Care-experienced leaders, changing children’s services.
Children’s social care consultancy, programmes and training from people who know care from the inside and have led the services around it.
What we do
Consultancy
Change inside your service
Transformation and service design, participation and co-production, and employment pathways.
Fostering
With Why Care
Recruiting, assessing and keeping foster carers, from first enquiry through their first year.
Programmes
Run over months
Six programmes for councils, schools and services, from Designated Leaders and Care to Work to NVR and Mentors Who Care.
Training
Face to face and online
Trauma-informed courses for schools, social workers and foster carers, in the room or online when it suits your staff.
Keynotes
Luke Rodgers BEM at your event
A care-experienced keynote speaker for your conference, leadership event or staff day.
What do you need to change?
Pick the closest match and we’ll show you where to start.
Redesign or transform a service. Consultancy to redesign a service with the people it affects.
Involve young people in decisions. Participation and co-production that changes decisions.
Participation and co-productionYouth voice that changes decisions, not just reports.Find out more
The Care Leaders AcademyLeadership for care-experienced young people, 13 to 18.Find out more
Transformation and service designRedesign a service, write a business case, or hear from everyone a change affects.Find out moreGet care leavers into work. Work experience, paid roles and employer partnerships.
Face-to-face training. Courses delivered in person for your staff, carers or schools.
NVR training. Non-violent resistance: a one-day taster, or a programme for whole teams.
Support designated teachers. Leadership and training for designated teachers and schools.
Recruit and keep foster carers. Fostering consultancy with our partner Why Care.
Why Care DiagnosticWe find where your service loses applicants and carers, and show you how to fix it.Find out more
Why Care AssessmentApplicants ready for panel in around 4 months, with less paperwork for your social workers.Find out more
Why Care First Year SupportA Fostering Mentor for every new carer, so no one is on their own in the year they need it most.Find out moreBook a keynote speaker. Luke Rodgers BEM at your conference or event.
Develop leaders. The national Fellowship for people with ideas that help care-experienced people, or the Academy, run locally for care-experienced young people.
Online training. Self-paced CPD your whole workforce can take when it suits them.
Who we are
A children’s social care consultancy that brings lived experience of care and professional leadership into the same room.
We’ve worked with 36 local authorities, and with national bodies including the Department for Education. We work alongside children, care leavers and the staff who support them, so the people a service is designed for help shape the decisions about it, and every recommendation is backed by evidence.
Our founder, Luke Rodgers BEM, went into care at 10. He was awarded the British Empire Medal in the Queen’s Birthday Honours 2018, was a Knowledge Equity Fellow at Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, and led the national engagement on England’s new fostering standards for the Department for Education. He has worked with councils across the country, from Durham and Middlesbrough to Suffolk, Kent and Buckinghamshire. He knows what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a service, and what it takes to change one.
From care leaver to care leader is the idea we were founded on. In 2026 that approach won Gold in the Dual Perspective Leadership Award at the iESE Public Sector Transformation Awards.
Not lived experience as a guest speaker slot. Lived experience as strategy.
What we’ve done
Suffolk County Council: The Family Business
From corporate parenting to community parenting. Over 60 people at the employer launch, and up to 40 young people qualified through the Skills Academy.
Read the case study
Durham County Council: NVR in residential care
Non-violent resistance in 11 children’s homes. 120 residential staff trained.
Read the case study
Home and Future: Youth Participation Collective
A regional network of participation workers and young people, named and branded by the young people in it, with a Shadow Board designed for the region.
Read the case study
Darlington Virtual School: Designated Leaders
The training designated teachers designed for themselves. 22 designated teachers trained on a 10-month programme they helped design.
Read the case study
The Care Leaders Summit 2026
A national day with care-experienced leaders at the front. 120 places, and 10 Fellows of The Care Leaders Fellowship on the guest list.
Read the case study
NHS Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent: Bridge and Beyond
One service for the children who fell between systems. A business case that secured £4 million, and more than 400 staff trained.
Read the case study
NAVSH: a co-design workshop with Virtual School Heads
Co-design, learned by doing it. Around 200 Virtual School Heads in the room.
Read the case study
PwC: New World, New Skills
Opening the doors of a global firm to care leavers. 30 care leavers from four councils spent the day at PwC’s London office.
Read the case study
Buckinghamshire Council: Youth Voice Bucks
A participation service young people named, branded and shaped. 19 champions from 11 service areas.
Read the case study
Middlesbrough Council: Middlesbrough Children Matter
A vision built with young people and staff. 300 staff, young people and partners helped shape it.
Read the case study
What clients say
“I’ve seen the language change verbally and in recording, and I’ve only heard positive things from this training.”
Who we work with
Directors of children’s services, virtual school heads, heads of fostering and leaving care, designated teachers, and the national bodies that set the standards. 50 organisations in total, including 36 local authorities.
