fabtic’s Managing Director Joanna Foster is passionate about the need for frontline work to be underpinned by evidence-based practices.

To this end, she first completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Child, Adolescent and Family Mental Health, whilst working full-time at the London Fire Brigade. Her essays applying national mental health policies to fire brigade interventions for children who set fires were awarded a first.

More recently, whilst running fabtic and writing her book, Joanna finished a Master’s in Applied Criminology, Penology and Management at the University of Cambridge.

Achieving a distinction, Joanna’s thesis explored the identification of risk and need when working with children who set fires. Three themes were in evidence across the data generated in her mixed-methods, explanatory, sequential design study: inconsistency in service provision; an absence of staff self-legitimacy, largely attributable to a lack of supervisory relationships that can nurture self-verification, and the invisibility of emotional labour.

Whilst this national picture appears highly problematic, frontline staff who took part in the study identified how these concerns could be addressed. Firstly, the development for the first time of a firesetting risk assessment tool for children who set fires. Secondly, formal expert training for staff in this much-misunderstood public health and social justice issue, and, finally, national written guidance in an area of frontline work that is largely hidden from view.