Good things come to an end, so even better things can begin

Completing this blog has been one of my final acts as president before handing over the reins to Rachel Dickinson, Barnsley's DCS and our president for 2019/20, who I know will be brilliant. I'm not sure how the year has gone by so quickly, must be an age thing, but it has prompted a period of reflection on what we have achieved as an Association.

As we know, presidents come and go and get to do the spotlight bit by speaking at the ADCS annual conference or attending meetings with ministers and such like, but the continuity and real work is done by our Council of Reference, regional groups and policy committees, brilliantly supported by our staff team in Manchester, who hold it all together and make the magic happen.

Due to this collective effort we have achieved much to be proud of, we have delivered two policy papers: a vision for an inclusive and high performing education system which we launched at conference last year; and our workforce paper published last month, which called on government to focus and, crucially, invest in the wider children's workforce. Both papers make an important contribution in their respective area and speak with confidence about the art of the possible whilst not shying away from asking the difficult questions as well as providing solutions. We have seen our media profile increase with our latest Safeguarding Pressures report taking centre stage on BBC News at 6 and being strongly covered in the broadsheets.

Speaking about the resources needed to make this ‘a country that works for all children', has been a theme of my presidential year and at times I have felt like a stuck record. It will be a baton that Rachel will pick up as we look to this year's Spending Review and even though I have not been as successful as I would have liked, the needs of children, and the funding needed to meet these needs, are being talked about for the first time and have been elevated onto the same list of concerns as adult social care.