Enhancing the wellbeing and prospects of children and their families through training: from practice (doing) to theory (thinking) and back again. The development of a professional qualifications department in a service delivery organisation

I was a confused and anxious child. My behaviour was labelled irritating and overbearing and I was left with the belief that I was mostly ‘horrid’ and just too much for some adults. I had to work hard to make sense of my world and evolved lots of strategies, successful and unsuccessful, to do that. It is logical that I have found my place and mission in a children’s mental health charity. The creation of the Public Works presented here has been my most successful strategy so far. I have discovered what I am good at and how to participate most fruitfully in society. I have learnt that being only ‘very, very good’ is exhausting and impossible. I can be both good and horrid and still ok. I have been able to use my history as an enlivening rather than oppressing force to ‘enhance the well-being and prospects of children’ (Mission Statement, Place2Be). I know from my own experience that confused and anxious children can elicit negative and unhelpful responses from adults around them and this can erode confidence and limit prospects. Children need a place to be heard and held. Place2Be1 is the UK’s leading provider of emotional support services to children and young people in schools. Since 2007 I have been the Leader of Professional Qualifications there. I have articulated the practice and approach of Place2Be and developed a thriving professional qualifications department. I have designed a complete professional pathway from taster days and basic counselling skills to the Place2Be MA in Counselling Children in Schools. It is these courses and related public facing documents that I am presenting as my Public Works. I am tutor on all of the professional qualification courses and supervise and manage all of the other trainers in the team. I work closely with the Place2Be Training and Operations teams to ensure that our courses are offering students what they need in the field (see Organisational Charts Fig. 1, pg 10). I am fully responsible and accountable for the governance of the programmes, the quality assurance and all accreditation processes. I am also responsible for the research and development of materials. This large remit includes ensuring the curricula are up to date with regard to recent research developments in the field and writing and editing all programmes accordingly. I also write up and report back on findings from all our evaluation processes and act as conduit between senior management and training delivery teams.