A class is taught by one adult.
But a childhood is shaped by many.
We develop the wider workforce around children. This work needs people who see themselves as one connected workforce, not separate services passing a child between them.
THE PREMISE:
Many services.
One workforce.
The people around a child rarely think of themselves as a workforce at all. The teacher, the health visitor, the youth worker, the family support worker each belong to a different service, a different budget, a different chain of command. A child moves between them, but they seldom move towards each other. What the child experiences as one life, the system delivers as separate parts.
And the people with the deepest roots in a community—the ones who know the families, who came from the neighbourhood, who are trusted on the doorstep—too often have to leave the places they are most needed in order to train, qualify or progress.
Too often, we ask our most rooted people to choose between growing and staying.
The work is to build the workforce children actually deserve: one that sees itself as connected rather than separate, that can train and progress without leaving home, and that takes the child, not the service, as its organising principle.
We are growing
the children’s workforce
A national initiative working to build the workforce children deserve. Too often, the people who hold a childhood—teaching, early years, social care, youth work, SEND—are trained and organised as separate disciplines rather than one connected profession. The Centre is creating shared professional pathways, starting with a Foundation Degree that lets school staff earn a degree while they keep working, with the workplace as the classroom.
We develop
pastoral staff
A year-long programme for the non-teaching staff closest to our most vulnerable children: learning mentors, attendance officers, safeguarding leads, family support workers. Affordable, practical development in relationship-centred practice—plus something this workforce rarely gets: a professional community beyond their own school.
Explore the other ways we help schools build cradle-to-career support in their neighbourhoods.
We develop leaders
We nurture the leaders this work needs—people who can think and act across institutions, not only within them.
We cultivate the workforce
We develop the wider workforce around children. This work needs people who see themselves as one connected workforce, not separate services passing a child between them.
We strengthen places
We help schools build partnerships in their neighbourhoods. Bringing services, families and communities together around children, cradle to career
We innovate
We pursue breakthroughs on the hardest problems. Testing new ways to join up support where children need it most.