CYP Now - Interview: Karen Watson, area manager, Shape Gloucestershire -Shaping children's futures

Karen Watson's eyes lit up when she saw the job advert for her current post. After years spent working with young offenders and thinking "if only we'd intervened earlier we might not be here today," she finally saw an opportunity to do just that.

Shape teams are Gloucestershire's response to the thorny problem of howto put children at the heart of children's services. And "earlyintervention, early intervention, early intervention" is theirmantra.

"When I saw this job I thought, yes, get people working together, get inthere early, that is the answer," says Watson. "I had become concernedthat a lot of children who got into trouble with the police had askedfor help earlier and not got it. Parents and carers would say they hadasked for help when their child was five, or when he was 12 and gotexcluded from school. If we had done something before he might not besat in a police cell now."

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