Being nominated by Skills For Care to attend the Royal Garden Party to celebrate the coronation of King Charles and Queen Camilla was a complete surprise and my thanks to them for the opportunity. I felt privileged and proud to attend an event that was totally beyond my expectations.

What a great day where some of the general population are invited to attend and, in some cases, meet with members of the Royal family. In typical British fashion, it was organised to perfection, from the queue at the entrance to how swiftly we moved through into the Palace grounds. Like clockwork everything moved seamlessly, from the entrance of King Charles and Camilla, the bands playing, the weather and the food were all excellent. The whole day was beyond our expectations and I even met and shook hands with Camilla.

Chart from LaW's Raising the Bar: Increasing employer investment in skills Report, which can be found here.

This picture provides a timespan covering my career in education and skills over 35 years, with the last 20 being involved in workforce development within the Adults Social Care sector and latterly all social care. Many thanks to @Emily Jones from LaW institute for charting out training changes and policy over the years, presented at the St Martins Group Round Table Event (thanks Jane Hadfield, National Lead, NHS England and Emily Austin, CEO, Association of Apprentices & Engagement Director, The St Martin’s Group for the invite!) add in NCVQ, a few more government initiatives (EA,TFW & YTS) and a few more years (1987) this picture speaks a thousand words.

Throughout this period I have worked with Skills for Care and government departments on many initiatives that were designed to drive attraction, recruitment and retention, providing a consistent workforce giving continuity of care and driving the achievement of high-quality care.

My role as Group Head of Learning & Development for the CareTech Group affords me the opportunities, to not only work on workforce development for our 11,500 staff but also for the wider sector. Whilst a vocational approach to skills development is at the centre of all this, developing knowledge and understanding is one aspect, but how to apply it in the right context is the key. My involvement in developing qualifications and apprenticeship standards is something I am very proud of, chairing of what is known as the Apprenticeships in Social Care (ASC) Trailblazer group, working with employers from the sector and the Institute for Apprenticeships and Technical Education (IfATE).