Dr Valerie Daniel received her doctorate for a thesis entitled ‘The Perceptions of a Leadership Crisis in the Early Years Sector’. Head teacher of Washwood Heath Nursery School and Children's Centre in Birmingham, she has a deep interest in the dynamics of the current early years sector and more widely in how crisis situations develop and how to effect change in these circumstances.

She proposes that the current Black Lives Matter protests have all the hallmarks of a crisis that has deep roots in deeply dysfunctional public systems that do not value people equally and rely on a divided nation remaining divided.