Joanne has a wealth of experience working with children and families. Joanne qualified has a social worker from the University of Derby in 1999. Prior to becoming a social worker, Joanne had worked in various family centres in Nottingham City and in the county of Nottinghamshire, supporting children who were assessed to need support and services. During this time Joanne also set up one of the first sensory rooms in Nottinghamshire for children with disabilities.

Joanne spent the first ten years of her career working as a social worker for Nottinghamshire County Council. This included working in the front door child protection team, in a looked after team and in the leaving care service. Joanne supported the local authority to set up a supported lodgings scheme for children leaving care. Joanne was also commissioned to provide counselling support to adults with care experience who had requested access to their social care records.

In 2010, Joanne became a fully independent social worker. During this time Joanne was commissioned by the Department of Education to provide support to newly qualified social workers in a local authority. Joanne then pursued contracts with local authorities who were struggling to recruit social workers. Joanne would often travel long distances and in some cases staying away from home to fulfil the obligations of her contracted work.

In 2021, Joanne was commissioned by Cafcass to work as an Associate, where she completes safeguarding reports to the family courts in private law proceedings. Joanne is also an Independent Chair for a fostering agency in Nottinghamshire, and undertakes the role of Independent Reviewing Officer for two other fostering agencies.

Alongside her current roles of Quality Assurance Officer, Cafcass Associate, Fostering Panel Chair and Independent Reviewing Officer, Joanne provides a Regulation 44 independent visiting service and other independent work on behalf of local authority commissioning departments.