Quite a long time ago, I identified that it gives me most satisfaction when work gives me the opportunity to have 5 I’s: Intellectual challenge, Independence, Innovation, Income and Influence. This month I have really been working on the last of those, and trying to connect with the right people to make change within the Looked After Children sector as a whole, rather than individual by individual or company by company.

It transpires that over time I have accidentally built up a wide professional network, and a credible platform from which to connect with higher level influencers. It seems that all the time I’ve invested into unpaid stuff helps when it comes to connecting with new people and looking like I know what I’m talking about. This is helpful for me to hold in mind as committee work can all too often feeling like a drain on my time that is almost invisible to anyone else and may have little that is tangible as an outcome for what can be quite an onerous process. Logically I know that this type of activity is rewarded by the innate satisfaction of contributing to important work that needs doing, but this is something I find easier to recognise at the start of the process when I first put up my hand to volunteer and after the end of all the graft than whilst in the middle of it.

Being chair of CPLAAC, on the national CYPF committee for the BPS, part of the NICE guidance development group and the BPS/FJC standards group have let me contribute to various publications that will hopefully reach wider audiences and influence practice. Whether that is in terms of the support and interventions offered for children with attachment problems or the standards that should be expected of psychologists who act as experts to the family courts or the chapter on best practise for psychological services for children and families with high social care needs in What good looks like in psychological services for children, young people and their families, the paper I wrote about Social Enterprises as a vehicle for delivering psychological services or the CFCPR issue I edited on good clinical practise around attachment difficulties, I feel like I have been part of some good work that establishes professional standards and reference points.

And with those things on my CV and a network of allies who share my goals about improving outcomes for Looked After Children, I have been able to meet with various decision makers and influencers about my ideas. The first important contact I made was with Jonathan Stanley, the chair of the Independent Children’s Homes Association. He has been fantastic at promoting my work to residential care providers and helping me to gain a seat at the table. I then met Almudena Lara at the DfE, although she was very new to the role of being LAC lead, and moved on before she was able to pick up our discussion again. I have also met with Social Finance. More recently I was able to meet with Sir Martin Narey, the government advisor (and ex-chair of Barnardos) conducting a review of children’s homes in the UK, and a representative of the DfE. And latterly I had the opportunity to meet Lord Listowel at a recent conference and hope to speak with him further soon.

In all of these meetings, I have been promoting the value of clinical governance in the social care sector. That is, the importance of being able to evidence clinical outcomes and substantiate that you are doing what you claim to do – in this case, that placement providers are improving outcomes for children and young people in their care. My wider goal is to allow commissioners, social workers and Ofsted to be able to see what kind of placement a child needs, whether a placement is making positive change for a child and who can provide the most suitable and effective placement. I’m also keen that the idea of “therapeutic care” is better defined, and that therapists working within care organisations need to be qualified, supervised, regulated by a professional body and practice within their areas of competence. But my main goal is to stop the situation in which placements are paid to provide care for the most complex and vulnerable young people in society, and do so by providing accommodation, food and transport to education but do nothing to address their emotional, behavioural, mental health, developmental/learning needs, risk to self and others, or ability to form healthy relationships with others. I think the tools I have been developing, like http://www.BERRI.org.uk, and the training I provide for staff/carers can help with that, but my goal is nothing less than to change the culture of care in the UK.

Evidence has shown that money invested in the most complex children during their childhood is repaid tenfold in savings to the public purse in reductions in use of mental health, social care and criminal justice services over their lifetime. So why is it that the placements for the most complex children and young people are primarily provided by carers with very low levels of qualification and training? The first steps to improving standards are to ensure that all carers in the foster and residential sector get training about managing the impact of trauma and disrupted attachments, and that all children in public care are regularly monitored on outcome measurements. But these need to be meaningful, and linked into practice, rather than done as hoops to jump that are disconnected from daily care.

I can think of nothing more worthwhile to do with my professional life than to improve care for Looked After Children in the UK, and I hope that I can achieve enough reach and influence to make a genuine difference.