About me
Florence has been the Director of Children’s Services in Greenwich since September 2016. She qualified as a social worker in 1991 and has worked in a range of voluntary and statutory settings predominately in family and adolescent services including youth justice.
Florence values her role in Greenwich and the opportunities to shape services and strive for the best outcomes and experiences for children. Florence chairs the council's Equality Diversity and Inclusion steering group and is a committed champion of tackling discrimination and being an active ally to colleagues who experience racism or other forms of discrimination. Her driver for this is to ensure career opportunities for all and that everyone feels part of Greenwich and has a rich array of career development opportunities and interests at work.
Florence is involved in work across London and currently chairs the Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) and the London Adolescent Safeguarding Overview Board (LASOB) which is a subgroup of the London Safeguarding Children Partnership. She also co-chairs with the London Violence Reduction Unit (VRU), Your Choice a Pan London innovation programme which is being evaluated as part of a Randomised Control Trial (RCT) supported by the Youth Endowment Foundation (YEF). Your Choice utilises CBT and activity-based approaches, building emotional and mental wellbeing with children at risk of offending.
Florence is also a trustee of the Children’s Society. She firmly believes in partnerships across sectors and multi-disciplinary work and that the best prevention opportunities are located within schools whilst bridging work with families.
