East of England

Leadership Forum

  • Sharing best practice

  • Ideas and problem solving

  • Regulations and standards

  • Mutual support

  • Sharing training

  • Networking

Initial Meeting Date:

25th September 2026 10am-4pm  

Venue: Cambridge (exact location will be sent upon registration for the event)

Registration for this event closes on 31st August 2026.

Participants contribution for this initial event is just £25+VAT per person.

We will then discuss the possibility of continuing these events into 2027 with an annual membership pricing structure.

PLEASE NOTE: This event is for leaders based in the East of England only.  If you live outside this area, we do have alternative options for you. Please visit here for full details.

The event is open to Responsible Individuals, Registered Managers and Deputies and is a great opportunity to share ideas, seek support and improve practice. 

Agenda for 25th September:

10:00am – Welcome and introductions, John Woodhouse and Farooq Busari

10:15am – Sector updates, John Woodhouse

An overview of what is going on in legislation, inspection and research around children’s homes, education and residential care

11:15am – If this is the evidence, then what is the response needed?  Jonathan Stanley

Jonathan Stanley is Principal Partner of the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Child Care.
NCERCC is concerned with theory and practice, research and policy. It actively develops all of these aspects and is a major reference point for the verification of evidence, as well as offering training, advice, consultancy, and evaluation. NCERCC acts as a critical friend to the developments proposed by local and national governments and agencies through incisive evidence and experience informed analysis.
NCERCC has remained with its focus of enabling the standards of the sector and the inspection practice of the regulator to be as good as possible given current conditions. 

Jonathan has a background in working in local authority, voluntary and privately funded organisations.  He has worked in Residential Care, as a Head Teacher, as the chair of the Children’s Homes Association and in other senior leadership roles in a therapeutic community.

12:30pm – Lunch

1:30pm – Why are Children’s Homes getting smaller? Risk aversion in Children’s Social Care, John Woodhouse

John Woodhouse has recently edited and published The Perfect Little Children’s Home?, a set of perspectives on the shape of the children’s home sector and why uncontained anxiety and ideology rather than children’s needs are pushing us towards smaller and smaller homes. His background is management of a children’s home in a therapeutic community, as a children’s rights officer, senior leadership in social work and founded dialogue, a training and leadership development organisation that has particular support for residential care 14 years ago.

3:00pm – Small group discussions and forward planning

3:45pm – Plenary

4:00pm – Close

dialogue will be responsible for invoicing. If you register for this initial event, we will securely store the information you give us. We will use this to keep you updated in line with your preferences. You can request to remove your details at any stage by contacting us and we will remove all your data. We will confirm all this by email.

To attend the meeting, please complete the registration form below.  You will then receive a confirmation email with full details of the event, and your invoice will shortly follow, for payment within 28 days.

Memberships and Training Courses

For more information on our membership and training offers, please click below to download our service brochure:

SERVICE BROCHURE