What is Tailored 'Peer to Peer' Support?

Michael Baxter

Relevant experience in the sector:

Michael has a successful background in primary headship, senior LA management and working at a national level with both the Sure Start Unit and the National Strategies.  He led on the development of one of the first Sure Start Trailblazer local programmes. Having experienced three LA inspection and Joint Area Reviews, he has a clear record in improving service delivery and raising standards.

Prior to joining Cordis Bright, Michael was working across the Early Years and Sure Start and School Improvement Services in the London Borough of Camden, leading on the LA's preparation for and implementation of the Early Years Foundation Stage across all sectors and providers.

Lynn Beckett

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lynn's current role as the Strategic Manager Early Years, Childcare & Play Services (Sandwell MBC) entails working from strategic to operational level ensuring the LA fulfills the duties required under the Childcare Act 2006. Constantly working to drive up standards in the private, voluntary and community, early years, childcare and play sectors, as well as taking an active role in formulating Sandwell's Anti-Poverty and Child Poverty Strategies. 

Lynn's career spans four decades including working for the Public Health Dept, in hospitals, the voluntary sector, within education (both schools and Further Education) and for local authorities for the last 12 years. Currently studying at the University of Birmingham for a Doctorate in Education focusing on consensus building through Participatory Practitioner Research in order to effect changes in practice. Lynn is also involved in voluntary work with an NGO in Nigeria, training teachers, Monitoring & Evaluation Officers and Ministry of Education Inspectors to improve functional literacy, including working with UNICEF to evaluate Reading Projects across 10 states.

Lynn has undertaken assignments for C4EO as both an Early Years Sector Specialist and as a Child Poverty Sector Specialist.

Kim Bevan

Relevant experience in the sector:

Kim has over 20 years experience of working in the voluntary and statutory sector. Much of her working life has been focused on early intervention, inclusion, working in partnership with families and with disability. She is a psychologist by training, with many years of experience in education as a teacher and an Assistant Principal at a Sixth Form College. She was Director of an inclusion charity and deputy director of the Government's Early Support programme, with particular responsibility for continuous professional development. Kim has been working as an independent consultant for over five years, supporting a range of strategic managers, practitioners and parents on inclusive approaches to learning and development, on working in partnership and on integrated working using person centred approaches.

She is also a consultant for the National Children's Bureau, supporting children's centres, local authorities and partner organisations to enable parents and children to overcome barriers to involvement and to feel more empowered. She is one of the founding directors of ES Trust, a community interest company dedicated to promoting effective, integrated services for children, young people and their families. This year Kim received an OBE for services to disabled children and their families.

Carmel Burton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Carmel is the Sure Start Partnership manager for Swindon Borough Council. The post has a wide remit covering responsibility for children's centres, extended services in and around schools, the development and quality of childcare, childcare training, the delivery of the information duty, parenting and the parent partnership. She has been at the council for five and a half years. Prior to that she was a team manager for Ofsted early years.

Lynnette Chapman

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lynnette is Research and Evaluation Manager for the Early Years and Childcare Service at Devon County Council. With a background in research, she has worked in the field of applied research for over 10 years at both national and local government level. Her academic background includes a specialism in research at undergraduate and postgraduate level. Key areas of interest for Lynnette include evidence-informed policy and practice, and supporting practitioner-led research. Her previous experience includes setting up and leading a team of researchers as part of the Community Evaluation Unit which was established to support the research needs of Sure Start Local Programmes and community regeneration projects. 

Lynnette is currently leading on a number of areas of work which focus on enabling the measurement of impact and outcomes in Children's Services.  This includes the development of an outcomes framework for family support services to support the measurement of impact for families and children.  In addition, Devon is one of the first nine local authorities to pilot Payment by Results in Children's Centres on behalf of the Department for Education and she is leading on the planning and implementation of this area of work.

Paul Cutler

Relevant experience in the sector:

Paul Cutler is an experienced consultant, trainer and facilitator who specialises in participation, communications and community involvement. For the last 5 years he has been a consultant for the National Children's Bureau Early Childhood Unit leading Parents, Early Years and Learning (PEAL) and Listening to Young Children courses. A particular focus of this work is how to support organisations and practitioners to empower marginalized groups and support them to overcome barriers to involvement.

As a self-employed consultant he has worked for a variety of Local Authorities, charities and voluntary organisations. He has designed workshops, focus groups, research projects, participation strategies and consultation programmes for different organisations. He also advises Overview and Scrutiny committees on services for children & young people and issues around inequalities.

He is also a Non-Executive Director in the NHS and has a particular specialism in the involvement of children, young people and parents in commissioning processes. He originally trained as a children & families social worker and maintains a link to social work training via consultancy work for the University of Greenwich. In 2004 he co-founded the social enterprise Mental Health International Development that supports families with mental health problems in central Asia and India.

Mary Devlin

Relevant experience in the sector:

As an Associate Trainer and Assessor with the National Children's Bureau and a Children's Centre Leader in South London, Mary works at both national and local levels.  She has broad experience across a range of children and family services in the voluntary sector as well as in local authorities and education; from adult learning and professional development to inclusion, play and early years.

She is currently leading a local initiative to develop a new venue for family and community services in a disadvantaged area of London.  The centre will work co-operatively with stakeholders to bring together services and opportunities for families and children from 0 – 11 years, integrating the Children's Centre and Extended Services agendas alongside a Primary School and a range of statutory and voluntary sector partners.

Mary is also Chair of Trustees of a leading independent Children and Parents' Centre which recently achieved an Outstanding Ofsted judgement.

Debbie Garvey

Relevant experience in the sector:

Debbie's background includes practitioner roles in the maintained, voluntary and private sectors, as well as facilitating, developing and delivering training, parent support, setting up new childcare and developing a children's information service. She was one of the original writers of the Leeds Quality Assurance framework. Debbie is an active and enthusiastic supporter of the quality improvement agenda and has facilitated many workshops and training events and spoken on the subject at several conferences. Debbie regularly contributes work to various publications in the field. Debbie was a founder member of, and continues to be an active member of, the National Quality Improvement Network (NQIN), which is managed by the National Children's Bureau (NCB).

Debbie is also an active trainer, facilitator, writer and speaker on the subject of leadership, mentoring, team building and reflective practice, and the roles these play in quality improvement for the early years education, childcare and playwork sectors. In January 2007, Debbie set up Stonegate Training Consultancies to advocate quality provision for children, young people and families, alongside quality training experiences for the dedicated practitioners who work with them. As a self-employed consultant, trainer, mentor and coach, Debbie has worked for many Local Authorities, charities and organisations in the private sector.

Debbie has recently co-authored a book supporting leadership skills in the early years and play sector. The book is entitled Leadership for Quality by Debbie Garvey & Andrea Lancaster, and is published by National Children's Bureau.

Ros Hatherill

Relevant experience in the sector:

With a teaching background and deputy headship Ros was an Ofsted Inspector (National) with HMI for 2 years. She then spent several years with the voluntary sector delivering various aspects of community development management across West Midlands. She was previously the Manager of Sure Start local programme for Herefordshire (rural remit) and is currently Manager of Early Years and Extended Services for Herefordshire.

Alison Hitchins

Relevant experience in the sector:

Alison's current role is managing the Early Years and Childcare Service in Worcestershire. Her previous roles included early years teacher, nursery school deputy Headteacher, and lecturer / head of early years (department in FE college).  She then moved to Worcestershire in 1998 to take up her current post.  Her qualifications include an NNEB, Cert Ed, B.ED and M.Sc (Educational Leadership and Management).

Catherine (Kate) McKenna

Relevant experience in the sector:

Kate has extensive experience across children's services including social care, education, children's services, private, voluntary and civil service sectors as a practitioner, trainer, regulator, manager, strategic policy maker working closely with national and local politicians, as a senior leader in local authorities and the civil service and as a sector specialist and facilitator supporting sector led improvement.

Kate has substantial experience of providing facilitation, training and consultancy support including work with OFSTED, SSAFA, The Virtual Staff College, The Training and Development Agency, The National Childminding Association, The National College for School Leadership, HomeStart, The National Children's Bureau, C4EO and a wide range of Local Authorities.

Kate is the Director of Kate McKenna Associates Limited, specialising in leadership development, change management, sector led improvement and workforce development. Kate has recently led and contributed to the development of a number of significant projects including: Assured Safeguarding (a resource for Directors of Children's Services and Lead Members), Beyond Safeguarding – for school/ children centre leaders, Transforming Learning – securing improved outcomes using capital investment as a catalyst, Linking children's services to the work of museums, libraries and archives, Sector led improvement -as a sector specialist for C4EO and DCS succession planning initiatives across the Midlands.

Robin Naylor

Relevant experience in the sector:

Robin has a very broad background in children's services:  initially qualifying as a social worker in inner London he moved into youth work before returning to the north to train as an early year's teacher. He then worked in nursery classes and units for children with additional needs in West Yorkshire, taking up the role of Early Years Education Officer with Bradford Council in 1999.  Robin retired from his role as Head of Bradford's Early Years and Childcare Service last year and is now an independent consultant, and occasional early year's practitioner.

Beba Parker

Relevant experience in the sector:

As a self-employed consultant, trainer, facilitator and researcher, Beba Parker has worked for a variety of statutory, voluntary and community organisations.

She has been an associate trainer with the National Children's Bureau since 2007, where she delivers the Parents, Early Years and Learning (PEAL) and Mentoring in Early Years and Play Sectors training courses. As an associate trainer with the Refugee Council (since 2004) she has designed and delivered training on a broad range of asylum, refugee and migration issues, including working with refugee children. She also has extensive experience of working with refugee and migrant communities.

She lectures of vulnerabilities of refugees to social work under- and post-graduates at the Royal Holloway University of London.

Keith Phillips

Relevant experience in the sector:

Keith Phillips is an experienced facilitator, trainer, project manager and consultant specialising in the early years, child care and family support. Originally qualified as a teacher he worked in secondary schools and then moved into voluntary sector children's and young people's community development work. Keith ran a combined nursery, children's club and youth club for 5 years and then a community based family centre for another 5 years. For the next eight years he worked in staff development and training before becoming a senior manager in an international children's NGO.

As a consultant for over 12 years he was a Sure Start Advisor from Trailblazer to Round 6 supporting over 35 Sure Start programmes. He has worked closely with the development of Sure Children's Centres as well training many Early Years practitioners as the Associate Lead trainer for the NCB's PEAL programme, This has included supporting Local Authorities with strategic initiatives around increasing parents involvement in their children's early learning.

Jo-Ann Pringle

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jo was, until recently, the Childcare Strategy Implementation Manager at Leeds City Council where she led on the implementation of the Childcare Act (2006).

She specialises in childcare strategies and sufficiency, with a strong background in managing all aspects of the under five offer and childcare provision and activities for children 0 - 17.  Jo is an trainer and experienced group facilitator.

As the Project Manager for GO-NE for the Two Year Old Pilot, Jo has worked with local authorities to extend the free entitlement for 3 and 4 year olds and Early Years Single Funding Formula; working with individual and groups of local authorities to accelerate the implementation of early years policy and strategic duties through a support, advice and challenge role. Jo was member of DCSF formula development group; and now works as a senior consultant with Henshalls.

Nicky Road

Relevant experience in the sector:

Nicky worked for Save the Children, formerly developing and managing a wide range of integrated early years services and latterly heading up the children's rights and participation work in London and leading the education programme for England. During this time she developed a range of partnership initiatives with local authorities and service providers around listening to and participation by young children. She has also been on the NCB Advisory Group of the National Young Children's Voices Network.

Since then she has been working as an independent early years and play consultant working with local authorities, schools and the PVI sector around the implementation of the early years reform and play agenda. This has included early years policy and project implementation, project management, service change and restructuring. She has also undertaken short-term evaluation, participation and equalities consultancies for service providers.

Sue Sanford

Relevant experience in the sector:

Sue has ten years experience in strategic and operational management in children's services. She joined the Sure Start Unit's East Midlands regional team in 2001, working with local authorities, voluntary sector lead bodies and health led partnerships to establish new models of integrated services for children and families. Sue led on capital development and contributed to national and regional policy development and dissemination of emerging good practice.

Sue moved to Derby City Council in 2004 to lead the development and delivery of children's centres across the city and working closely with extended services and schools to deliver integrated services in local areas.
In 2010 Sue launched her own consultancy and training company building on both her experience in the sector and her commitment to participatory and strength based approaches to work. She is involved in collaborative working with others in the field across sectors to support improved outcomes for children and families.

Jenny Spratt

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jenny was Head of Early Years and Children's Centres at Peterborough City Council, for the last thirteen years, but has recently taken early retirement and will, in future, be working in a freelance consultative capacity. She has a background in early childhood education and was Head of a Nursery School for nine years.

Jenny has worked at national level and has spoken at conferences across the country. She was also a member of the Early Years Themed Advisory Group for C4EO and was the Local Authority representative on the Early Childhood Forum. Jenny will remain on the Forum, representing the National Froebel Foundation, of which she if a Trustee.
Having written chapters in a number of text books on early childhood practice, Jenny is also co-author, with Professor Tina Bruce of 'Essentials of Literacy from 0-7'.

Ann Van Dyke 

Relevant experience in the sector:

Ann is currently on secondment to Government Office South West from Cornwall Council where she managed the Early Years and Childcare Services through the establishment of an integrated area based model. Her current remit as Regional Childcare Strategy Lead involves providing a support and challenge role to Local Authorities across the South West on delivering their Childcare Act Duties.

Catherine (Katy) Barton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Katy has over 30 years experience of working in the voluntary and statutory sector. After qualifying as a social worker and working in a local authority she worked for the Children's Society where she set up and developed a short break service for disabled children and their families. She is currently a trustee for Short Break Network. She has experience of developing policy at both a national and local level and contributed to the Westminster review of services for disabled children and their families in 2006. She is the former director of Care Co-ordination Network UK (CCNUK) and maintains an interest and enthusiasm for improving the life chances of disabled children and their families.

Katy has experience of working as a disability sector specialist and has completed a number of scoping profiles. Katy has also worked alongside other C4EO sector specialist from early years, poverty and schools and communities in a project with Nottinghamshire County Council.

Lesley Campbell

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lesley has more than 30 years experience in the disabled children sector, working in both the statutory and voluntary sectors. She has developed and managed a wide range of services for disabled children and their families. Until recently Lesley led Mencap's policy and lobbying work for children, as their National Children's Officer. She was a founder member of the Every Disabled Child Matters campaign.

Lesley is a past chair of Council for Disabled Children and was a member of the National Service Framework for Children's External Working Group for Disabled Children. Lesley led a feasibility study for the DCSF to establish a National Centre for Early Intervention and has been actively involved with C4EO for the past 3 years. She is a sector specialist for disabled children and early intervention and acts as lead for C4EO's disability work.

Jane Carter

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jane is currently a Service Development Manager with Warwickshire's Integrated Disability Service, which brings together a range of professionals and services from Education, Health and Social Care including Specialist Connexions Advisers, Disability Social Workers, Occupational Therapists, Physiotherapists, Child Development Services, Portage, Key Working and Specialist Teaching and Learning teams.

Prior to this, she was Head Teacher of a Support Service and previously managed Warwickshire's Statementing Service. Jane is an experienced senior secondary manager, having taught in schools in Birmingham, Staffordshire and Wolverhampton.

Jane contributed to the regional delivery of Disability Equality training for West Midland Secondary Schools in 2007 and has been a Senior European Foundation for Quality Management Assessor for Midlands Excellence.

Lynn Fletcher

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lynn is employed by Sunderland Local Authority as a Principal Educational Psychologist .

Lynn began her career as a teacher and then took a masters degree in Educational Psychology, qualifying in 1993.  She spent 10 years in this capacity in Sunderland, working in mainstream and special schools with children with a range of special and additional educational needs and vulnerabilities.  Having developed skills in working in partnership with pupils, parents, carers, educators and other practitioners at an operational level, she also began to take a strategic role in local authority policy and planning.  In 2004 she took up a post with the DCSF.  For the next three and a half years she led the NE Regional Partnership (Facilitating Inclusion North East), focusing on the promotion of inclusion and positive outcomes for children with special educational needs and/or disabilities and looked after children and working across children's services, health and the private and voluntary sectors. 

Steve Fletcher

Relevant experience in the sector:

Steve works for Sunderland Local Authority as the Strategic Manager of Services for Disabled Children.
He qualified in social work at York University in 1982. Since then he has worked as a social worker in health settings, mainly with chronically ill children and their families.

He trained as a family therapist and individual counsellor and this still underpins his approach. In 1994 he took up a position managing children's disability services for a local authority and has been in his current post since 2000. He is keen to develop innovative practice and led the successful Early Support Pathfinder and Aiming High for Disabled Children Short Breaks Pathfinder in Sunderland.

Sue Gower

Relevant experience in the sector:

Sue is Integrated Working lead for the London Borough of Croydon.  She has over 20 years of experience working strategically and operationally for a wide range of local and national organisation's supporting children and young people's including local government, the NHS and the Third Sector. 

Sue's personal experience of living with disability and her support of disabled children, young people and families was formally acknowledged in 2009 when she was awarded an MBE.

Her specialist knowledge relates to working collaboratively with a range of partners from public, private, voluntary, schools, businesses and communities to develop integrated approaches to promote positive outcomes for children, young people and their families.

Sue is also a Non-Executive Director of Bexley Care Trust, an Independent Consultant specialising in change management and a Public Service Ambassador for the Government Equalities Office.

Jessica Haslam

Relevant experience in the sector:

In Jess's current role as Head of Integrated Services for Disabled Children, she has led the Local Authority on developing integrated working to improve outcomes for disabled children and young people, 0-25 years. Supporting the participation of children, young people and their families has been at the core of implementing strategies and commissioning services.

Services for disabled children in York have been judged "outstanding"and York is the only Local Authority to have been awarded a green flag for Integrated Services for Disabled Children by Ofsted.

Jess has enjoyed the role of Disability Sector Specialist with C4EO, undertaking a number of projects with LAs and their partners. These have been primarily to support service change or development and improve multi agency working through a focus on outcomes. It has ranged from supporting a LA to develop joint funding arrangement for LA and health through a Section 75 agreement to working with a LA to set up a Children's Centre for disabled children 0-19 years. Working with other areas has been rewarding, being able to share experience, recognise achievement and support improvement.

Jess has worked for over 25 years in the field of disability. She originally trained as a teacher of the deaf and worked in specialist teaching teams.

Julie Hathaway

Relevant experience in the sector:

More than 25 years working in the voluntary sector (including Scope, National Childminding Association and KIDS), extensive senior management experience and qualifications at Level 5 in both Operational and Strategic Management; Prince 2 Practitioner and member of the Association of Project Managers since April 2007.

• Project responsibilities
  Management and delivery of complex national projects of up to c£750,000
• Budget responsibilities
  Budget holder responsibility and effective delegation of up to £1.6m with individual project budgets ranging from c£5,000 - £750,000
• Technical understanding and experience
  Roll-out of national projects; national representative as an expert partner within consortium bids
  Structuring and re-structuring in a range of circumstances during periods of organisational change
  Leadership and vision including team development both regionally and nationally ensuring investment in people and the promotion of a learning environment.

Janet Leach

Relevant experience in the sector:

Janet is employed by the London Borough of Enfield as the Head of the Joint Service for Disabled Children. She originally trained as a teacher and subsequently qualified as a social worker.  She has over 30 years experience working with disabled children and their families.  Her work has focused on developing and delivering innovative services both specialist and inclusive to support families within their own communities.

Janet was part of a 'change management' team that successfully created a flexible model of community based provision from a former residential unit. Appointed as Head of a newly established joint service in 2006 - comprising social care education and health - her role involved managing cultural and organization change to secure parental engagement and professional sign up to a shared vision of an integrated service for disabled children and their families.

She was the Local Authority Aiming High and short breaks Pathfinder lead working as a Change Champion throughout this transformation period, regularly presenting at national conferences and events. Janet has experience of developing policy at a national as well as a local level. Most recently working with CDC and DfE on the requirement of Local Authorities to produce and publish a Short Break Statement, as cited by the Breaks for Carers of Disabled Children Regulation 2010. Previously a Trustee of what was Shared Care Network, Janet is now Chair of this national organization - re-named the Short Breaks Network and is currently on the Steering Group of the London Disabled Children's Services Strategic Managers' Network. Janet's work remains focused on improving the life chances of disabled children and their families.

Dorothy Mitchell

Relevant experience in the sector:

Dorothy has been involved in special education since 1980 both as a teacher and as a senior manager.  In 1994 she was appointed deputy headteacher of an all age special school for children with SLD.

In January 1997 she became headteacher of a nursery assessment special school in Blackburn with  a focus on early intervention, assessment and inclusion.  

She led the development of a strong multi agency team approach which enabled effective partnership working at all levels and significantly impacted on positive outcomes for children and families.   She has had a leading role in managing  significant changes including the development of a virtual school from September 2005.  

Dorothy played a key role in developing a multi agency panel approach in Blackburn with Darwen for children with disabilities from birth to 5, and their families and has chaired and coordinated panel meetings.  

Miranda Parrott

Relevant experience in the sector:

Miranda has worked in the voluntary sector for the past thirty years with families of disabled children, young people and adults. The main part of her working life has been with Contact a Family as a member of the senior management team. Since 2001 I have worked independently on different projects with many of the major voluntary organisations and undertaken pieces of work in several different Local Authorities.

She is currently the Parent Participation Adviser for Together for Disabled Children in Yorkshire and the Humber.  Her interests include parent involvement and innovation and she has skills in team management, strategic development, project development, group development and training for parents and carers, staff and volunteers.

Other work has included a feasibility study on a Centre for Early Intervention, on behalf of Mencap, commissioned by the DfES (2003-2004) and a study for the Handsel Trust on sleep and children with disabilities, published in 2007.

Miranda currently work with Sibs and as a trainer for Scope Strengthening Families and Face2face.

Toby Price

Relevant experience in the sector:

Toby is Head of Sutton Disability Partnership for Children and Young People.

He has a background in social work with children and families. After working for a number of years in statutory and voluntary organisations in the UK and Australia, he joined London Borough of Sutton in 1995.

In 2002 he led Sutton's successful bid to become a pathfinder Children's Trust, the primary focus of which was improving services for disabled children and their families. Under his management, Council and NHS agencies, voluntary organisations, disabled children and young people and their parents came together to form the Sutton Disability Partnership.

Sutton became one of the Government's 21 Short Breaks Pathfinders in 2008. As first Children's Trust Manager, and now Head of the Disability Partnership, Toby has actively contributed to national learning on integration, service user participation and commissioning in disabled children's services.

Brian Robinson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Brian works for Lancashire Local Authority as the Service Manager (Integrated Provision).

His background is in social care, he qualified as a social worker over 25 years ago, since which he has worked in a variety of settings, mainly within a multi agency context. For the last 10 years he has been responsible for delivering services to children with disabilities and their families. At present he is responsible for an integrated service of SEN Assessment, Educational Psychology and social work.

Brian has an interest and lead responsibility for Parent Carer involvement and is heavily involved in delivering the Aiming High for Disabled Children agenda.

Jill Shaw

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jill is a successful leader and has over 30 years experience of working with Local Authorities and the Third Sector in both senior management and consultancy roles.

Her career working with Special Needs and Disability began as an Education Officer in Sheffield, this lead to her trailblazing the Early Years Development and Childcare Plan as both an Early Years Advisor and Parent Partnership Co-ordinator. Jill moved to set up Parent Partnership in Wakefield and represented the region at national level, she also contributed to the revised Code of Practice for the Identification and Assessment of Children with Special Educational Needs, particularly the development of mediation/conciliation services.

Jill moved to the Third Sector to set up and develop a Sure Start Programme in Nottinghamshire, her ability to foster partnerships and work with children and families within communities enabled essential development and bridging of services across health, education, social care and the Third sector.

Jill's career in the Third Sector continued when she became Head of Children and Young Peoples services with Turning Point, a leading social care provider.

Jill moved to become a Consultant at The Family and Parenting Institute and is currently an Associate with Family Action.

Jill has been a Sector Specialist for Disability and Child Poverty since the inception of C4EO.

Lesley Wright

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lesley is the Principal Officer (SEN and Disability ) for Liverpool City Council.

She has a teaching background with twenty nine years service in special educational needs and disability related posts. Her experience encompasses nine years teaching in special schools (ILEA, Birmingham and Liverpool); five years as an advisory teacher in mainstream schools (and pre-school) across Liverpool; seven years as headteacher of a special school and eight years heading up services for SEN and Disability (education & social care) as a third tier officer in Liverpool.

She is also a registered School Improvement Partner (SIP) for three special schools and she represents Liverpool as co-manager (with Tameside) of the Co-ordinator of the NW Regional SEN Hub.

Barry Young

Relevant experience in the sector:

Barry has been involved in special education and the development of inclusive provision for children and young people, both as a teacher and a senior manager, since he began teaching in 1973. Initially he taught in mainstream schools in Hull before taking up an advisory teacher post in Wakefield. He was appointed as the Head of Wakefield's Special Educational Needs Support Service before becoming the Service Manager for Inclusion. He retired from Wakefield in April 2009.

Barry led, managed and developed the generic Special Educational Needs Service for Learners with disabilities which involved devising, delivering, monitoring and reviewing service plans. Most recently he was involved in writing, producing and delivering the Inclusion Service five year development plan for 2008-2013. In his work he has been influenced by solution focused practice which proved effective as he built strong partnerships with a wide range of professionals and worked collaboratively with different stakeholders.

Vasalee Crawford

Relevant experience in the sector:

Vasalee started work in 1978 as a Dietetic Assistant and later a Community Nutritionist, working with a local Public Health department in Jamaica, prior to this she worked as teacher in Secondary and Adult Education for 7 years in Jamaica, Nigeria and an Adult Education Institute in South London. She then worked as Welfare Rights Advisor and Community Development Worker at an Advice Centre, in South London.

Vasalee became a qualified Social Worker in 1993 and worked in South London until 1998 when she moved to the West Midlands working for another five years as a social worker, NVQ, Student Social Worker and PQ Practice Assessor and Trainer before joining Cafcass as a Service Manger in 2003.

Her current job role is Quality Improvement and Knowledge Learning and Development Manager (SM QI) for Cafcass Central Area and she has also been a Primary School Local Authority Governor for the past eight years and am a member of the Local Government Improvement and Development Peer Review Group.

Maureen Daley

Relevant experience in the sector:

Maureen is a successful, social work qualified experienced manager with 30 years experience. 15 years in Local Authority settings, and 15 years in the Voluntary Sector. From 2000 until 2008, Maureen worked at Director level and was responsible for a large budget and a commensurate staff group. During her time as Director, she turned a failing region into a successful one. She now works independently as a consultant.

During the last 15 years, Maureen has worked with over 50 different local authorities as well as health authorities, housing associations, other public and voluntary sector organisations. She has worked with central government on large initiatives e.g. rollout of Sure Starts and Aiming High for Disabled Children. She has worked with almost every relevant government department including DOH, DfE, Home office and CAFCASS.

David Derbyshire

Relevant experience in the sector:

David is employed by Action for Children as its Head of Performance Improvement & Consultancy. David has the lead strategic role within one of the UK's largest charities for safeguarding and improving outcomes for children and young people. David has managed numerous external local and national projects focusing on improving the safety of children and young people.

David also leads on the area of providing support for families with multiple problems where safeguarding concerns are frequently prevalent. His previous experience involved David is working and managing child protection services in local authorities in London. David holds a post-qualifying Diploma in Child Protection Studies and he is an accredited Prince2 practitioner.

Helen Edwards

Relevant experience in the sector:

Helen has extensive experience in safeguarding and child protection and is currently the Head of Training, Consultancy and Publications for the NSPCC. Holding a BA and CQSW, prior to working for the NSPCC Helen worked for local authorities as a social worker and service manager. Undertaking several roles within NSPCC consultancy she has worked with local authority agencies developing policy and improving practice, undertaking audits, service reviews and managing authors of serious case reviews. She applies her expertise to improving multi-disciplinary and inter-agency working with particular insight to the interface between the third sector and statutory agencies, and LSCB effectiveness and efficiency. With responsibilities across the UK Helen has insight to different challenges faced by local authorities and nations in developing processes and systems which are proportionate and robust.

She has specialist interest and knowledge in safeguarding disabled children, and child protection within faith organisations.

Christina Fowden

Relevant experience in the sector:

Christina is a qualified social worker and manager, with over 30 years experience of managing safeguarding work both in the voluntary and statutory sectors. She has also worked as a guardian ad litem. Since 2008, as Family Action's safeguarding manager, she has been responsible for developing and implementing its safeguarding strategy. She has undertaken a comprehensive review of its safeguarding policies, procedures and training and been instrumental in improving safeguarding standards, knowledge and practice across the organisation. She has also acted as a safeguarding consultant within the voluntary sector, been involved in a number of serious case reviews and contributed to the LGID Peer Review Process.

Andy Goff

Relevant experience in the sector:

Andy Goff is a qualified social worker and has been working in the sector for 27 years, specialising in child protection for most of his career.  In the Local Authority he held a variety of posts from social Worker to Area Director.   

He recently moved to the NHS where he works as a service manager helping develop services in Norfolk and North Suffolk.  He takes a keen interest in integrated cross agency working and one of the projects he led on reached the finals of the regional health and social care awards.  Andy is keen to develop business models looking at redesigning or modifying systems to ensure highly efficient yet effective services are delivered that benefit young people and their families.  Andy is currently completing an MBA to add to his professional development and learning.

Penny Hajek

Relevant experience in the sector:

Penny has over 30 years of experience working in local authority children's services. Since qualifying as a social worker she has worked in shire and unitary authorities as a practitioner and manager across a range of teams and services, including child protection, LAC services, residential care/fostering/adoption, early years, behavior and attendance and SEN.

She was responsible for developing integrated locality based services to offer early support and targeted services through locality 'hubs' in Leicester City. This work included the development of the CAF, children centres programme and integrated youth support service, with a strong emphasis on children and young people's participation. She retired from her role as Assistant Director in Leicester in 2010 and is now an independent consultant.  Over the past year she has completed a number of independent assignments, including working with local authorities to improve safeguarding practice, develop efficient placement strategies and review services.  

Bernadette Halford

Relevant experience in the sector:

Bernadette worked in the NHS for 37 years before leaving the NHS September 2010 to become an Independant consultant for safeguarding children. She has held specific safeguarding roles within health agencies since 1989 and has extensive experience of child protection/safeguarding operational and strategic processes. This has involved taking the health lead on internal management and LSCB SCR reviews. Her last NHS post was as a designated nurse for safeguarding children in a London Borough, this historically involved managing the safeguarding children team for health, before moving to the commissioning PCT following the NHS reconfiguration.

Prior to leaving the NHS she was a member of a LSCB and sub groups, London SCB subgroups and the Trust NHS Safeguarding executive committee, and was the health representative on MAPPA and MARAC strategic groups.

Bernadette is an LGID peer reviewer and has past and current involvement in safeguarding peer reviews within London and nationally with LGID; she is a strong advocate of partnership collaboration for all involved in working to protect children.
Her interests are safeguarding vulnerable children, child death review processes, family and bereavement support and domestic violence. She is an active committee member of BASPCAN London.

Bernadette continually attends regional, national and international conferences/study days to update her knowledge and skills.

Lorraine Hansom

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lorraine qualified as a social worker in 1984 and since then has worked within children & families social care, as a frontline worker, training officer and reviewing officer, before moving to management. Lorraine has been working in strategic management posts for the past 12 years. She has led on the development of a looked after children service, the integration of family support services, and the reconfiguration of residential care provision and championed a project to increase children's participation in their care plans. More recently she has been responsible for directing a programme of safeguarding improvements across a Children's Service Directorate.

Lorraine is currently working independently, supporting local authorities and chairing foster panels.

Judy Hardman

Relevant experience in the sector:

Judy had 20 years post-qualification experience of statutory work with children and families in Leicester and Leicestershire, prior to moving to the voluntary sector in 2001. She then worked for Action for Children (previously NCH ) when until April 2010 worked as a Group Manager, with responsibility for a range of family support services. In this role she was responsible for ensuring robust safeguarding practice and contributed to the development of Action for Children's safeguarding standards for children's centres.

Judy currently delivers Basic Safeguarding in Education training on behalf of Sheffield City Council and Recruiting Safely training on behalf of CWDC. She has conducted peer reviews of contact, referral and assessment arrangements for two London boroughs. On behalf of Action for Children, she carried out the literature review about children's experiences of child protection services which appears on the C4EO children and young people's views micro-site.

Fiona Johnson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Fiona was Head of Children's Safeguards & Quality Assurance in East Sussex from 2004 to 2010. She qualified as a social worker in 1982 and has been a senior manager in children's services since 1997 contributing to the development of strategy and operational services with a particular focus on safeguarding and child protection.

Fiona has significant experience of the safeguarding arena from an operational context. From 1998 she had responsibility for the Brighton & Hove ACPC and latterly the East Sussex Local Safeguarding Children Board.

She has much relevant experience of working within children's services at a senior and strategic level. 

Fiona has considerable experience of chairing complex professional meetings at a senior and strategic level and chairs meetings in an efficient and effective manner. She has been chair of East Sussex and Brighton & Hove CDOP since 2008 and Westminster, Hammersmith & Fulham and Kensington & Chelsea CDOP since 2009. She was also chair of East Sussex fostering panel between 2004 and 2010.

Fiona has undertaken independent consultancy work since 2005 and from April 2010 has been working as a full-time free-lance consultant. Fiona has undertaken Serious Case Review Work for Brighton & Hove, Doncaster, Portsmouth, Southampton, Kent, East and West Sussex and Wandsworth Local Safeguarding Children Boards producing Independent Overview Reports.

Other recent work areas include providing professional support to the chair of the Wokingham Children's Services Improvement Board and the Slough Improvement Board. As part of her C4EO work Fiona is currently working with Thurrock Borough Council helping them develop performance management and quality assurance systems.

Pauline Martin

Relevant experience in the sector:

Pauline has extensive experience in safeguarding and child protection and is currently Head of Independent Review, Scrutiny and Advocacy for Kirklees Council. Pauline is a qualified social worker and has been working in the sector for 30 years. Her current role involves a remit for quality assurance and safeguarding compliance.

She has been a multi agency trainer, held a number of management roles and has taken a lead for Multi agency work as Safeguarding Manager in North Yorkshire and in Kirklees. In her role as Safeguarding Manager she had particular responsibility for improving the serious case review process and ensuring appropriate learning from child deaths. She has extensive experience of reviewing systems, practice and establishing audit frameworks.

She has a particular passion to set up these mechanisms to focus on what works well and to learn from examples of good practice and from what children and carers tell us.

Cath McEvoy

Relevant experience in the sector:

Cath has over 20 years experience of working in safeguarding within  Local Authority Children's Services. She is a qualified social worker who has held a variety of posts both at social work and managerial level. She was responsible for the initial development and implementation of the LSCB as the LSCB Manager and has chaired SCR meetings for other Local Authorities as an independent person.

Currently she holds the post of Safeguarding Operations Manager and is operationally responsible for the delivery of safeguarding and looked after services within North Tyneside including the EDT and the First Call service.

Cath is a member of the LSCB and the Adult Safeguarding Committee as well as chair of a number of LSCB sub groups

Rhonda Miedziolka

Relevant experience in the sector:

Rhonda has worked in Children's Social Care for almost 30 years.

She has worked in a large Shire county and in London. In Hackney Rhonda set up and managed the Children in Need Service and was a member of the original team created to deliver the "Reclaiming Social Work" model. She currently works in Thurrock, a Unitary Authority, as the Strategic Lead for Safeguarding. She has operational responsibility for the Initial Response Team, 4 Family Support teams, the Child Protection Unit, the Emergency Duty Team and the Disabled Children's Service. She is a member of the Eastern Region Safeguarding Project, Thurrock's Community Safety Partnership Executive Board and several LSCB sub-committees.  She also has experience in mental health and an interest in Adult Safeguarding and Domestic violence.

Liz Murphy

Relevant experience in the sector:

Liz is the Safeguarding Children Business Manager for Solihull and has been a qualified Social Worker for 18 years. During this time she has worked in the field of children's safeguarding in both the public and voluntary sectors. Her current role focuses on leading the work of the LSCB and supporting and challenging all partners to ensure an effective multi-agency system to safeguard and promote the welfare of children and young people.

This has included developing effective governance arrangements as well as a  robust LSCB performance management framework  which has enabled the LSCB to gather data to identify priority areas for safeguarding at a local level. Liz has secured the engagement of senior officers and Elected members in the safeguarding agenda and more recently she has become involved in work to explore synergies between the work of the LSCB and Adult Safeguarding Board.

Currently Liz is leading on the development and implementation of a multi agency child sexual exploitation strategy.

Liz has significant experience of working at both the preventative and reactive ends of the safeguarding spectrum and is committed to supporting practitioners, managers and agencies continuously improve their work to safeguard children and young people.   More recently Liz has been involved in a pilot of the SCIE "systems"model of case reviews, has experience of providing sector specialist support to LSCB's and is also a LGID external safeguarding peer reviewer.

Jenny Myers

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jenny Myers, CQSW MA in Child Protection, is Head of Safeguarding for Barnardo's where she holds the organisational lead for improvement including learning & policy development, advising on serious incidents, management of allegations, IMRs, quality assurance, and safeguarding compliance of Barnardo's work with children and families. Jenny is a qualified social worker with over 28 years experience of child protection. She has worked across both the statutory and voluntary sectors as a practitioner, manager, NSPCC senior consultant and latterly as a safeguarding advisor for the Department of Children Schools and Families (DCSF).

The role included driving improvement in safeguarding across Local Authorities, Local Children's Safeguarding Boards and partner agencies with particular responsibility for improving the serious case review process, learning from child deaths and Ofsted inspections.

Jenny frequently represents Barnardo's on external senior government advisory groups and has recently supported the previous CEO on the Munro review. She advised on the C4EO theme advisory group on safeguarding, is a LGID external safeguarding peer reviewer, C4EO sector specialist and training as a SCIE accredited multi agency case reviewer.

In response to Munro Jenny is piloting using appreciative inquiry in children's services to develop a more effective approach to quality assurance and audit that is not just based on compliance.

Recent C4EO sector specialist work has included engaging resistant families, evidenced based practice, action learning and effective front line management.

Alastair Pettigrew

Relevant experience in the sector:

Alastair qualified in 1973 and worked as a probation officer and as a mental health social worker for children before managing an interagency, multi –disciplinary service for vulnerable adolescents. He subsequently managed the whole range of local authority children's services including children in need of protection, children in care proceedings, looked after children and children leaving care, fostering, adoption and residential services.

He was Chair of ACPCs/LSCBs for many years. He was a member of an expert group in DCSF on Care Matters and also on the Commission on Social Work which produced "No More Blame Game."He has published articles on social work in books newspapers and professional journals. He currently undertakes interim management, mentoring and short term projects eg serious case reviews.

Russell Pilling

Relevant experience in the sector:

Russell currently works as an independent consultant.

Prior to this Russell was the Safeguarding Standards Manager at Northumberland County Council. He provided leadership support to the LSCB and acted as the senior officer in relation to serious case reviews and the sub regional child death overview process. Russell was a member of the Children's Services Leadership Team and had strategic leadership roles in relation to; performance management, commissioning, CAF, ICS, information sharing and workforce development.

Previously Russell developed Children's Centres in the south east locality of the County and as Programme Manager developed a strategic delivery partnership with Barnados. This experience offered an invaluable opportunity to appreciate the importance of broad based early interventions when considering the reality of working with families around safeguarding issues.

Russell is an LGID accredited peer reviewer and has a particular interest in organisational improvement, the effectiveness of partnership working, risk assessment, solution based approaches and coaching around individual effectiveness, leadership and resourcefulness.

Felicity (Flick) Schofield

Flick has spent her whole career working within statutory children’s social care, including 7 years as Assistant Director, Children’s Social Care in a large Shire County. Before going independent in September 2009, she spent 18 months on secondment with Ofsted, undertaking joint area reviews, unannounced inspections of referral and assessment and evaluating serious case reviews.

She currently chairs two local Safeguarding Children Boards, their serious case review panels, a child death overview panel and an Adult Safeguarding Board. She has also carried out a number of ‘mock’ unannounced inspections and has acted as an expert witness.

Paula St Aubyn

Relevant experience in the sector:

Paula is a senior safeguarding manager in Children's Services with Halton Council, and manages a multi agency safeguarding unit which includes the following functions. The independent review of children in care and foster carers. Chairing of Child Protection conferences and overseeing effectiveness of CP plans. Independent oversight of a cohort of Child in Need plans.

The management and oversight of allegations made against adults (LADO role) and developing safeguarding practice in educational settings. Paula takes a lead on the auditing of practice for children's social care and multi agency audits.
Paula has 30 years Social work experience and has worked across 4 North West Local Authorities. Paula holds the MSc in Management and is a trained safeguarding peer reviewer.

Karen Stone

Relevant experience in the sector:

Prior to working as an independent consultant Karen had a successful thirty year career in Children's Services. She has worked with local authorities, and other public and voluntary sector organisations, across the U.K, in addition to working as a consultant to the Ugandan government. Her career spans both the statutory and voluntary sector and from 2006 – 2110 Karen worked at Directory level in England and Wales.

Karen is co-author of a book on Assessing Children at Risk (Palgrave Macmillan pending), and has researched and published work capturing the experience of disabled children and their families. Her Ph.D examined the impact of gender and ethnicity on the experience of mothers.

Karen is an experienced safeguarding peer reviewer, has delivered safeguarding training across the U.K. and has reviewed local authority practice in England and Wales.

Graham Tilby

Relevant experience in the sector:

Graham qualified as a social worker in 1990, having worked in Probation previously. He has a 1st Class Honours Degree in Sociology & Applied Social Studies. He spent 9 years working in Sandwell MBC, initially as generic community social worker and then as a senior practitioner and principal social worker within children & families. He worked in Telford & Wrekin as a Service Development Manager for two years before joining Dudley in 2001 as their Quality Development Manager. He become Divisonal Manager for Commissioning & Review in 2002 and is now Head of Safeguarding & Review.

His currently responsibilities include managing the child protection and looked after review systems, co-ordinating the Local Safeguarding Children Board and chairing a number of its sub-committees including Training & Development and Serious Case Reviews and taking a lead role in respect on multi-agency quality assurance. He chairs the Child death Overview Panel. He is the Local Authority Designated Officer for the management of allegations against staff and has led strategic work in relation to e-safety, safer recruitment and employment and child sexual exploitation.

He led on the establishment of Stop it Now! in the Black Country & Birmingham with regards to the prevention of child sexual abuse, chairing its steering group for 6 years. He has recently been accredited to undertake Peer Reviews in respect of safeguarding. He has an advanced certificate in the management of local governance and a post-qualifying certificate in child protection.

Graham is married with two daughters and is a charitable director of Black Country Food Bank and a parent governor in a local secondary school. He is a strong advocate of 'partnership working' in all aspects of his personal and professional life

Nicki Walker-Hall

Relevant experience in the sector:

Nicki is a registered nurse (RGN) and registered sick children's nurse (RSCN) and has an MA in child welfare and protection from Huddersfield University. Nicki has worked in safeguarding roles within health since the 1990s. She has extensive experience working within an acute trust, nursing predominantly children and neonates requiring intensive care before moving into more community based roles. Latterly she worked in more strategic roles within primary care, mental health and learning disability. Her last post within the NHS was as a Designated Nurse child protection in the North East.

Nicki has worked with children and families since 1986 and remains hugely enthusiastic in advancing the safeguarding children agenda. She has a specific interest in engaging 'Hard to Reach' teenagers in services and has recognised qualifications in supervision and is a qualified teacher of adult learners. Nicki was involved in the development of a leadership for change programme and has written a number of strategies, policies and procedures and has experience of being a serious case review panel member and overview author both in Safeguarding Children and Adults.

Amy Weir

Relevant experience in the sector:

Amy has more than 30 years' experience of working in social care particularly in children's services. She has worked in social care, health and the voluntary sector. Until 2006, she was employed as a Deputy Director of Social Services. She has also worked for the Social Services Inspectorate and Ofsted as a children's services inspector and performance lead and for DfES as an adviser for Every Child Matters.

She currently works independently with local authorities and others on supporting improvements in children's services particularly in relation to safeguarding and children in care. This has included interim management assignments, policy development, redesigning front-door services and service reviews including preparation for inspection. She has chaired a Local Safeguarding Children Board since 2007 and been involved in the chairing and writing of serious case reviews. She is training to be an "accredited"case reviewer using the SCIE systems model recommended by Munro.

Amy is interested in all aspects of safeguarding. She has written various articles and edited a book about child protection and adult mental health. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the Child Abuse Review.

Audrey Williamson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Audrey now works independently, having worked for nearly 30 years in Social care both in Children and Adult services in six Local Authorities in the North West. Audrey has held senior management posts for the last eleven years including Assistant Director for Children's Social Care Services.

She has extensive experience of safeguarding work and is chair of two LSCBs in the North West. She is particularly interested in strengthening LSCB multi agency partnerships to improve support to vulnerable children and young people. Audrey has undertaken a Peer review in safeguarding and learned as much as she contributed.

Diane Williamson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Diane qualified as a social worker in 1987 and has managed a range of social care, child protection and education support services.  She has worked in 3 'shire' authorities and one unitary authority and has been a senior manager for over 11 years. She is currently Head of Locality Social Work and Family Assessment in East Sussex. In this role she has the countywide responsibility for social care safeguarding services and specialist assessment and treatment services.

Diane has substantial experience in leading authorities through inspection processes, playing a key role in one of the first the unannounced inspection of contact, referral and assessment and more recently as part of the senior leadership team for the Announced Inspection of Safeguarding and LAC which judged services in East Sussex to be 'good'. She holds a post graduate qualification in Supervision and Mentorship and MSc in Management. She has a particular interest in learning and development to promote continous improvement of services and leads modules on the Higher Specialist Award at Sussex Univerisity. Sector Specialist assignments have focused on outcome focused quality assurance systems.

Simon Ashley-Binge

Relevant experience in the sector:

Simon has worked in the field of social care for 23 years and is presently a Service Manager in Hammersmith and Fulham Social Care Division and manages a multidisciplinary team to prevent children and young people coming into care. He manages a range of staff including Social Work, Teachers, Youth Work and Health staff. He also manages the borough's respite Foster Care Service and External Placements Team.

Simon has worked in 3 London and 2 shire LA's and his posts before management 
(12 years) have included Youth Justice Senior, Youth Worker, Equal Opportunities, Development worker, residential worker etc.   Simon has also worked in adult services.
He holds a Diploma  in Community and Youth Work and an MBA from the OU.

Maxine Caine 

Relevant experience in the sector:

Maxine is a Senior Educational Psychologist in Gateshead with 10 years experience.  Prior to this she was a teacher and taught in the secondary sector.   Her current post involves working with young people aged 0-19, their families and educational settings.  She has special responsibilities for Looked after Children, including Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care.  She works within a multi-disciplinary team to improve the educational outcomes for Looked after Children.  In addition, Maxine is Vice Chair of Gateshead's Adoption panel. 

Maura Cardy  

Relevant experience in the sector:

Maura qualified as a social worker in 1984 and has worked in and managed a range of children's social care services, including children in need and safeguarding, fostering and adoption, services for disabled children and children in care.  She has been a Senior Manager in children's social care for 16 years and is currently the Group Manager of a London Local Authority referral and assessment service. 

She has a special interest in safeguarding through early intervention with substantial experience of partnership working to join up and develop multi-agency services for vulnerable children. 

Amanda Checkley

Relevant experience in the sector:

Amanda qualified as a social worker over 30 years ago and in her work has focused on vulnerable children and their families. She has worked in both the public and voluntary sector and in the last 12 year has undertaken work on a self employed basis for at least 10 local authorities.

During this time she has witnessed significant changes and differences in service delivery within children's services. She has been an independent reviewing officer for the last 7 years and as well as ensuring improved outcomes for looked after children and young people has worked with senior managers and central government to develop a robust framework and appropriate policies and procedures for rapidly developing reviewing services.

She investigates complaints and sits on complaint appeal panels, particularly in relation to complaints brought by looked after children. She is a magistrate and chairs family proceedings courts. She therefore has an unusually broad overview of children subject to care proceedings and in the care system.

Douglas Davidson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Douglas has been involved in social care since 1981, originally as a special needs carer and then managing a special needs residential unit for children in London before qualifying as a social worker in 1990.  His social care management commenced in 1997 and includes managing social work in two hospitals.  He has held team management positions within the children's department responsible for children in care, children in need and child protection. 

He holds a permanent job as Child Protection Chair and Independent Reviews Officer with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, and is the appointed lead with the in-house file audit incorporating the comprehensive area assessment process.

Lorraine Hansom

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lorraine qualified as a social worker in 1984 and since then has worked within children & families social care, as a frontline worker, training officer and reviewing officer, before moving to management. Lorraine has been working in strategic management posts for the past 12 years. She has led on the development of a looked after children service, the integration of family support services, and the reconfiguration of residential care provision and championed a project to increase children's participation in their care plans. More recently she has been responsible for directing a programme of safeguarding improvements across a Children's Service Directorate.

Lorraine is currently working independently, supporting local authorities and chairing foster panels.

Amanda Harris – Team Manager: LAC

Relevant experience in the sector:

Amanda has worked with children for the past 20 years, and has been a qualified social worker for 13 years. For the past 10 years she has managed a variety of social work teams, in social work statutory settings.  She has led on, and managed changes in, organisations and developed services for children on referral (duty) teams, long term teams and for children looked after in public care.  She has experience and interest in safeguarding issues and in the child protection procedures and processes, having worked as an IRO, chaired case conferences and have managed these posts.  She has a working knowledge of the challenges faced in inner city London boroughs, and diverse local demographics.

 She has been involved in strategic development of duty work in a London borough; setting up Family Group Conferences, and auditing strategies regarding thresholds and implementing and evaluating quality assurance systems, in relation to safeguarding issues.  She is currently employed as a team manager for looked after children and has run training sessions for social workers and run groups on reflective practice.   

Liz Hill

Relevant experience in the sector:

Liz qualified as a social worker over 30 years ago and worked firstly in generic children's services before taking a masters degree in social work in 1982. She spent 6 months working in USA on a social work exchange programme and then became an intake manager for children's services in Westminster.  

After 10 years as a front line manager, she moved into policy work in Westminster and then set up a new review unit for looked after children. This was followed by a year on secondment to the DOH as a development worker for ICS.  For the last 8 years she have been Head of Service in Enfield, responsible for, adoption, fostering, looked after children, leaving care and the health and educational support services for looked after children. She has undertaken one project for C4EO in 2010 relating to the corporate parenting agenda.

John Platt

Relevant experience in the sector:

Since becoming a qualified social worker in 1991, John has worked in both the public and private sector with looked after children and young people. This has included children and families social work, managing looked after teams, managing fostering teams and assistant director in a private fostering agency. John has also managed 2 public / private partnerships, the latter of which provided a social work service to looked after children for Nottingham City Council.

His experience both within and outside local authorities has enabled him to focus on "what works"for improving outcomes for looked after children and young people. He has recently been promoted to Operational Manager and registered manager for the 3 rd sector organisation Fostering People with responsibility for an agency with carers in the East and West Midlands, the North East, North West and Yorkshire.

Elizabeth Totman

Relevant experience in the sector:

Liz has considerable experience in social care, including eight years experience as a senior manager as Head of Specialist Children's Services and two years in performance management. During her career she has also was involved in social work training, child protection, looked after children and residential care.

In her current role as Head of Corporate Parenting, which consists of the Disabled Children's Service, Adoption, Fostering, Residential, Asylum Seeking Services and the Virtual School Kent, Liz has successfully managed the provision of high quality services. She has also been instrumental in developing new and innovative services within a multi agency context which has included therapeutic fostering programmes, multi-agency resource centres for disabled children and their families and '16plus' the leaving care service for KCC, which is now being piloted as a social work practice.

Following KCC's successful bid to become a Pathfinder authority for the Aiming High short breaks programme, Liz has lead on the transformation programme across the Directorate in partnership with the NHS.

Brenda Vincent

Relevant experience in the sector:

Brenda is a qualified social worker and has held managerial positions within Local Authority Children's Services since 1989. She has been the Registered Manager for both Fostering and Adoption Services and currently holds the lead strategic responsibility for the Local Authority's Corporate Parenting Policy, Strategy and Development Plan Brenda has led the development of a strong multi agency team approach to meeting the needs of children in care. This has enabled effective partnership working at all levels and significantly impacted on positive outcomes for children and families.

She has had a leading role in managing significant changes, including the development of a Virtual School within the Authority and the commissioning of specific mental health and emotional wellbeing services for looked after children and young people Brenda is currently employed by Warwickshire County Council as the Assistant Head of Children's Services.

Lindsay Voss

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lindsay qualified as Registered Nurse in 1981 and following a career in hospital nursing then became a community based school nurse in 1992.  Having completed the Diploma in Community Nursing and a Degree in Nursing Studies at the University of Southampton in the 1990s, Lindsay became a School Nurse Team Leader in Southampton in 1996 and in 2000 undertook a one year secondment as the Named Nurse for Child Protection at Southampton University Hospitals Trust.  In 2001 she undertook a further secondment as Adviser to the Area Child Protection Committee. 

In 2002 she returned to the community as Named Nurse for Child Protection, working closely with health visitors, GPs and other community based health services.  In 2007 she was appointed the Designated Nurse for Safeguarding Children and Safeguarding Children Team Manager and has continued to work closely with health professionals and colleagues from other agencies through membership of the Local Safeguarding Children Board. 

She currently works for Southampton PCT and manages a team of specialist nurses including the Designated Nurse for Children in Care.  She has continued academic study and is currently undertaking a clinical doctorate focusing on the multiagency response to childhood sexual abuse.

Gareth Williams James

Relevant experience in the sector:

Gareth is currently a service manager within Corporate Parenting for Suffolk County Council. He has led on the development of the virtual school model to promote educational achievement for looked after children since 2005 and has created explicit partnerships across the authority to make the model effective. These partnerships, guided by a well respected service, have achieved a 33% reduction in absence from school for looked after children and developed monitoring processes which overcome the shortcomings of using standard performance indicators as proxies for the effectiveness of care and interventions.

Other current and recent responsibilities include officer member of the Corporate Parenting Board, vice chair of fostering panel, representative on the Local Family Justice Council, lead officer for policy development panel responding to the Care Matters agenda, associate to the (then) DCSF for the Boarding Pathfinder, contributor to regional peer mentoring group on recruitment and retention of social care workforce and membership of the authority's succession planning group.

Jill Baker

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jill has a wide range of public sector experience working with children, families and communities and has also worked within the private and voluntary sectors. She is an experienced senior manager with expertise in a range of issues related to children and young people who experience disadvantage, most notably child poverty, education, health, and youth work. Jill is currently Project Director of the award winning Tyne Gateway Child Poverty project - working with both North and South Tyneside Councils the project has developed innovative and evidence based approaches to supporting families out of poverty. Jill has also recently worked with a range of other local authorities, helping them to shape their child poverty strategies and action plans.

Before this, Jill worked with DoE and YJB at a national level, leading the team which developed and implemented the YJB Workforce Development and PLUS literacy and numeracy strategies. She has also worked as an Assistant Director with the Connexions Service and of a national voluntary organisation, as a Non-Executive Director of an NHS Trust, and was one of the first local LSC Board members. Jill's career started with Save the Children Fund where for many years she was a community development worker.

Lynn Beckett

Relevant experience in the sector:

Lynn's current role as the Strategic Manager Early Years, Childcare & Play Services (Sandwell MBC) entails working from strategic to operational level ensuring the LA fulfills the duties required under the Childcare Act 2006. Constantly working to drive up standards in the private, voluntary and community, early years, childcare and play sectors, as well as taking an active role in formulating Sandwell's Anti-Poverty and Child Poverty Strategies. 

Lynn's career spans four decades including working for the Public Health Dept, in hospitals, the voluntary sector, within education (both schools and Further Education) and for local authorities for the last 12 years. Currently studying at the University of Birmingham for a Doctorate in Education focusing on consensus building through Participatory Practitioner Research in order to effect changes in practice. Lynn is also involved in voluntary work with an NGO in Nigeria, training teachers, Monitoring & Evaluation Officers and Ministry of Education Inspectors to improve functional literacy, including working with UNICEF to evaluate Reading Projects across 10 states.

Lynn has undertaken assignments for C4EO as both an Early Years Sector Specialist and as a Child Poverty Sector Specialist.

Ian Bond

Relevant experience in the sector:

Ian trained as social worker in 1971 working in a number of local authorities before joining the NSPCC's Special Unit in Leeds in 1981. He became manager of the NSPCC's Child Protection team in Calderdale being responsible for the local Child Protection Register, vice chair of the local Area Child Protection Committee and led a number of investigations into allegations of abuse of children looked after by local authorities and chaired a number of child death reviews. In 1998 he was seconded to Leeds City Council to lead on their 'refocusing child protection' project that looked at the significance of more preventative approaches.

In 2000, he was appointed as the first Sure Start Programme Manager in Thornhill Kirklees– one of the first five trailblazer programmes in the region. With the development of children's centres in Kirklees he was appointed as Sure Start Locality Manager for Spen Valley leading the development of the children's centres in that area until May 2010. In this role, he was lead for the children's centres contribution in the development of the local authority's child poverty strategy.

Since May 2010 Ian has worked as a free-lance consultant in supporting local authorities in the implementation of their child poverty strategy.

Carmel Burton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Carmel is the Sure Start Partnership manager for Swindon Borough Council. The post has a wide remit covering responsibility for children's centres, extended services in and around schools, the development and quality of childcare, childcare training, the delivery of the information duty, parenting and the parent partnership. She has been at the council for five and a half years. Prior to that she was a team manager for Ofsted early years.

Merle Davies MA, MSc

Relevant experience in the sector:

Merle is currently Senior Officer Policy and Strategy within Blackpool Children & Young People's Department. She is also the GONW regional Child Poverty Advisor.

Formerly DfES National Attendance Advisor, leading on the joint DfES/Home Office "Tackling it Together"initiative, Merle now has lead responsibility in Blackpool for the development of Child Poverty, Extended Services, the interface with the Third Sector, Family Pathfinder and Youth Crime Action Plan. She is also responsible for the integrated children's agenda through cross-cutting processes such as Common Assessment Framework, Lead Professional, BHLP and Team around the Family. She is also a member of the DCSF Integrated working Group. Merle is passionate about the need to "Think Family"and worked closely with the Cabinet Office in the development of the 'Think Family' reports as well as the development of Springboard, Blackpool's Family Intervention Project, which works with some of

Merle's background is in community education and she has worked in Scotland, England, Borneo and Germany in a variety of roles both with the voluntary sector and the statutory sector.

Steve Fletcher

Relevant experience in the sector:

Steve works for Sunderland Local Authority as the Strategic Manager of Services for Disabled Children.
He qualified in social work at York University in 1982. Since then he has worked as a social worker in health settings, mainly with chronically ill children and their families.

He trained as a family therapist and individual counsellor and this still underpins his approach. In 1994 he took up a position managing children's disability services for a local authority and has been in his current post since 2000. He is keen to develop innovative practice and led the successful Early Support Pathfinder and Aiming High for Disabled Children Short Breaks Pathfinder in Sunderland.

James Hardy

Relevant experience in the sector:

James Hardy is currently co-ordinator for the 'Real Choices Project', a Cornwall wide initiative jointly funded by HM Treasury, Cornwall Council and JobCentre Plus. Piloting a series of mutually supportive measures in partnership with the Voluntary Sector Forum and Cornwall and Isles of Scilly NHS Primary Care Trust, aiming to prevent and tackle child poverty. This work has now been further developed as one of 10 Local Authority Innovation Pilots for the Child Poverty Unit.

His career background originates within the Voluntary, Community Sector and Youth and Community Development work, before taking up a number differing roles within the Public Sector. Roles which have predominantly involved facilitating and managing cross sector partnerships, focusing on deprivation issues in Cornwall.

Previously working as Delivery Co-ordinator for West Cornwall Together Local Strategic Partnership, James was responsible for a number of Central Government Funding programmes delivering Neighbourhood Renewal and Neighbourhood Management Programmes within a number of communities across West Cornwall.

Alison Jackson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Alison Jackson has long experience in partnership working across children's services. She is currently Service Manager for the Children's Trust and Strategic Commissioning in Bristol City Council, with responsibility for the Children and Young People's Plan, child poverty and children's governance arrangements as well as embedding an outcomes-based approach to commissioning.

Prior to this role, Alison led on the introduction of the integrated processes within Every Child Matters - including the Common Assessment Framework, multi agency panels and Contact Point. Before 2005 she was Head of Special Educational Needs.  

Alison is a Compact Champion and was a member of the national Benefits Take-up Taskforce, commissioned by the Child Poverty Unit.

Michelle Kennedy

Relevant experience in the sector:

Michelle has worked in the public sector for many years, predominantly in health and local authorities. She has held a number of senior executive and management roles, working closely with local authority staff and strategic partners on agendas as diverse as Performance, Transformation, Customer Services and Policy.
Michelle has worked more recently at Islington Council, leading on the development of the Sustainable Community Strategy, Local Area Agreement and management of the Strategic Partnership, which has child poverty as one of its three main priorities.

Michelle now works for the Government Office for London as Head of Child Poverty Policy, working with the Child Poverty Unit and London Councils to help deliver the London Child Poverty targets and pledges. Michelle has recently set up the London 'Child Poverty Network 'with London Councils , is  a member of the Ministerial Child Poverty Delivery Group, the Theme Advisory Group on Child Poverty for the Centre for Excellent Outcomes (C4EO)  and  chairs the London Benefits Take up working group.

Julian Kenshole

Relevant experience in the sector:

Julian is the Head of Policy and Performance for Darlington Children's services.  He has worked in local government for over 19 years gaining extensive knowledge and experience in many aspects of local authority work at a senior level.

He has expanded his range of expertise to include community and economic development, urban and rural regeneration, corporate policy and performance, education and currently Children's Services.

Julian has been responsible for the successful development and management of SRB programmes and regeneration projects including NRF, and management of the Redcar & Cleveland Strategic Partnership. 

In his current role, he has led the development of the Darlington Children's Trust and supported its' overall agenda as Lead Officer; been actively involved engaging and involving young people in developing the Children and Young People's Plans and ensuring the Town's Member of the UK Youth Parliament has had manifesto pledges included within the CYPP to support agreed priorities.

Most recently, the development of a shortlisted Beacon Award 'Tackling and Preventing Child Poverty' and the development and co-ordination of Darlington's Child Poverty Pledge adopted by the LSP in 2008 has expanded his skills significantly to address the Child Poverty agenda.

Fiona Law

Relevant experience in the sector:

Fiona has been the Principal Educational Psychologist in Wakefield MDC for 4 years.  Prior to this she was a Senior EP with responsibility for early years, a maingrade EP and a teacher in what was then called a Social Priority Area.  She has over 30 years experience in the public sector, mainly related to education.

Throughout her career she has worked in multi disciplinary groups (CAMHS, PCT, Social Services), the Voluntary and Community Sector and a range of government sponsored projects including SureStart.  Recently she has focused on planning and delivery of strategy in the LA, with key planning groups including developing strategy with the LA and PCT commissioners, sometimes jointly.  She is a member of a subgroup of the C&YP Strategy Group which has a focus on Narrowing the Gap. 

She has delivered training to LA staff as well as the Private, Voluntary and Independent sector, supported and worked with the Children's Centres and had great success in developing posts through the SureStart programmes.

Currently, Fiona chairs the Narrowing the Gap Group in Wakefield MDC. She also leads a group (in conjunction with the PCT) to develop a new pathway for the assessment of children with Attention and Behavioural Difficulties.

Avril McIntyre

Relevant experience in the sector:

Avril is a dynamic community leader with a proven track record of significant achievement. As Chief Executive of LifeLine Community Projects since its inception in 2000, she has taken creative ideas from the drawing board to inception with a focus on performance, growth and sustainability. LifeLine has developed a suite of services which engage some of the hardest to reach communities across London.

Working across 8 local authorities, in her role as Chief Executive oversees the management of six Children's Centres, an extensive range of government funded employment & training programmes and 2 alternative schools. She has been involved in developing parenting and child poverty strategies and is a member of the Economic Development Partnership Board in 2 local authorities.

Avril has a strong understanding of local, regional and central government commissioning practice and has had opportunity to work with officers in the shaping of commissioning processes for the voluntary sector. Her commitment to the most disadvantaged communities motivates her to work with partners to find solutions to the issues around child poverty.

Catherine (Kate) McKenna

Relevant experience in the sector:

Kate has extensive experience across children's services including social care, education, children's services, private, voluntary and civil service sectors as a practitioner, trainer, regulator, manager, strategic policy maker working closely with national and local politicians, as a senior leader in local authorities and the civil service and as a sector specialist and facilitator supporting sector led improvement.

Kate has substantial experience of providing facilitation, training and consultancy support including work with OFSTED, SSAFA, The Virtual Staff College, The Training and Development Agency, The National Childminding Association, The National College for School Leadership, HomeStart, The National Children's Bureau, C4EO and a wide range of Local Authorities.

Kate is the Director of Kate McKenna Associates Limited, specialising in leadership development, change management, sector led improvement and workforce development. Kate has recently led and contributed to the development of a number of significant projects including: Assured Safeguarding (a resource for Directors of Children's Services and Lead Members), Beyond Safeguarding – for school/ children centre leaders, Transforming Learning – securing improved outcomes using capital investment as a catalyst, Linking children's services to the work of museums, libraries and archives, Sector led improvement -as a sector specialist for C4EO and DCS succession planning initiatives across the Midlands.

Di McNeish

Relevant experience in the sector:

Di is director of DMSS research & consultancy, and has over 20 years experience of management, practice, research and policy development in the public and voluntary sectors. Following an early career in social work practice and management, Di developed her research and policy experience with Barnardo's, where she was, until June 2006, Director of Policy and Research.

In this role, Di was responsible for the organisation's internal and external research programme as well as its influencing and lobbying work on issues affecting disadvantaged children and young people in the UK. An experienced policy analyst, facilitator and consultant, Di has written and published widely on children's issues and played a key role in promoting evidence-informed practice in children's services. She was co-director of the 'What Works for Children' collaboration and a Trustee and Director of the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) from 2003 to 2007.

In 2008/9 she was the specialist advisor to the Government's Beacon Scheme on preventing and tackling child poverty. She was a member of the independent commission on social mobility initiated by the Liberal Democrats in 2008 and author of the Commission's report. She was a member of Sir Michael Marmot's team undertaking the independent review of Health Inequalities (which reported in February 2010), leading on early years, education and employment. Since 2006

Layla Richards

Relevant experience in the sector:

Layla is Service Manager Strategy, Policy and Performance in the Children, Schools and Families Directorate at the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. She leads the development of the Tower Hamlets Partnership's Child Poverty strategy and led work related to the Council's Beacon for preventing and tackling child poverty.  Layla has also had experience in corporate policy and strategy roles.

William Roberts

Relevant experience in the sector:

William brings many years experience of helping local authorities to achieve progress on complex issues, through the development of strategic and operational partnerships and shared services.

Until 2010 he was the Deputy Head of Child Poverty at Government Office for London, and prior to that a Partnership Director at Tower Hamlets Council, London Partnership Manager for the Legal Services Commission and a senior manager at the National Association of Citizens Advice Bureaux.

At the Government Office he helped local authorities to prepare for their duties under the Child Poverty Act, enabled them to help each other and collaborate through the London Child Poverty Network and advocated the perspective of local government and the third sector to colleagues in Central Government.

At Tower Hamlets he introduced and managed co-located multi agency teams, introduced collaborative networks in health and education and facilitated improved relationships between residents and services, leading to shared decision making and participatory budgeting. At the LSC, he improved access to justice through the creation of Community Legal Service Partnerships and at Citizens Advice he was responsible for national membership standards.

William believes strongly that change should be about behaviour as much as structure and he has been able to achieve significantly improved life chances for many deprived communities by helping local authorities, the legal profession and community organisations to achieve better outcomes through sharper focus and more collaboration

He is also Vice Chair of Governors of a secondary school and Vice Chair of BBC Children in Need for London and the South East. 

Jill Shaw

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jill is a successful leader and has over 30 years experience of working with Local Authorities and the Third Sector in both senior management and consultancy roles.

Her career working with Special Needs and Disability began as an Education Officer in Sheffield, this lead to her trailblazing the Early Years Development and Childcare Plan as both an Early Years Advisor and Parent Partnership Co-ordinator. Jill moved to set up Parent Partnership in Wakefield and represented the region at national level, she also contributed to the revised Code of Practice for the Identification and Assessment of Children with Special Educational Needs, particularly the development of mediation/conciliation services.

Jill moved to the Third Sector to set up and develop a Sure Start Programme in Nottinghamshire, her ability to foster partnerships and work with children and families within communities enabled essential development and bridging of services across health, education, social care and the Third sector.

Jill's career in the Third Sector continued when she became Head of Children and Young Peoples services with Turning Point, a leading social care provider.

Jill moved to become a Consultant at The Family and Parenting Institute and is currently an Associate with Family Action.

Jill has been a Sector Specialist for Disability and Child Poverty since the inception of C4EO.

Jenny Spratt

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jenny was Head of Early Years and Children's Centres at Peterborough City Council, for the last thirteen years, but has recently taken early retirement and will, in future, be working in a freelance consultative capacity. She has a background in early childhood education and was Head of a Nursery School for nine years.

Jenny has worked at national level and has spoken at conferences across the country. She was also a member of the Early Years Themed Advisory Group for C4EO and was the Local Authority representative on the Early Childhood Forum. Jenny will remain on the Forum, representing the National Froebel Foundation, of which she if a Trustee.
Having written chapters in a number of text books on early childhood practice, Jenny is also co-author, with Professor Tina Bruce of 'Essentials of Literacy from 0-7'.

Sue Stirling

Relevant experience in the sector:

Sue has extensive experience across many areas of public policy and the public sector generally. Her interests are in large system change, governance and public service reform. Other areas include strategic partnerships, culture change and network governance.

Sue is a fully-qualified clinical and organisational psychologist.  After a successful clinical career she was a founding partner in a public service development company, advising senior managers and practitioners across the NHS, local government and voluntary sector.  Recently she led the development of the only policy think tank working outside London, based in Newcastle.  Sue is currently the region's child poverty champion leading a broad coalition to tackle the level and impact of child poverty in this region.  She also works as an independent consultant advising on governance and strategic planning.

Liz Thorne

Relevant experience in the sector:

Liz is the Policy and Press Advisor for Sustrans, a leading UK charity enabling people to travel by foot, bike or public transport for more of the journeys made every day. 

Prior to joining Sustrans, Liz was the London Development Manager for End Child Poverty, a coalition of more than 150 charities and organisations campaigning to end child poverty in the UK. In this role, Liz worked with voluntary and community organisations, local authorities and policy makers to identify good practice in the voluntary sector towards ending child poverty and to advise local authorities in the development of their child poverty strategies.

Notably, Liz was also a member of the Ministerial Working Group for Child Poverty in London and co-authored the report Child Poverty Champions. This report outlined best practice in London under four theme-headings, determined as the major challenges faced in ending child poverty in the capital: Child Development, Education and Well-being; Parental Support; Housing; and Support for Black and Minority Ethnic Groups.

Allen Baynes

Relevant experience in the sector:

Allen has many years experience in schools and learning including working as a Teacher, Advisory Teacher, Ofsted Inspector, Senior Manager for Inclusion in Telford and Wrekin and was Assistant Head teacher at Madeley Court School, Telford, now the highly successful Madeley Academy.

Allen is now a member of the core team for Narrowing the Gap. He also works as a consultant to the SSAT and to New Start a not for profit social care organisation in Liverpool that provides supported accommodation for vulnerable adults and is about to open a not for profit children's home. He is co owner of an Independent ESBD school for statemented students in KS3&4 in Halton.

Matt Dowse

Relevant experience in the sector:

Matt has a broad range of expertise relating to schools and communities.  Until recently Matt worked for Bristol City Council Children and Young Peoples Service in a number of inclusion roles, latterly as a School Improvement Adviser responsible for school attendance and participation. 

Matt has also worked as a Team Manager for the Connexions service in Bristol, as a Project Manager for Positive Activities for Young People and previously worked in secondary schools in Bristol and London as a Pastoral and Department Leader.
Matt is currently working as an Education and Children's Services Consultant, providing both strategic leadership and operational project support for local authorities and third sector organisations

Jo Galloway

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jo has spent the last 20 years working in both local government and the voluntary sector working in the field of community development, regeneration and education. For many years she managed a large regeneration programme and was instrumental in developing a cohesive community regeneration partnership with a range of stakeholders.

Until recently Jo was working for a national community learning organisation to deliver a government contract offering training and support to schools and local authorities delivering the extended schools agenda.

Jo has a wealth of community development expertise with a particular focus on partnership development and building social capital.

Richard Hall

Relevant experience in the sector:

Richard initially trained as a teacher and has a background in community education and for several years was Deputy Head teacher (Community) at a large urban secondary in Hampshire. He has also worked as a youth manager, head of an adult education centre and manager of a third sector organization.

From 2002 Richard has worked as an Educational Consultant and Trainer, providing both strategic and operational support to local authorities and partners across the Children and Young People's services agenda. In this capacity Richard has written a range of strategic and operational documents for many local authorities, particularly in terms of extended services, parenting and consultation. He has also been engaged by officers to carry out service reviews. 

Richard was a member of the Extended Schools Support Service Team (TESSS), working with partners including the TDA to encourage the roll out of extended services across the country.Richard was part of the writing team that produced the Integrated Quality Framework and also co-wrote the Parenting Toolkit that was commissioned by Government Office for London.

Richard also works as an assessor for The Inclusion Quality Mark.
His areas of competence include performance management and review, organisational development, sustainable development, learning and development, consultation and engagement, partnership working, inclusion, community strategies and project management. 

Hugh Disley

Relevant experience in the sector:

From Drama / RE Teacher to Diocesan Youth Adviser to running Birmingham Federation of Boys Clubs to establishing Warwickshire Council for Voluntary Youth Services to Principal Youth Officer in Staffordshire. In 2006 Hugh returned to Warwickshire as an Assistant Director of Children Services with Warwickshire as the Head of the Division for Young People, (IYSS).  

In July 2010 Hugh took on the change management role for Children, Young People and Families creating a 'team around the community' approach. From January 2012 Hugh moves to Head of Early Intervention and Family Support in a People Group. Hugh is also in the first cohort of Aspirant Director's of Children Services national programme which means he is now able to support across a breadth of children services' activity.

Commended for his work in two Ofsted reports; as well as being the lead Officer on two 'good' 'Positive Contribution' Joint Area Reviews. He also established the West Midlands Regional Youth Work Unit.

Hugh is a keen supporter of the 'investors in excellence' principles and reformed two services based on these principles. He is the cofounder of Warwickshire's 'Tiffin Club' where public sector colleagues strive to increase positive destinations for all looked after children and young people.

Liz Hassock

Relevant experience in the sector:

Liz has 27 years experience working with young people, moving into Youth Work in Buckinghamshire in 1988 after 5 years teaching in Kent. She spent 12 years in Buckinghamshire, leaving to move to Slough Borough Council, becoming Head of Youth Community and Play before her move to Hounslow in 2002 to become Principal Youth Officer and most recently Head of Integrated Youth Support Service.

Liz's most recent role as Head of Integrated Youth Support Service included the management of the Youth Service/Connexions/Young Carers Project and 'Children's Voice's', leading strategically on Children and Young People's Participation.
Liz's experience is centred around community and young people's involvement, developing projects with the community to develop their skills in participation and involvement in local democratic processes. She has undertaken training for C4EO, assignments related to early intervention and 'buying in' services. Liz has developed an excellent partnership model of co-operation and collaboration with the voluntary sector in Hounslow which has safeguarded provision in the area.

Liz has extensive experience training young people, councillors and staff, and works in an empowering style, working in multi disciplinary teams to ensure the best outcomes for young people and the communities within which they live.

Richard Jenkins

Relevant experience in the sector:

Richard's current role is located within the Enhanced and Preventative Service of Cambridgeshire County Council. For the previous 5 years he has worked with the Councils fourteen integrated locality teams (0 – 19yrs), ensuring the development and assurance of high quality youth services across Cambridgeshire.

Richard has 20 years of experience within the youth sector, working across a variety of local authorities ranging from inner cities to large rural authorities.

He has 10 years of senior management experience within the field of Youth Work, Connexions and Youth Justice.

In addition, Richard is also operationally employed within Cambridgeshire Fire and Rescue Service.

Chris Johnson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Chris is both a teacher and a youth work manager, and currently works part time in both roles. After starting as a full-time English teacher in Tyneside, he developed a part-time voluntary role in youth work that has continued for over thirty years. In 1990 he set up a local charity to help young people access outdoor activities and national award schemes. 

In 1998 he moved to a large urban youth service, and set up another charity in 1999 to support the expansion of Out of School activities. After six years with the local authority, managing an Adventure Activities Licence and overseeing a major refurbishment project, he moved to a national youth charity before returning to teaching. He taught English in a school where two thirds of the students had no activities outside school hours; and spent one afternoon each week arranging enrichment activities at a school for deaf children. This experience led him to start two more charities, one to promote Sign Language among hearing children, the other to encourage more outdoor leadership training. 

In 2010 he joined a Bradford youth development charity as assistant manager, planning projects, co-ordinating fund-raising and overseeing training. This year he has developed Activity Organiser and Fund-raising training for young people - and helped to get a group of deaf teenagers to the summit of Ben Nevis.

Kim Jones

Relevant experience in the sector:

I have worked for over 25 years in a variety of settings both in the public and voluntary sectors. Up until April 2010 I was Head of Staffordshire Youth Service and a senior manager in the Integrated Youth Support Service. I had responsibility for strategic and operational direction a staffing establishment in excess of 500 and a £13.5 million budget that included £6m externally secured funding. I have a good understanding of current key policies, best practice and legislation relating to children and young people.

I was instrumental in setting up governance structures enabling young people to participate throughout the county in decision making processes. I acquired extensive knowledge in service reorganisation, asset management planning and multi disciplinary working. In addition I have experience of complex partnership working, change management, service transformation and modernisation. I have also worked closely with the voluntary sector in developing infrastructure support and volunteering programmes.

I have been a key note speaker at a number of national conferences. Currently I work freelance and have worked alongside a variety of statutory and voluntary organisations on a number of projects including: safeguarding, change management, social enterprise models, commissioning and reviewing models of delivery.

John Miller

Relevant experience in the sector:

John's current role is Head of Integrated Youth Support for Plymouth City Council, leading the development of services for young people. The role encompasses targeted and intensive youth support to divert young people from care, positive activities, volunteering and key aspects of the 14-19 strategy including supporting young people who are not in education employment or training. In addition, he has a strategic lead on improving opportunities for young people to make a positive contribution and is a core member of the strategic groups focusing on reducing risk taking behaviours including, anti social behaviour, substance misuse and sexual health.

John's professional background as a Social Worker has led him to work in a variety of operational and strategic settings over a 20 year period. Those relevant to young people include:

• Youth Justice & Youth Offending Teams
• Integrated Community Services & Family Centres
• Government Office for the South West
• Integrated Youth Support Services
• Residential Care Services for Young People
• Secure Youth Facilities

John has a particular interest in improving leadership & management development, early intervention & prevention and managing change & improvement. He has previously worked together with the Dartington Social Research Unit, various National Government Departments and regionally on programmes to improve services for Young People.

Ruth Rickman-Williams

Relevant experience in the sector:

Ruth is the Regional Youth Officer for the West Midlands Regional Youth Work Unit previously based at GOWM, and now based with West Midlands Councils at The Partnership Centre, B'ham. The post has a wide remit for working with the 14 local authority youth services (in the region) and their partners in the development and delivery of quality youth work experiences, positive activities and targeted youth support within the Integrated Youth Support context. This work has included contributions to Youth PSA 14, Workforce Development and Quality Assurance.

Ruth is also Quality & Development manager with Shaw Trust (following a merger with Employment Opportunities) supporting the organisation in the development and delivery of their quality and development frameworks across the entire (national) organisation. She is also an Associate Trainer for FPM training having delivered on the Management Development programme across the country.

Prior to this Ruth was a senior manager with Connexions and has also worked extensively within a range of youth work settings during her 26 year career.

Norman Smith

Relevant experience in the sector:

Norman qualified as a youth worker in 1978 and has worked in the Youth Service in a variety of roles including managing a city centre project, specialist worker with unemployed young people, Area Team Leader, Workforce Development and for the last eight years as Deputy Head of Youth Service at Derby City Council.

He has substantial experience in managing personnel, budget monitoring, partnership working and performance management. In his current post he is responsible for the management of specialist services for young people aged 13 to 19 as part of the Integrated Youth Support Services.

He has also worked for eight years as an Additional Inspector for Ofsted, inspecting local authority Youth Services throughout England.

Isobel Callaby

Relevant experience in the sector:

Isobel has a background in education and training spanning more than 20 years and has for the past 10 years worked in the field of parent support. Her current role is Parent Support Service Co-ordinator providing the strategic lead on parenting support across the authority, including Parent Partnership and Parent Participation. She has recognised expertise in supporting parents and parenting at both operational and strategic level and has been a member of the Education & Children's Services Senior Management Team for the past 3 years. She has led the strategic development of parent support and championed change in this area in her authority.

Isobel is fully accredited and experienced parenting practitioner, accredited in programmes from universal to enhanced interventions. She has personally delivered approximately 100 evidence based group interventions giving her operational credibility within the sector. This experience, together with her track record of successfully managing parent support services and projects, has given Isobel an in-depth appreciation of the complexity and challenges involved in this sector. Last year Isobel was invited by DFE to showcase Hillingdon's Parent Support nationally.

Rachel Clark

Relevant experience in the sector:

Rachel is currently working as a Locality Development Manager in Nottinghamshire. A large part of her work involves the development of the Joint Access Teams, groups of practitioners from across Children's Services who meet monthly in order to broker swift and easy access to services for families. She is also involved in the strategic development of Children's Services across the locality. Rachel also managed the Nottinghamshire and Nottingham City Parent Partnership Service, which provided information, advice and support to families with children with SEN and disabilities. Rachel has also worked as participation officer for children and young people. From these roles, she has developed a good knowledge of and passion for service user involvement.

Prior to coming to Nottinghamshire, Rachel also managed an information and advice service for disabled people, based in the voluntary sector.

Parmi Dheensa

Relevant experience in the sector:

Parmi is the Executive Director of Include Me TOO (IM2). Include Me TOO is a National Organisation championing the Rights of all disabled children and their families, with a key focus on Black & Minority Ethic (BME) and other marginalised communities, promoting inclusion, supporting participation and community cohesion. She has over 10 years experience of working in the area of inequalities supporting and improving outcomes for BME and other marginalised communities.

During this time she has developed and implemented several BME specialist community consultations and projects, including early years and children and families provisions, parents and carers networks, disabled children and young people's participation. She continues to deliver support and training, around issues of diversity, equality, inclusion, community engagement and anti discrimination (delivered in 14 local authorities areas) supporting service development, delivery and impact.  

Mandy Goodenough

Relevant experience in the sector:

Mandy has extensive safeguarding experience having worked within children and family services for Nottingham City Council for over 10 years and is a registered Children's Social Worker.  During this time she has developed and implemented several innovative projects including a safeguarding workshop for substance using associates, parents and carers. Mandy is currently the strategic and operational lead on adult substance use, mental health and domestic violence across the local authority and Children's Partnership and is a professional advisor to the Local Safeguarding Children's Board.

Mandy has extensive experience in developing and implementing integrated strategic and operational multi agency initiatives to promote early intervention/prevention and partnership working between adult and children's services. Mandy's passion and drive for children and families has led to a well- established "Think Family"approach in adult treatment services which has received national recognition and is cited by the National Treatment Agency as good practice. Mandy has strategically and operationally supported the commissioning and delivery of frontline services, at a local and national level in family support. This has included policy development, workforce and resource development, service realignment, developing integrated processes, quality standards and commissioning expectations.

As a Sector Specialist Mandy has provided tailored support to Kent County Council on improving partnership working between Adult and Children's Services focusing on developing protocols for joint working and family assessments.

Jackie Harrop

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jackie is a freelance consultant and former Director of Children and Learners and Children's Services Adviser for Government Office for London. Currently regional lead for London's succession planning programme Leaders for London preparing potential leaders of children's services for Director Level posts.  

Also supporting early adopters for sector led improvement in London. Jackie has worked in local and regional government in shires, metropolitan, unitary and London boroughs, at assistant and deputy director level and as assistant chief executive and worked closely with government departments. Broad experience of strategic change and working closely with corporate partners on youth crime, working with complex families, school improvement, safeguarding and early intervention. Has led challenge and support for local authorities in intervention and brokered support for those where performance is at risk. Worked with C4EO to scope projects and provide support for service transformation and improvement.

Jo Hook

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jo is a Senior Commissioning Officer for Kent County Council working within the Strategic Commissioning Unit in Children, Families and Social Care. Jo is also the nominated Parenting Commissioner for the County.  Previous to this, she has 10 years experience of developing school based community/parent support services both at frontline, policy and national level. She has been a consultant for the National Family and Parenting institute and is also an intermittent book reviewer for Sage Publishing in areas around parenting and early intervention.

Her current remit focuses on the commissioning agenda around Children's centres, Parenting skills and Family Support. Community Budgets, Supporting Families with Adolescents and support to family and friends carers.
Jo also has an MA within social policy.

Jo also has an MA within the social policy field.

Jacqueline Lockhart

Relevant experience in the sector:

Jacqueline was formerly the Strategic Lead for Parents and Carers at Nottingham City Council, based in Commissioning and Partnerships.  Jacqueline promoted Early Intervention, Integrated working and workforce development to improve outcomes for whole families from at risk and vulnerable groups.  Her work included a strong emphasis on effective participation of Mothers, Fathers and Carers and close collaboration with the Community and Voluntary Sectors in the City. 

As well as championing Think Family approaches across the range of Children's Services, Jacqueline contributed to the national Parenting Implementation Project focusing on Father inclusive services and developing an outcomes based performance management framework for commissioning family services.  Jacqueline also developed initiatives with Probation and the Nottingham Prison amongst others to increase the reach of Children's Services to families in need of support.  She worked with Aiming High to support the Families of children with disabilities.  She has some expertise in this area.

Jacqueline has in depth knowledge of engaging and working with diverse and disadvantaged communities.  She has also worked with Schools around parental engagement and raising educational achievement via School and Community links and partnerships.  She has managed regeneration programmes in deprived areas tackling poverty and low aspiration via a wide range of projects ensuring community participation and endorsement.

Sue Miller

Relevant experience in the sector:

Sue works for Newcastle City Council as the Lead Specialist for Family Support and Parenting Commissioner. Until recently she was the regional lead in the North East for the Department for Education's Families at Risk Delivery Team. She has been heavily involved nationally in a number of significant strategies including Think Family, Family Intervention Projects and the Parenting Early Intervention Project.

Prior to taking up her current role she was Newcastle's strategic lead for Sure Start Children's Centres and a Senior Lecturer at Northumbria University leading on the delivery of an integrated care and education degree. Sue's professional background is in teaching and educational psychology. She speaks and publishes extensively both in this country and abroad on the challenges of reshaping services for families and children, working across professional disciplines and parenting education. Her work is widely used by parents and practitioners alike within the maintained, private and voluntary sectors

Suzanne Pearson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Suzanne is an organizational psychologist with vast experience of working within the field of parenting and families. She has spent 20 years working for Suffolk County Council  developing and working with  multi-disciplinary  teams, managing the Parenting Strategy, policy,  budgets , bids and workforce training.  Her work with Parents and in particular fathers has been recognized nationally where she has been the key speaker at several national conferences.

Since then she has worked with Parenting UK developing their National Occupational Standards, qualifications, regional presence and supporting key staff.  Moving to the National Academy of Parenting Practitioners she has been key in developing good practice for work with parents supporting parenting commissioners and assistant directors in service development and strategy.  Her most recent position as Integrated Workforce Manager at CWDC, has seen her offer key support in  the development of integrated workforce strategies and practice across the East of England. 

As well as work with parents and families Suzanne has a background in youth and community work understanding the needs of diverse communities.

Fiona Taylor

Relevant experience in the sector:

Fiona is the Strategic Development Manager and lead manager for Surrey Parenting Education and Support. She has extensive experience of developing and delivering a wide range of innovative projects and training in the field of parenting education and support. Fiona has a professional background in health, having trained as a Registered General Nurse, Health Visitor, Public Health Practitioner and School Nurse and therefore has a wide experience of working with children, young people, families and communities.

Fiona's previous roles have enabled her to work using a community development model, supporting families and supporting communities thus contributing to positive social capital. Her role as strategic lead for parenting in Surrey has seen many developments in 'evidence based' practice, contributing to the development of the National Occupational Standards for Working with Parents and the National Core Curriculum for Training Parenting Practitioners, parent participation and working with fathers.

Fiona's passion for her work has been recognised by the relevant government departments and has contributed to the toolkit for Parenting Commissioners.

Becca Winwood

Relevant experience in the sector:

Becca has worked in commissioning across adults, children's and specialist services, and is currently National Programme Lead for Families with Royal Mencap. Starting her career in the charity sector, Becca spent 11 years in local and regional government in a variety of strategic development, policy and commissioning roles including Head of Bedfordshire Drug and Alcohol Action Team, Assistant Director for Commissioning in Adult Social Care, and Department of Health Regional Lead for Carers and Young Carers.

Her specialism's are young carers and family policy with a particular passion for finding ways to establish effective joint working between adults and children's sectors to improve outcomes for whole families.

Maxine Caine 

Relevant experience in the sector:

Maxine is a Senior Educational Psychologist in Gateshead with 10 years experience.  Prior to this she was a teacher and taught in the secondary sector.   Her current post involves working with young people aged 0-19, their families and educational settings.  She has special responsibilities for Looked after Children, including Multi-Dimensional Treatment Foster Care.  She works within a multi-disciplinary team to improve the educational outcomes for Looked after Children.  In addition, Maxine is Vice Chair of Gateshead's Adoption panel. 

Maxine is a passionate about early intervention and evidence based interventions.

Tom Morris

Relevant experience in the sector:

Tom is the Parenting Early Intervention Project Manager for the Parental Engagement Team in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. For the past three years his role has included co-ordinating the Parenting Early Intervention Pathfinder Programme, chairing the multi-agency Parenting Advisory Group, overseeing training and support for parenting practitioners across the borough and representing parenting services on a number of bodies such as the Teenage Pregnancy Partnership, Children's Centres Strategic group, Baby FIP, and the Family Nurse Partnership.

He is a qualified Speech and Language Therapist, working for 16 years in the community and as part of a Sure Start programme in Haringey. He carried out a period of secondment to the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners as a Service Development Advisor. He continues as a practicing facilitator of the Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities parenting programme in schools and community locations across Tower Hamlets.

Emily Nickson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Emily Nickson is the Young People's Support Lead Officer for Rochdale MBC. She has extensive experience working with hard to reach, vulnerable young people, families and adult offenders. In her current role Emily leads on the Targeted Youth Support (TYS) Strategy which seeks to provide a co-ordinated cost effective package of support to young people and their families at risk of poor outcomes by developing integrated teams around schools and post 16 providers.

This work has been recognised nationally as a model of good practice and Emily has showcased this work at a number of national and regional conferences and workshops including DFE and former Government Office NW.

Emily has specialist in-depth knowledge of the needs of vulnerable young people and their families, as well as an understanding of relevant legislation, guidance and practice. She is adept at working in consultation with public, voluntary and community sector partners. Emily's specialist knowledge centres on working collaboratively and developing integrated approaches to promote positive outcomes for young people across the full range of vulnerability and risk factors.  Emily has been particularly successful in creating cost effective services that are very outcome focused; where the impact is measurable and sustained.

Emily's skills would be particularly useful in pieces of work looking at; increasing the number and quality of CAFs, creating outcome focused multi-disciplinary teams, early identification of the needs of vulnerable young people and families, creating multi-disciplinary teams around schools and post 16 providers, supporting children affected by domestic violence and adult offending and post 16 NEET reduction programmes. 

Richard Jenkins

Relevant experience in the sector:

Richard has worked within a range of local authorities over the previous 20 years starting as a volunteer and working up to Principal Youth Officer level.

Richard has been fundamental in developing high quality teenage services both universal and targeted at the most vulnerable. Richard now holds a number of contracts providing project management (prince2), quality assurance, change management, service development, training and management consultancy. Richard's current contracted work portfolio consists of the following:

• Performance Development Manager, - Youth Support Service -Cambridgeshire County Council - Projects include accredited services via foundation learning, evaluation tools and curriculum development for integrated youth support services.
• Lead Lecturer on the BA (Hons) Youth & Community Work - Anglia Ruskin University Cambridge – Providing all related support and teaching for years 2 and 3.
• Director Youth Results UK Limited - YRU– Providing management consultancy specialising in the development of Community Interest Companies
• Richard is also operationally employed within Cambridgeshire Fire And Rescue Service and works within Spartan Rescue Ltd providing operational support and training.

Gill Manton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Gill currently works at a Group Manager for Integrated Services in Southend on Sea Borough Council. Gill's last job was working for the London Borough of Camden as a service manager in youth offending and youth services. Gill has 25 years experience working with children, young people and their families. Gill has also taught in higher education and has always maintained very strong links with the voluntary sector, having started in this sector.

Gill has also provided management consultancy to a range of London Boroughs and has a really good understanding of inner city multi-cultural environment. Gill is an enthusiastic and energetic senior manager committed to developing high quality customer focused services. She has a wealth of strategic and operational experience managing services and is clear sighted and focused in pursuit of improvements for children, young people and their families.

Graham Arnold

Relevant experience in the sector:

Graham has worked for 24 years in local government, much of it in education and children's services. He is a qualified CIPFA accountant with experience in budget delegation, funding formula development and some value for money work. His early years work has included childcare and children's centre development and funding, and leading on childcare sufficiency.  He is also a qualified trainer.

He is currently employed as Early Years Policy Manager with Cambridgeshire County Council, where recent work has included developing the Single Funding Formula for Early Years provision and performance measures around childcare sufficiency. He has also established a local data profile and outcomes based commissioning framework for children's centres, and contributed to work on child poverty data analysis with C4EO and in Cambridgeshire.

Andrew Crompton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Andrew is the Manager of Analytical Services within the Children and Young People's Service of Sheffield City Council. He works to support self evaluation, needs analysis, performance management and commissioning across all aspects of children's services and with all major partners. He has wide experience within this field, and played a major role in drafting the government competency framework for Data and Information Professionals and works through the Virtual Staff College to manage the professional development courses for Data and Information managers linked to this.

Andrew also sits on the LGA group that co-ordinates the Making Data Count conferences. Prior to his current post Andrew has worked as a youth leader, teacher, in teacher training and as part of an Inspection and Advisory Service.

Douglas Davidson

Relevant experience in the sector:

Douglas has been involved in social care since 1981, originally as a special needs carer and then managing a special needs residential unit for children in London before qualifying as a social worker in 1990. Prior to that Douglas worked in industry as a telecommunications digital systems engineer and technical co-ordinator for a multi-national company which included data analysis and shaping of production processes. His social care management commenced in 1997 where he attained a post graduate qualification in management in 2001. His management positions have included managing social work in two hospitals, team management positions within the children's department responsible for children in care, children in need and child protection.

Douglas worked as a freelance practitioner between 2002 and 2006 securing a variety of contacts including as team manager, family group conference co-ordinator, conflict resolution consultant and Independent Reviewing Officer. He has since 2006 held a permanent job as Child Protection Chair and Independent Reviewing Officer with the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, and was up to recently the team lead with the in-house case file audit incorporating the comprehensive area assessment process.

Stephen Foreman

Relevant experience in the sector:

Stephen is a Senior Performance Analyst for Newcastle's Children's Services and works in the area of Family & Parenting Support. He has worked with practitioners and managers to develop suites of measures to evidence outcomes for parenting and family support programmes and services, and the IT structure to support measurement and reporting, as well as developing tools to measure outcomes and effectiveness of workforce reform. The work he has done in this area has been recognised as validated local practice.

He is particularly interested in gathering data to reflect and inform what is happening 'on the ground' and communicate findings in creative and accessible ways.
Stephen is an economics graduate and, prior to his current role, was involved in the management of a charity.

Phillip Lewis

Relevant experience in the sector:

Phil is Strategic and Development Manager for School Improvement at Staffordshire County Council (8th largest populated shire authority).  Phil has a degree in Mathematical Sciences, and has been analysing educational data for over ten years. 

This has ranged from starting out in a Further Education College in 1998, becoming an officer analysing primary school data in 2000, supporting the 2005 Joint Area Review and 2009 Safeguarding and Looked After Children Inspection and now actively involved in supporting projects across the wider remit of children services including Joint Strategic Needs Assessments, Corporate Geographical Information Systems, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service, Teenage Pregnancy, Vulnerable Children and transition of responsibilities of LSC into the Local Authority. Phil is also a governor of a local primary school

Karen Marcroft

Relevant experience in the sector:

Karen spent the last 6 years as the Head of Performance Management for Shropshire Council's Children and Young People's Services.

She has been in local government for 11 years, initiating and developing performance management systems and partnerships to enhance and demonstrate the outcomes achieved. Karen is passionate about performance, engagement, evidencing needs and the strategic planning that they inform to improve the lives of children and young people, especially those who are vulnerable. As a C4EO Sector Specialist Karen has worked with a number of other authorities, supporting their identification, analysis and action planning to resolve issues. Particular areas of interest have included narrowing the gap, safeguarding and "drill-downs".

She is a member of the ADCS Standards, Performance and Inspection Policy Committee and was a member of the Performance and Inspections subgroup of the Munro Review; drafting a starting point for a revised performance framework for Safeguarding. She has worked on many occasions with Ofsted and DfE on Children's Services ratings, profiles and the development / use of performance indicators. Karen also co-Chairs the West Midlands regional Data, Quality and Performance Improvement Network.

Karen's first working decade was spent having fun developing and delivering front line regeneration and education initiatives through the voluntary sector, working in partnership with schools, businesses and communities. Funding bids, cost efficiency and measurable outputs and outcomes were high on the agenda and Karen enjoyed these aspects so much that some local pilots she ran became national programmes and she was invited to became part of their national and regional steering groups and fundingpanels.

Wendi Murphy

Relevant experience in the sector:

Wendi is the Strategic Development Lead of the Child Health Development Programme.
Wendi has a health and local government background both related to children's services. Wendi has a degree in Health and Community studies and another in Specialist nursing Practice (Community Children's Nursing).

Wendi has been working on data and information over the last 10 years in health and local/national government to support performance and innovative improvements in children's services. Wendi has supported policy implementation such as preventative strategies and Joint Strategic Needs Assessments. She also supported many local areas by providing 'data clinics' through Together for Disabled Children over the last 3 years to support improved information related to disabled children. She has helped several local areas to work together to use data and information to explore wider geographical areas of commissioning to improve efficiencies and cost effective interventions.

Wendi is now the Deputy CEO of her organisation and has recently worked for Department of Health on components of Aiming High for Disabled Children and across DH and DCSF (as was) on improving children's access to equipment and data improvement. Wendi also works nationally with ChiMat (Child Health Intelligence Observatory).

Tim Rocke

Relevant experience in the sector:

Tim has worked within local authority children's services for over 20 years.  He was responsible for setting up and managing the Children's performance team at Telford & Wrekin Council, initially focussed on education but growing to encompass children's social care when those services merged, providing support and advice to senior management in the areas of inspection and performance management.  Latterly he has broadened his range of expertise to encompass information systems across the entire children's services area and is responsible for specifying and commissioning Building Schools for the Future (BSF) ICT services for schools in Telford. 

Janet Shipton

Relevant experience in the sector:

Janet is the Research and Information Manager for Children's Services at East Sussex County Council. Her team is part of the wider Planning, Performance and Information Management function and she has responsibility for managing data and producing analysis across early years, pupil attainment, youth offending, access and disability and school place planning – as well as developing the needs assessment across the Children's Trust.
Her previous roles included working as the Performance Data Consultant for schools in Brighton & Hove and as information manager in Kent. She moved to East Sussex in 2004 to take up her current post

Judith Swindell

Relevant experience in the sector:

I have worked for Hertfordshire County Council since 2003 and am currently Performance information Officer (Children's Services) within the Information Services Team, Business and Intelligence Unit.  We provide the reporting and intelligence function in children's social care and have responsibility for the preparation and submission of all statutory statistical returns to government.

Monthly reporting is delivered to aid and performance monitor the delivery of day-to-day services and to support end users and business managers in using data to drive and improve service delivery for vulnerable children and young people, ensuring that all information is timely, relevant and accessible.  I am a member of the East Midlands & Eastern Regions Performance and Information Management Group.