Carlene Firmin

Carlene Firmin (born 1983 or 1984) is a British social researcher and writer specialising in violence between and against young people, creator of the concept Contextual Safeguarding, and founder of the MsUnderstood Partnership. She is a professor of sociology at Durham University.

Early life and education Firmin attended St Michael's Catholic Grammar School in Barnet, London. She has a B.A. in philosophy from Fitzwilliam College, University of Cambridge, and an M.Sc. in social policy and planning from the London School of Economics.

Career Firmin was senior policy officer at Race on the Agenda (ROTA), and founded the GAG project (Girls Against Gangs, or Girls Affected by Gangs, or Gendered Action on Gangs).

Between 2011 and 2014 she wrote a regular column "Girl in the Corner" in The Guardian.

In 2013 she founded the MsUnderstood Partnership, a joint project between Girls in Gangs, Imkaan and the University of Bedfordshire. The project "aims to improve local and national responses to young people’s experiences of inequality".

Firmin is the founder of the concept Contextual Safeguarding, which is concerned with safeguarding adolescents from risk outside their family homes. Firmin was until 2021 a senior research fellow in the Institute of Applied Research of the Department of Applied Social Studies at the University of Bedfordshire. She is head of the Contextual Safeguarding team there.

Awards Firmin was awarded an MBE in the 2011 New Year Honours for "services to girls' and women's issues", and was the youngest black woman to have received this honour.