Since Pause’s beginnings, Sophie Humphreys has been the driver and guardian of the Pause vision, ensuring that practice remains at the heart of the organisation.
She is a highly experienced independent advisor on child protection and safeguarding, providing expertise to central government and local authorities across the country, and continues to act as an advisor to Pause, and provide mentoring and advice to new innovations and their founders.
Sophie has driven Pause from a single pilot organisation to a national organisation first as Founder and CEO then as Founder and Chair. During this time, she has brought in over £13 million from across Government, Big Lottery, trusts, foundations and philanthropy, which has been disseminated to partners to establish Pause Practices in new areas. These funds have also enabled the programme to scale from one to 20 with foundations in place for 41 Pause Practices across England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland by 2021.
The independent evaluation of the initial seven Pause pilots funded via the Department for Education Innovation Fund found that Pause ‘is significantly effective at meeting its aims and the analysis of potential cost savings suggests it is also likely to be highly cost beneficial’.