Matthew Raleigh
Matt Raleigh is Programme Lead for LIIA, working closely with Directors of Children’s Services, Senior Officers and Services across the London region to support our priorities and ensure effective stakeholder involvement, consultation and communication.
Matt has a BA in Community Justice Studies and a Diploma in Probation Studies. He initially joined the probation service due to his belief that the UK imprisons more people than necessary and that there are better and more effective community alternatives.
Over time, he became passionate about redressing childhood harms and disadvantages that lead to poor adult outcomes, feeling this is a critical stage where alternatives lie. Matt moved over to Social Work, building extensive experience, managing teams in a climate of significant change and anxiety in local government, and re-designing and delivering services to better meet the needs of vulnerable adolescents. For example, he integrated services so that a multi-agency team with a varied and complementary skill-set could meet the needs of children under one roof. He takes great pride in the outcomes he has achieved for young people during his career, in particular being told, or shown, by vulnerable children and/or parents that he had helped their lives become safer and happier. He is driven by his sense that harms to children could be less, and opportunities greater, which continuously underlies his day-to-day work. Matt’s current projects include the Leadership in Colour Programme, the Care Leavers’ Compact and the Adolescent Safeguarding Handbook. In his spare time Matthew is a committed olympic weightlifter, a sport in which he now competes and articulates as ‘joyous expression of timing and skill’.