children’s Day, the Labour MPs Sarah Championand John McDonnell write to support the Hope instead of Handcuffs campaign Saturday 20 November marks World Children’s Day, the anniversary of the UN general assembly’s adoption of the convention of the rights of the child (UNCRC). But despite the UK ratifying the UNCRC in 1991, many children in care are being treated in a way that violates this convention. According to the UN committee on the rights of the child, restraint against children should only be used if the child poses an imminent danger to themselves or others, under the direct supervision of a medical professional, and only after all other...