Besides the eeeekkk rattling in my brain (which is a fairly constant backdrop now), I’m also immensely proud of the journey to date.

The care tech sector is wide and varied: from remote monitoring and AI-driven predictive tools, to prompting apps and augmented reality devices.

What I have found in my 6 years in the care-tech world is this:

• Even though broadly speaking, about half of adult social care budgets are spent on working-age adults, they rarely get the focus they deserve in the technology conversation
• There is a big appetite to introduce more digital tools, but low capacity to onboard it
• When you design the right digital tool for the right application, the impact can be dramatic

I have had incredible meetings of the mind with people who get it. They, like me, have had years of experience supporting often overlooked communities, and a shared sense that the next step is overdue. When I describe what we are aiming to achieve with Just Roaming, the penny drops. You get that wonderfully energising conversation where you understand each other’s world and you’re totally on the same page. I live for those moments.

The other day, I had a conversation with Dimensions UK’s Managing Director Sinead McHugh-Hicks, who will be providing expert insight at the event. She raised the importance of tech as a solution for social burnout and we discussed enabling design for people: where consideration of the environment for its flow, feel, sound, smell, lighting and durability is crucial. Use of Just Roaming as a key element within this approach proves to be a game changer. What a moment.

Those moments, I hasten to add, are more and more frequent nowadays. When I started the Just Roaming journey with Just Checking, I felt like we were drawing the landscape – framing the problem as we saw it and questioning how we COULD make a change. Now, I see all around me people who are making that change and are ready for a different way to do things.

It was probably this type of tangent that I had gone down on the day our event crew was born. Daniel Casson, as always, did a sterling job of directing a fantastic event at the Etihad Stadium in Manchester. What was striking about that day was the energy – people invigorated by the content, wanting to get out there and make positive changes in their own organisations. I met a number of people that day, who I hope will be career-long peers. There was a mutual understanding of the shared vision to help people and help our sector to keep going – more than that – keep improving, and make a positive difference every day. When perspectives align like that and the purpose is shared it’s so powerful.

It was there that I chewed the ear off one of our industry’s great innovators; committed to improving social care through digital innovation, Lorenzo Gordon – who will be chairing the closing session of the event: ‘What does working-age adults’ care tech look like in 10 years?’

It was also there that I sat next to trailblazer in public services, Andrew Kendall. Having chatted once or twice on Teams, we now met in person – and he welcomed me into his team and into his vision for the future!

It sparked in us a real drive for change.

We noted the fantastic benefits of the networking element of the day – the time to reflect with one another in between sessions and we asked ourselves – if we could do this – in the North West – could we take forward this energy into a day purely focused – not, as is often the default, on older adults but on the unique, complex and underacknowledged needs of working-age adults.

We are all acutely aware of the challenges faced by the NHS and the impact of an ageing population on our health and social care services – but that is not the story we are going to be telling.

We wanted to showcase what was being done differently in the spaces we were passionate about – for adults with learning disabilities, neurodiversities, and mental health conditions; those who perhaps have more barriers to sharing their own stories, but where the potential impact of tech can be even greater.

Stories of greater autonomy, greater choice and reduced restriction. Stories of enabling homes and first homes, away from long-term and traumatic hospital stays and towards better futures. Stories of transitions into adulthood and empowering spaces to grow, learn and build your own life.

So, here we are. Two days away from the event and what are we hoping for?

We’re hoping to see…

• A coming together of North West strategists to build a vision of what’s possible
• A reframing of our approach to sector challenges by exploring solutions that not only enable better lives but are more economically sustainable
• Creative thinking around the restrictive approaches we sometimes take and a move towards self direction and autonomous design

The main hope being that this shared experience helps to build a community amongst peers that inspires and propels change, delivering better outcomes, better value for money, and a better quality of life for people across the North West and beyond, every single day.

I’ll let you know how it goes…