PEOPLE


forbidding mourning Vicki Lant


Valediction:


I know I have used this text before, but my heritage as a wordsmith always surfaces when I’m faced with things I find hard. Poetry, others’ provocative writing from experience or deeply-imagined, helps me find meaning in what can seem incomprehensible.


discovered that tendency in myself in reflecting on my own leadership journey in preparing to facilitate NPQICL many years ago and deepened that understanding in considering an extended range of leadership texts to make sense of my own story and the direction I wanted to pursue with others. John Donne’s


surprising and hopeful by turns. His passion for his lover runs throughout


poem is multi-layered, I


with covert and overt imagery, but the imagery of the pair as twin compasses - one with the fixed foot that leans out after the one that reaches to describe the circle around - resonates strongly with me as we reflect on the conclusion of the current NPQICL.


Energised by the passion of so many leaders I had the privilege to meet, whose journeys through NPQICL extended


professionally, so that they stood tall as they returned home, I feel that our joint experience can empower a vision for collective benefit for children and families. Although we see the former qualification ‘pass mildly away’,


I am hopeful them personally and


that we will find a way to refresh an appropriate experience for leaders of complex early-help- related services and accredit it to give substance and status.


As you read the articles in this edition, it is clear that the transformational quality of NPQICL has helped and will continue to help us manage the challenges of changing policy, governance, strategies


need within reducing resources and local circumstances for families. This is a whole-hearted celebration of the impact that NPQICL has had on our contributors’ practice - and yours too we hope. For us, Sue, Becky, Sophie and I, we believe we


to governments, contain expanding local


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