Before the book

I started out as a volunteer in a primary school. Reward charts. Time-out. Children described as naughty. It was all I knew, and at the time, it made sense to me.

Over the years I moved through a mainstream primary, a special school, a residential special school — each one pulling me a little further towards children with more complex needs, more difficult histories, more going on beneath the surface.

Then I moved into children's homes, and began my Level 3 in Residential Childcare. My assessor did something quietly radical — she questioned my practice. Not to catch me out, but to make me think. She gave me space to breathe, to work things out, to arrive at my own conclusions.

She represented the biggest shift in my career.

From there I couldn't stop. I wanted to truly understand what was happening beneath the behaviour I'd spent years trying to manage. I read, I reflected, I got things wrong and tried to understand why. I became a manager, and I saw how much good supervision — meaningful, honest, unhurried — could transform the way people work with children.

This book grew out of all of that. It's not a manual and it's not a masterclass. It's a reflective journey, shared in the hope that it helps others reflect too.