What we do
We help organisations recognise, understand and respond to harms that are often hidden, minimised or misunderstood – particularly where victims are vulnerable, communities are minoritised, and professional responses are fragmented or uncertain.
What distinguishes Indaba
Multidisciplinary expertise
We draw on operational, investigative, strategic, clinical and academic expertise to provide a holistic understanding of complex safeguarding challenges and professional uncertainty.
Operational and strategic insight
Our advice is grounded in decades of leadership and frontline experience, ensuring that strategic recommendations are practical, deliverable and grounded in operational reality.
Cross-border and international capability
We support organisations where safeguarding concerns span countries, jurisdictions and systems, helping partners navigate international movement and diaspora dynamics.
A hidden-harm lens
We specialise in identifying risk where it is culturally influenced, transnational, or obscured by fear and stigma, bringing clarity where harm is misunderstood or missed.
We join the dots to make hidden harm visible, complexity understandable and effective action possible.
Our Mission
To protect hidden victims, improve accountability and help organisations respond with clarity, confidence and purpose where harmful practices, exploitation and complex vulnerability are misunderstood, minimised or missed.
The challenges we help organisations address
Indaba supports organisations dealing with abuse and exploitation that can be difficult to identify, culturally complex, transnational or poorly understood, particularly where professional responses are fragmented, uncertain or affected by limited specialist knowledge.
Harmful practices and hidden abuse:
- Female genital mutilation (FGM)
- Forced marriage
- Honour based abuse, including honour killings
- Witchcraft and spirit possession related abuse
- Ritualistic abuse
- Breast flattening
- Hymenoplasty and virginity testing
- Other harmful practices and under-identified abuse
Cross-border and system challenges:
- Migration, diaspora and international movement
- Cross-border safeguarding and exploitation
- Transnational patterns of harm
- Coercion, organised networks and repeat victimisation
- Fragmented multi-agency responses
- Unclear accountability and professional uncertainty
- Risk that is hidden at operational or corporate level
- Links with wider violence against women and girls
How we support organisations
Our work may involve advice, review, case support, learning or wider organisational engagement, depending on the nature of the concern, the audience and the level of risk involved.
Discover how Indaba can support your organisation:
Strategy, Policy and Governance
We help organisations examine how policies, procedures, governance arrangements and reporting routes operate in practice, particularly where hidden harm or harmful practices may not be fully recognised.
This can support leaders and practitioners to identify gaps between written expectations and frontline reality, strengthen accountability and develop clearer organisational responses.
Operational and Case Consultancy
We support organisations to interpret complex case information where risk, behaviour, family dynamics, community context and professional uncertainty intersect. This may include reviewing chronologies, risk assessments and decision-making, providing independent challenge to existing interpretations and helping partners develop clearer safeguarding, investigative or multi- agency responses.
Review, Assurance and Organisational Learning
We help organisations learn from cases, incidents and partnership responses by examining records, decisions, information-sharing, risk assessment and organisational culture. Our focus is on identifying good practice, missed opportunities and systemic barriers so that learning can be translated into practical improvement.
Training and Capability Building
Our training helps organisations recognise complex, hidden and under-identified harm where culture, belief, honour, migration, gender and safeguarding intersect. Drawing on operational, investigative, strategic, clinical, academic and lived-experience expertise, we build confidence around issues including FGM, forced marriage, honour-based abuse, witchcraft-related abuse, ritualistic abuse and wider harmful practices. We help professionals recognise risk, ask better questions and strengthen multi-agency responses where practice is uncertain or siloed.
Cross-Border and International Safeguarding
We support organisations where safeguarding concerns span countries, jurisdictions, communities or systems. This includes helping partners understand international movement, diaspora dynamics, different legal or safeguarding frameworks, information-sharing challenges and the practical implications for risk, protection and accountability.
What clients can commission
Typical commissions may include independent advice and challenge; complex-case consultation; policy and governance review; safeguarding and organisational assurance; learning reviews; specialist training and briefings; cross-border advisory; and multidisciplinary expert input.
A practical engagement model
Understand: Clarify the challenge, context and desired outcome.
Analyse: Examine evidence, risk, systems and lived realities.
Strengthen: Develop practical recommendations and clearer responses.
Embed: Build confidence, ownership and sustainable learning.
The outcomes we help create
Indaba strengthens organisational responses to hidden harm, harmful practices and complex vulnerability by improving clarity, confidence and accountability across safeguarding systems. Our work provides leaders with clearer evidence, stronger assurance and practical improvements that can be sustained long after the commission ends.
Indaba builds professional curiosity, cultural competence and organisational confidence. Specialist knowledge is transferred to the client, ensuring capability remains within the organisation after the commission ends.
Sustainable capability and long term confidence
Our work identifies systemic barriers, missed opportunities and areas of good practice. Learning is translated into practical improvement rather than static recommendations, strengthening capability across teams and partnerships.
Commissioners and senior leaders gain clearer insight into how policies, procedures and reporting routes operate in practice. This supports stronger governance, better oversight and more confident organisational decision making.
Risk assessments, decisions and case records become more robust, better reasoned and more open to constructive challenge. Leaders gain assurance that responses are proportionate, defensible and grounded in evidence.
Partners gain clarity about roles, responsibilities and expectations. Information sharing improves, escalation routes become clearer and multi-agency responses are more aligned, reducing fragmentation and missed opportunities.
Earlier identification and more confident decision making
Professionals feel better equipped to recognise indicators of hidden harm, ask difficult questions and act on uncertainty. This leads to earlier intervention, clearer escalation and more consistent safeguarding practice.
Clearer understanding of hidden harm
Organisations gain a more accurate picture of risk, vulnerability and exploitation – including patterns of harm that may be culturally influenced, transnational, under reported or obscured by fear, stigma or professional uncertainty.
Stronger multi agency coordination
Better evidenced and defensible safeguarding responses
Improved governance, accountability and organisational oversight
Learning that translates into changed practice
Meet Our Team
Allen Davis and Kate Bridger bring decades of leadership in safeguarding and public protection, combining strategic expertise with practical experience. They lead with integrity, collaboration and a shared commitment to strengthening safeguarding practice and protecting vulnerable people.
Allen Davis, Founding Director & Principal Consultant
Allen is a former Metropolitan Police Inspector and nationally recognised specialist in harmful practices, safeguarding, public protection and complex vulnerability, with 30 years’ operational and strategic policing experience. His career included leading specialist responses to serious youth violence, gangs, chemsex and some of the most complex and hidden forms of abuse.
He has helped shape national and international responses to Female Genital Mutilation (FGM), forced marriage, honour-based abuse and abuse linked to faith or belief. For seven years, Allen served as Deputy Chair of the Department for Education-supported National Working Group on Child Abuse Linked to Faith or Belief. He also led Operation Limelight, the joint police and Border Force safeguarding response to harmful practices at the UK border, later supporting its adaptation across 20 US cities and wider cross-border FGM investigations.
Through Indaba, Allen brings operational credibility, strategic leadership and extensive multi-agency experience to help organisations recognise hidden harm, strengthen safeguarding systems and respond confidently to complex risk.
Kate Bridger, Founding Director & Principal Consultant
Kate is a highly experienced detective and safeguarding specialist with more than 32 years’ investigative experience, including over 20 years at Detective Sergeant rank. Her career has included serious and organised crime, complex investigations and harmful practices, often involving hidden, culturally complex or difficult-to-evidence risk. She has led specialist teams across London and provided tactical advice and investigative support in cases involving FGM, forced marriage, honour-based abuse and abuse linked to faith or belief.
Kate has led and supported complex investigations involving serious violence, sexual abuse, exploitation and witchcraft-related harm, alongside wider serious and organised crime investigations, including homicide. Her work has included securing a conviction in a case involving witchcraft-related abuse, contributing to Serious Case Reviews following child deaths, and leading major Operation Limelight deployments at Heathrow Airport, London City Airport and St Pancras International.
Kate is nationally and internationally recognised for her expertise in harmful practices and abuse linked to faith or belief, including accusations of witchcraft and spirit possession. Through Indaba, she brings investigative leadership, operational experience and specialist safeguarding expertise to help organisations identify hidden harm, assess complex risk and make confident, defensible decisions.
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