ADASS President’s NCASC 2025 speech

ADASS President, Jess McGregor, opens the National Children and Adult Services Conference (NCASC) 2025.

Good morning everyone.

When I became ADASS President, I said that for me, leadership in social care was rooted in one conviction: to love is to act.

Six months later, that conviction feels even sharper — because of what I have seen, heard and learnt.

I’ve spent much of this year talking to government about their role and what we need them to do differently.

But with you today, as leaders across children’s and adults social care, I want us to focus on our roles — on what we can change now, and what we can do differently together.

Over the past six months I’ve travelled around the country — visiting councils, neighbourhood teams, reablement centres, community organisations, and speaking with carers, people who draw on care, and colleagues.

And one moment above all others has stayed with me.

At a Carers Trust event in Liverpool, a young woman told us her story.

She told us she had cared for both of her parents for as long as she could remember.

As a child, she organised medication.

She prepared meals and supported personal care.

She booked and accompanied them to appointments.

She tried to make sense of complex forms and letters that even professionals struggle to understand.

She did all this through primary school, secondary school and then university.

Teachers noticed she was tired.

Doctors noticed she was juggling too much.

People called her a “good daughter.”

Not one person asked: “Are you okay? What support do you need?”

She told us she didn’t recognise herself as a young carer until someone at university pointed it out.

By then, she was exhausted and she was facing an impossible choice between her future and her family.

When she finished speaking, the room was still.

Not because her story was unusual — but because it was heartbreakingly familiar.

And that moment revealed two things that shape everything I want to say today

“First — care must be seen through the lens of whole lives. It doesn’t begin or end at a particular age. It is shaped by our identities, the families and networks we belong to —sometimes by the absence of them — and it rarely fits the neat boundaries we draw around our services.”

Second: Far too many people do not recognise their own relationship with care — or know how to get support when they need it.

Too many of us don’t know what care is, what our rights are, or how to ask for help.

The story I began with shows how care can start early.

Freya’s story shows how it continues, evolves and becomes more complex.

Many of you will know Freya from our ADASS Care Can’t Wait campaign.

You’ll hear from her later this morning.

Freya is a young adult drawing on care.

She talks about wanting support that keeps her connected to the people and routines that make her feel like herself.

She talks about the reassurance of familiar workers — and the anxiety when continuity is broken.

And she talks about moving into adulthood in a system that sometimes sees her age before it sees her humanity.

Freya’s story, like the first one, shows something simple but important:

Life is continuous. Our systems are not.

We organise care around thresholds, categories and birthdays — as if everything changes the day someone turns 18.

We create boundaries that make sense on paper, but not in real lives.

We design pathways that work procedurally, but not relationally.

And that does not reflect how people live.

Real life looks like:

adults parenting children while managing their own care needs

children living with adults who need support

young carers going unseen

young adults needing consistent help to thrive

older people caring for adult children even as their own needs grow

And when these pressures combine, adult social care steps in — often late, often in crisis — and the financial picture that follows is one we are no longer equipped to absorb.

The ADASS Autumn Survey makes this painfully clear:

– a £611m overspend — the largest since Covid

– £858m savings required next year

– more than half of all spend now supporting working-age people

– And this year we have seen a 31% increase in our highest-cost care and support arrangements

We know that these trends are only likely to continue, we expect to be supporting 40% more people of working-age by 2030. And we know from CQC and the work that Mel focused on in her presidency that we still have more work to do on preparation for adulthood.

These pressures aren’t random.

They are the predictable consequences of a system that responds late, separately and in crisis — rather than early, together and with continuity.

So where do we see the shape of a better approach?

Neighbourhood work gives us clues — not because it is the answer, but because it shows what becomes possible when we start with people’s whole lives, not our service boundaries.

When support happens closer to where people live their lives:

– families are seen in the round

– early need is spotted before it becomes crisis

– people shape the care and support they need

– continuity grows because people are known

– practitioners work with each other, not around each other

Neighbourhoods won’t solve everything.

But they show us what it looks like when we design for relationships, not referrals.

And as directors, we already hold many of the levers for whole-life care:

Care Act duties that include supporting parents

responsibilities to identify and support young carers

making transitions relational, not administrative

working across children’s services, schools, housing, health and the voluntary sector

enabling early help to be real, not rhetorical

We know what happens when things go well in childhood — early help, stability, recognition of caring roles, independence-building support:

pressures in adulthood become lighter, later and less complex.

And when things go well in adulthood — good housing, community connection, mental health support, and care that supports parenting — children’s lives become safer, steadier and more supported.

This isn’t about adults’ services doing more, or children’s services doing more.

It is about understanding that we are part of the same story — the whole-life story of a person, a family, a community.

And on Budget Day, this isn’t simply about money or another short-term fix.

It’s about something deeper:

acting earlier, designing around people, and building continuity rather than fragmentation.

Whole-life care isn’t an aspiration.

It is the most honest, realistic and sustainable response to the pressures we face.

If my first point is that care runs through whole lives, the second is that far too many of us do not recognise ourselves in the systems designed to care

The young woman in Liverpool didn’t know she was a carer.

Freya didn’t always know she could ask for different support.

For every young person who goes unseen as a carer, there is an older person who’s need for care and support is also going unseen.

Over November the new national independent commission into social care led by Baroness Louise Casey hosted a series of evidence sessions. The sessions were built around the stories they have heard about social care and how it is and isn’t working for people. These examples highlighted:

• We don’t always know what social care is and recognise how it relates to our lives.
• Too many of us wait for a diagnosis before seeking help, assume the NHS will explain social care to us and provide it
• To many of us don’t know who to talk to or where to start
• We believe care is only for crisis, or only for “other people”

We don’t understand our rights, choices or entitlements.

These are not small misunderstandings — they drive behaviour.

They mean people get help too late, not at all, or the wrong kind of help.

When I began this year, I believed that we needed a clearer public story about care — to shift attitudes and unlock reform. Because social care will only be valued when it is understood.

I still believe that

But now I see that we also need that public story so that people can recognise themselves in it.

We as directors have responsibilities here.

The Care Act is clear:

• information and advice for everyone
• assessment for everyone, regardless of finances
• a responsibility to help people understand what care is and how to navigate it
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And what if helping people understand care reveals levels of need we can’t meet?

That need already exists.

Understanding does not create demand — it reveals need early enough to prevent the worst outcomes.

This means acting earlier, strengthening early help, and supporting people who aren’t currently receiving help.

The ADASS Spring Survey, published this week, told us pressures are growing. This is in no small part because care, and the need for care, is too often invisible until crises forces it to become visible.

If we want fewer emergencies, we must help people understand care sooner.

If we want early action to be meaningful, care must be something people can see, grasp and trust.

So let me return to the young woman in Liverpool.

What stayed with me was not just the responsibility she carried from childhood into adulthood, but the fact she carried it without ever being recognised as a carer — or knowing she could ask for support.

Her story reminds me that care runs throughout every stage of life and that too many of us don’t recognise our own relationship with care.

If we want to reduce pressure and improve people’s lives, we need to act earlier, make care easier to understand, and work more deliberately across the life course.

And we can. I see the capability and the humanity in our workforce every day.

That is why the conviction that guides me this year remains the same: to love is to act.

We must act — together –  with clarity and purpose — to build a system people can see, understand and rely on throughout their whole lives.

Thank you.