Making Growing Up Great Again with Dez Holmes

Radical Reformers podcast · Mar 19, 2026 · 54m

This week Andrew Laird welcomes Dez Holmes, Director of Research in Practice and Strategic Director for Practice and Programmes at the National Children’s Bureau. They discuss the role public services can play in making growing up great again! and why so many of our systems struggle at the point young people turn 18. Dez challenges the myth of a neat shift from ‘child’ to ‘adult’ and notes that for many people adulthood arrives earlier (caring responsibilities, adversity) or later (new responsibilities, work, family), but our systems often behave as if it happens at the same fixed point for…