I joined WWCSC as Director of Programmes in early November 2021. Prior to, and alongside, my role at WWCSC (I am part time here), I am a Professor of Organisational Psychology and Social Justice at Bath Spa University. The whole of my academic career has been focusing on making a difference to the Health and Social Care workforce – and making a difference is the ‘thing’ that I want most out of my new role, and in working for WWCSC.

The majority of my research to date has been on the social work workforce – looking at conditions which contribute to poorer physiological and psychological health, and approaches which could be taken to improve upon this. The social care and workforce are also personally important to me – my wife is a social worker, and our family have fostered for as long as I can remember. However, a key element of the social work role – and the reason why the vast majority of the workforce do the job that they do – is to make a difference to the clients, service users, children, and families that they work for and with, and this is where my role at WWCSC comes in.

I have already seen first hand some of the promising work our Programmes team oversees. For example, this week Huma Haque and I visited a SWIS (Social Workers in Schools) project in two Somerset schools. Seeing the dedication and innovative practice of social workers working for some of our most vulnerable children was inspiring…and it is working within and on projects such as these that drives me forward.

My team and the wider organisation are all motivated to make a difference to children and young people associated with social care, and it is this same drive that brought me here. Finding what works – and why – and supporting the implementation of best practice in children’s social care is therefore very important to me.