A group of more than a hundred Camden employees, care-leavers, parents and academics met during practice week for a whole service meeting. The meeting began by outlining the focus of practice week in Camden; the council looked at issues of parental mental ill health, domestic abuse and substance misuse. However, the theme of the meeting was participation, and that appeared elegantly throughout each of the three presentations. The first speaker was a young person and care leaver who spoke about her experiences with mental health and how the service has helped her throughout her life. She had lots of advice for social workers from her distinctive perspective, including how vital it is to support a young person at their own pace. She also noted that although a diagnosis is important, support can happen without one. The next speaker was the academic Dr Clive Diaz, a research associate at Cardiff University. He spoke about his research surrounding meaningful participation within social work. Clive spoke about the concept of ‘love’ and its place in social work, highlighting that love is caring for another person’s welfare as much as your own. He also touched on how much a professional should reveal about themselves in their relationship with children. The Camden community shared their reflections of their practice and how they could give some of themselves in their professional lives without crossing a boundary. The final presentation came from Parent Support Partners, an example of parent participation in Child Protection conferences. Radically honest first-hand accounts from parents Kar Man and Kevin gave the presentation emotional depth and elicited a genuine reaction from the wider group. The meeting wrapped up with a poem from Annette, following a metaphor of a tree of life, partly in commemoration of colleague Sally. Service manager Rashida spoke about the energising and thought-provoking presentations and how engaged she felt with all the speakers across the morning.