Contribute

This site only works if it's a shared space. If you've got something to say that could help colleagues elsewhere do the job better, I want to hear from you.

Who can contribute?

Anyone with relevant experience or insight. That includes — but isn't limited to:

Lead Members for Children's Services, Education, or related portfolios
Scrutiny chairs and committee members working on children's issues
Councillors of any party or none, at any level
Lead officers, DCSs and senior managers in children's services
Frontline professionals — social workers, teachers, headteachers, youth workers, SENDCos, family support workers, health visitors
Parents, carers and young people with lived experience of the system
Charities, voluntary organisations and campaigners
Academics, researchers and policy specialists
Anyone else whose experience could help

If you're not sure whether what you've got fits, get in touch anyway. The answer is almost certainly yes.

What kind of contributions am I looking for?

Pretty much anything that could be useful to someone else carrying responsibility for children's services. Some examples:

Policy analysis — your take on a government announcement, consultation, white paper or piece of legislation
Practice insights — something that's working in your area, or something that isn't and why
Campaign material — speeches, motions, briefings, questions to officers, FOI templates
Reflections — honest accounts of dilemmas, mistakes, hard decisions, or lessons learned
Case studies — how your council tackled a particular challenge, what the outcome was, what you'd do differently
Resources — templates, checklists, induction notes for new Lead Members, scrutiny question banks
Counter-arguments — disagree with something on the site? Even better. Write it up.
Lived experience — what the system actually feels like from the inside, whether as a young person, parent, carer, or professional

You don't need to write a treatise. A 300-word reflection can be just as valuable as a 2,000-word analysis.

How polished does it need to be?

Not very. I'll happily:

Edit lightly for clarity, structure and house style
Help shape a half-formed idea into a publishable piece
Publish as-is if that's what you'd prefer

What I won't do is rewrite your argument or change your meaning without checking with you first.

Anonymity

I know not everyone can speak freely under their own name. Officers, social workers, serving councillors and others sometimes face professional, political or safeguarding constraints that make public attribution difficult.

If you'd rather contribute anonymously or under a role-based byline ("A serving DCS in the South West", "A primary headteacher", "A care-experienced young person"), that's absolutely fine. I'll work with you to make sure your contribution is identifiable enough to carry weight without putting you in a difficult position.

Editorial approach

A few things worth being upfront about:

You keep your voice. I'm not interested in homogenising contributions into a single house style.
You keep credit (unless you've asked for anonymity).
You retain ownership of what you write — I'm just hosting it.
I keep editorial discretion. I won't publish anything that's defamatory, identifies children or families inappropriately, breaches confidentiality, or that I think would do more harm than good. If I'm not going to publish, I'll tell you why.
Disagreement is welcome. I'd genuinely rather publish a thoughtful piece I disagree with than an echo of my own views.

Party politics

This site isn't party-political. I'm an Independent, but contributors of any party or none are equally welcome. What I care about is whether the contribution helps children, families and the people working with them — not which rosette the author wears.

I won't publish straightforwardly partisan attack pieces, but I will publish robust political analysis from any direction.

How to get in touch

The easiest way is to drop me an email at [email address] with a rough idea of what you'd like to write about. I'll come back to you within a few days. We can take it from there — whether that's you sending a draft, us having a conversation first, or me sending a few prompts to get you started.

If it's easier to have a quick call before committing anything to paper, that works too.

Thanks for considering it. The more of us who pitch in, the better this gets.

Jon