Let's start by relaying the experience which inspired this book. It took place in 2016 during an interview with a Chief Executive of a charity tackling domestic abuse. On a blustery winter's day, clutching a hot coffee we sat, wrapped in our warmest clothes, in a freezing cold office. ‘I’m sorry’ the CEO said, ‘we try to only switch the heating on when the clients are here, money savings, you know’ she broke off, and then she started crying. She went on say how she had started this charity over 30 years ago, as part of the women's aid movement and as a victim of domestic abuse herself. She passionately believed in holistically supporting women, and particularly their children, through developing play-based early intervention and support. Over the 30-year period they had directly supported more than 6,000 women and children to escape and overcome domestic abuse. The charity had won national and international recognition for their work. Built on their vast experience, knowledge and practice they had developed a specific framework of intervention aimed at helping children cope with, and move on from, the emotional turmoil of living with an abusive parent or carer. Throughout the 2000s this programme had grown, and in the mid-2000s they expanded, becoming dependent upon funding from the local authority. Two days before our meeting she had been informed that under a recommissioning process they had ‘lost’ the contract, a tender for a service which was based on their 30 years of experience, in favour of a large housing association with no previous experience of delivering domestic abuse support services for children. ‘They were cheaper’ is the only explanation she was given. She was distraught, not because they had lost a contract, but because she felt, knowing the organisation who had ‘won’ that all the values and strengths of her lifetime's work would be lost