My name is David Kingswood and I am a new trustee here at SPPA. I wanted to become a trustee because I am a passionate believer in people finding their natural skills and gifting;  I believe that helping them fulfil this through relationships fits so well with social pedagogy.

My family and I were foster carers for ten years and inside that time we had two long-term placements. After a very tricky placement, our first foster daughter Lisa now regards us as her family and this relationship was primarily born out of pedagogic practice by not only ourselves but also my local Church. It was in this placement that I got involved with the head, heart, hands project for four years and I connected with the beauty of relational practice. When I was involved in the project, I became evangelistic in relational practice knowing that so many more foster carers and professionals would benefit from working in this way -for better outcomes for themselves, their networks, and ultimately, children.

I am an experienced public speaker and I am looking forward to facilitating talks and webinars; I also work well with teams and I believe I can help us further the reach of pedagogic practice across our nation.

My hope is that I can bring practical help to the trustee role which can contribute to promoting the interests of SPPA while at the same time, feed-in my personal experiences of using social pedagogy; I have seen it in faith and local community contexts and I would argue is a fairly untapped connection at the moment. Our community needs authentic loving relationships and strong connections more than ever and I’m loving being a partner in developing that with the SPPA.