Luke began his career in Hampshire as a youth worker, developing core skills through open access, detached and targeted youth work. As part of this role, he went on to manage a youth provision on an estate once labelled the most deprived in the country. An experience that deepened his commitment to supporting young people facing significant adversity.

In more recent years, Luke returned to youth work in leadership roles, serving as a service manager for a London borough youth service and later as a project manager contributing to the transformation of youth services in another.

Luke’s passion for youth justice led him to take on a role as a case manager within a youth justice service while simultaneously studying for a BA (Hons) in Youth Justice. Building on this foundation, he progressed into leadership roles, first as a team manager and then as deputy head of service across several London borough youth justice services.  He has also served as an improvement lead, supporting youth justice services to implement change in response to inspection outcomes and embed lasting improvements.

Luke’s career has taken him across the UK, including Wales, where he led criminal justice diversion services for young people across South Wales on behalf of a multi-award-winning organisation.

As part of his ongoing commitment to youth justice, Luke progressed to the role of Head of Care at a local authority secure children’s home, overseeing sixteen placements for some of the most vulnerable children in society placed by the Court on welfare and criminal justice grounds. He has also held deputy manager roles in two residential children’s homes: one operated by a local authority and the other by a private provider. The latter was a newly established home that achieved a ‘Good’ rating from Ofsted at its first inspection. In addition, Luke has served as a Registered Manager for a local authority, leading the registration and operational set-up of a new children’s home.

Luke’s journey into family help has included leadership roles as a service manager, locality manager and team manager across several family help services. In these roles, he has overseen targeted assessment and support for children, young people and families, often in complex and high-need circumstances. A key part aspect of his work involved training and supporting multi-agency partners to build their capacity to work effectively with families, strengthen local networks and embed whole-family approaches into practice.