CENTRAL CONSULTANCY & TRAINING - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Alexis Wright Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Lead Consultant / Leadership & Management
Qualifications: MBA MCMI
Allison specialises in leadership development, workplace mediation, executive coaching, business planning and strategy, and team-building. She is passionate about facilitating the growth and performance of leaders and managers. As a Non Exec Director she will often bring this experience into play when advising clients on good governance practice. She attended a course for Non Exec Directors with the Institute of Directors. Allison is accredited and qualified as a mediator, NLP practitioner and an AoEC qualified Executive Coach. She is also licensed to use the Myers Briggs Type Indicator tool. Allison keeps her professional practice up to date and recently undertook a practitioner qualification in applied neuroscience, brain and behaviour change with ITS.
Allison has over 20 years' experience in the private, public and third sector, most recently as Group Head of HR and OD for Accord. She has a track record of delivering results and demonstrating real returns on investment through innovative practice using award winning methods. She focuses on continuous improvement and finding ways to lead change effectively so that leaders can sustain the improvements they envisaged. She is a core part of the advisory team at the National Centre for Strategic Leadership, and Deputy Director of the CMI Accreditation Centre. She is accredited to be on the panel as an executive coach for two Russell Group Universities' leadership teams and a bank.
Allison has been a professional mentor at Aston Business School. She has held an officers commission in the RAF VRT, and has been on the Independent Monitoring Board of a prison. She is Chair of a Committee of a Housing Association and in her spare time she's built a 90% scale Supermarine Spitfire approved to fly, with a small syndicate of like minded people.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Andrew Gambrill Consultant
Andrew worked as a Home Help & Residential Care Assistant straight from school, moving to Rugby Older People's Team in 2001. Andrew studied Social Work via a work-based contract and graduated from Coventry University in 2007. Andrew specialises in working with Older People with dementia. He also went on to gain a Post-Graduate Certificate in Practice Education from the University of Warwick. Andrew left front line practice in 2018 to be the ASYE Co-Ordinator for Warwickshire County Council supporting Newly Qualified Social Workers through their first year out of University. Andrew joined the Social Work Team at CLL in 2023. He is a registered social worker with Social Work England.
Job Titles:
- Andrew Meyer Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant / Governance & Organisational Development
Job Titles:
- Carol Howell Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Claire McGarry Consultant
Claire has worked for the NHS within health and wellbeing and people development for the past 7 years. She currently works at Leeds Teaching Hospitals as the Trust's Health and Wellbeing Practitioner, delivering strategy and training to over 23 000 staff members. She is a skilled facilitator and wellbeing specialist and has trained over 300 Mental Health First Aiders throughout her time at the Trust. Her expertise of being an ex dancer and personal trainer has allowed her to gain a wide range of knowledge becoming a leading expert within the field. She works with a variety of companies as a consultant or in partnership supporting organisations and their employees to become the best they can be within the workplace.
Job Titles:
- Deirdre LaBassiere Consultant
Job Titles:
- Diane Coburn Consultant
Job Titles:
- Dr. Abigail Robson Consultant
Job Titles:
- CONSULTANT
- Regional Chair of the Institute of Directors
Dr Inez Brown has leveraged 20+ years' experience as a lawyer. She is now a consultant, advising businesses on corporate governance, strategic planning, leadership and change management. She has a proven track record of delivering successful outcomes for clients across the legal and business sectors.
Dr Brown is currently the Regional Chair of the Institute of Directors (IoD), Central Region, including East and West Midlands, supporting over 2000 businesses from 2021 to present. She has extensive knowledge of corporate governance practices, risk management and compliance. She also has a keen eye for identifying potential legal risks and proactively developing strategies to mitigate them. In addition, she helps create solutions, which makes her an invaluable asset to clients.
Inez really enjoys facilitating sessions for both large and small groups and can maintain focus on the key learning outcomes whilst also enabling wider discussion and exploration of the broader aspects of professional development.
Inez has completed the IoD Chartered Directors Certificate on corporate governance, leadership and strategy. She has also been conferred an honorary doctorate by Aston University for her contribution to the legal business sectors.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Fiona Pethick Consultant
Fiona is passionate about good governance. She brings practical experience and theoretical understanding together and uses these to advise organisations setting up, reviewing or revising their own decision making arrangements.
Fiona was a career civil servant, latterly at director level posts in two regulators. She was also secretary to a newly created board of a regulator. In these posts she learnt first-hand the benefits good governance and non-executives bring to an organisation. Observing how many regulated bodies, operated at board level enabled her to see a variety of organisational structures and identify the importance of clear accountabilities, whatever the size of the organisation.
Now Fiona combines providing consultancy advice with a number of voluntary governance roles: as a non-executive director of a charity, a member of a regulatory committee for a regulated body, as a school governor and as a trustee of her local church. Each provides its own challenges, opportunities and learning.
Helen Holly is a qualified and experienced trainer and consultant, with experience of training across the police, health, social care, education and charity sectors.
An experienced investigator and interviewer, she worked for over 10 years in Thames Valley Police, specialising as a Detective within Public Protection - which included Child Abuse Investigation, high risk Domestic Abuse, abuse in care homes, so called ‘Honour Based Violence' and serious sexual offences.
Helen also has extensive experience as an advocate and a Children's Rights Manager supporting children and young people in care, and children and young people with disabilities. She is a Designated Safeguarding Manager, and also volunteers as a safeguarding governor for a primary school in Herefordshire.
This breadth of experience has led to Helen has designing and delivering training nationally in a wide range of areas, including: safeguarding for adults and children; Domestic Abuse; Care Act, Mental Capacity Act and Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards; Transition from Children's Services to Adult Social Care and the legislative framework; Investigative Skills; Advanced Interviewing; Achieving Best Evidence and Visually Recorded Interviews; Essential Communication Skills; Advanced Investigation of Financial Abuse; Preparation for Tribunals and giving evidence; Recording and Sharing Information; Minute Taking within Safeguarding; Chairing Safeguarding Meetings.
Helen really enjoys facilitating sessions for both large and small groups, and is able to maintain focus on the key learning outcomes whilst also enabling wider discussion and exploration of the broader aspects of professional development.
Helen is currently completing a part time Masters at Sheffield University in Language and Communication Impairment in Children.
Job Titles:
- Jason Marshall Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant / Leadership & Management
As a consultant, Jennifer has overseen the achievement of quality standards across a range of organisations for over 15 years. She has plenty of Board level experience, including being a founding member and still sits on the Newman Wellbeing Board, held the position as the RCCP Disciplinary Committee Lay Chair for 3 years, is a Trustee for Acocks Green COGOP and is an FRSA fellow.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Karen Stone Consultant
Dr Stone has over 15 years senior management experience within local authority and voluntary sectors. She was Operational Director of Action for Children, Wales from 2008 -2011 and previously for AfC West Midlands.
Karen has expertise and a record in delivering strategic change and sustainable results through decisive leadership and staff engagement. She has extensive experience of undertaking independent reviews of service practice across the UK and also of facilitating collaborative working with local authorities to improve outcomes for children. Karen has also provided consultation to Government of Uganda offering analysis and recommendations to increase leadership effectiveness and the efficiency of community based services.
Karen has a broad knowledge of the current social care agenda via research and engagement with a range of local authorities and voluntary organisations. C4EO Safeguarding Sector Specialist and experienced Safeguarding Peer Reviewer and Early Intervention Specialist Peer Reviewer. She also has specialist knowledge and experience of Adoption Diagnostics and Service Improvement, as well as development of local authority strategies in relation to Early Help and Children Looked After. Karen uses coaching, training and consultation to impact positively on outcomes for children.
Karen has an academic background, alongside her research and publication record. Her current book - Assessing Children at Risk, (with Neil Hall and Bob Trotman, Macmillians) is due for publication. Karen is also a renowned trainer and coach.
Job Titles:
- Managing Director
- Kate Goodall Managing Director
Kate has worked for Central since 2004, and was business manager from 2010. She has over 20 years of experience across the public, private and third sectors, including Government Office for the West Midlands, Advantage West Midlands, NHS, PwC, NEC Group and National Express. Kate was previously Company Secretary of a local Business Improvement District and founded Kings Heath Community Interest Company in 2016, which specialises in spearheading diverse community projects.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Kim Rutter Consultant
Kim Rutter is a very experienced communicator and has worked in digital marketing, PR, journalism and stakeholder engagement. She has a strong interest in existing and developing digital technologies and a thorough knowledge of how they can be used to improve organisational efficiency and reduce operational costs
She also has an extensive knowledge of the social care sector, which she developed at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) where she worked for 16 years. Kim took on a number of roles at SCIE, starting out in the communications team and then going on to develop skills in guideline implementation and practice improvement when she moved into the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) Collaborating Centre for Social Care, which was hosted by SCIE. One of the focuses of this work was dementia care. Kim gained experience of developing dementia training programmes and can offer training for level 2 and level 3 dementia qualifications. Alternatively, she can create a course tailor-made to your own requirements.
Kim worked closely with other care sector organisations, particularly the Care Quality Commission (CQC), to support services to adopt NICE evidence-based social care recommendations. Through this work, she gained an excellent understanding of how providers can improve standards and meet CQC requirements. Kim is passionate about person-centred care and brings this passion to all of her work with clients.
Job Titles:
- Laura Jerram Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant / Human Resources
Liz is an experienced HR generalist having worked for 25 years in a variety of HR roles with both the Ministry of Justice and the UK Serious Fraud Office ( SFO ) Most recently Liz was Head of Operational HR for the SFO with responsibility for the in-house delivery of a wide range of HR services as well as supporting the Head of HR in providing strategic HR across this high profile organisation.
Liz co-designed and led on the implementation a radical new approach to Managing Performance and also managed the project to develop and implement Pay and Grading changes.
With a background in providing advice and guidance up to Board level leadership teams Liz is also an experienced investigator of complex complaints, misconduct allegations and serious employee grievances. Trained by ACAS as a workplace mediator Liz has extensive experience of both formal and informal mediations on a range of cases including those involving senior managers as well as peer to peer conflicts.
Job Titles:
- Liz Patterson Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Lorraine Smith Consultant
Qualifications: Chartered Fellow FCIPD, Diploma in Management, Specialist Paralegal Practitioner Qualification in Employment Law
Lorraine is a flexible, results orientated practitioner with a strong drive to ‘get the job done'. Her HR and life experiences have been gained in both the commercial and not for profit environments, together with an early career background as an Officer in the Royal Navy. She has a successful track record of being able to adapt her experience to the many different organisations with whom she has worked, some of whom have been unionized.
She gains credibility and respect from senior management and employees alike in a short period of time. She has sound organisational and communication skills combined with empathy at an individual level.
Job Titles:
- Coach
- Consultant
- Director
- Trainer
- Consultant / Organisational Development
Mark is a highly experienced director, coach, trainer, facilitator and therapist.
He is a specialist in managing fear, change and conflict and has worked with large and small housing associations, charities, councils, faith organisations, Premier League football clubs, businesses, prisons, schools, colleges and universities. He appears on TV and Radio as an anger management advisor.
His early career was in export sales, account management and customer service across various sectors. He has set up two different companies, managed various teams of direct reports and as a 6 Sigma Certified Black Belt pulled together international groups of Subject Matter Experts and mediated between Vice Presidents to achieve common objectives.
He does not shock easily and delights in empowering individuals - he has experienced his position being made redundant and the power of an outplacement consultant. his work includes experiential anger management in prison, supporting survivors of domestic violence, frontline CSE and FGM staff, NHS hospital staff, providing youth engagement programmes, anti-bullying and assertiveness strategies.
He has a vast range of tools and experiences to draw upon and is the author of "How to get home safe - every day".
He continues to support Unseen as an Associate Modern Slavery Awareness Trainer.
Whether he is focusing on leadership training, customer experience, handling difficult conversations or personal safety, he always strives to deliver a talk, workshop, course, or consultation which delivers something Practical, Relevant and Realistic.
His work at railway companies for example has stopped physical assaults and driven verbal assaults down from an unacceptable level to 3 in 180,000 journeys.
Mark is a Certified Fear Adrenal Stress Trainer for Adults and Children, Chartered PSHE Practitioner, DiSC® Practitioner, Certified Havening Techniques® Practitioner, 2nd Dan Wado Ryu Black Belt, 6 Sigma Certified Black Belt and speaks and delivers all his expertise in fluent English and German. His degree is in Business and Marketing.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Maureen Daley Consultant
- Sector Specialist With C4EO
Maureen is a social work qualified and accomplished manager with 30 years' experience spread equally across Local Authority and the Voluntary Sector including 8 years as a Director of Children's Services for Action for Children. Since becoming a consultant in 2008, she has specialised in working in organisations looking at service improvement and performance management.
Maxine is a senior leader, interim executive and business change and governance consultant with more than twenty-five years' experience in diverse public and private housing, not for profit organisations and SMEs. As CEO of a community-led housing organisation she led the organisation through a major restructure and business transformation programme, delivering substantial improvements, cultural change, new business streams and local services. She substantially improved customer outcomes and satisfaction, and led the development of commercial services.
Maxine has also been Interim National Head of Independent Living Service for a large national Registered Provider, helping to restructure and transform older persons and supported living services, and Lead consultant and business advisor to Birmingham City Council during the roll out of flagship government regeneration programmes, including the Change for Children agenda. Her consultancy work has included providing training and support services to newly formed organisations delivering complex health and support services to a range of vulnerable adults living independently in the community, and supporting Trustees and staff to transform failing community children's and family services provision. Maxine is the former Vice Chair and a Board trustee for the South Birmingham Young Homeless Project
Maxine has a strong track record in developing vision and strategy; business analysis and review; delivering business transformation, implementing and embedding change; new business initiatives and services improvements; developing new governance structures and delivery models; and training and support for boards, trustees and senior teams.
Maxine has strategic and operational level experience in Human Resources and is a strong team builder, with excellent negotiation skills and a good understanding of risk. She is committed to ensuring value for money and tangible results, with a strong focus on change that is sustainable, helping businesses to adapt and evolve. She is committed to harnessing potential and creativity within organisations and within communities in order to make a lasting and sustainable difference.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Employee
- Peter Fitzsimmons Consultant
Peter Fitzsimmons has been working in Employee Relations, Human Resources and Training since 1979. Since 1988 he has worked as an HR & Training Consultant both in the private and public sectors and SME organizations in the UK and, all over the world.
He is experienced at working with Board members and senior personnel. He also has had considerable experience in Strategic Business Planning processes ensuring that the people issues within a plan are fully integrated and addressed to deliver company goals.
His work results in organizations world-wide having high quality Human Resources & employee Relations practices managed in a professional and legal manner - supported with Policies & Procedures - which support the organization to manage its people issues in a way that benefits both employees and the organization.
Peter has prepared and delivered very successfully a very wide range of training programmes & seminars in HR, Employee Relations, People Management Skills, Team Building skills, & Business Management skills, as well as other areas for employees from Board level down, senior managers, managers & employees.
His work has included spending a few years working as a Consultant for an American multinational in Washington D.C, Australia, Reading and the Hague addressing several human resources issues, upgrading their Performance Appraisal and Recruitment processes and documentation, and running a number of people Management and HR related seminars. In addition, he has undertaken ‘specialist sensitive reports' for the President.
He regularly deals with UK employment Law, advising clients on matters.
He has conducted many recruitment programmes for overseas & UK organizations, the largest managing a team of ten recruiting several hundred employees into bank's new call centres.
He regularly audits world-wide HR and Training departments for both effectiveness and legal compliance, preparing and implementing strategies for change.
Peter also addresses performance management issues for clients. He has undertaken a major review of Performance Management within the Civil Service in Kazakhstan on behalf of the E.C. and many other government & private organizations
He has been on a regular basis involved in drawing up world-wide HR Policies, and Procedures, Disciplinary & Grievance documentation, employee handbooks, Contracts and other statutory documentation - which are essential to ensure compliance with employment law requirements, and which can assist in avoiding Employment Tribunal situations. Peter regularly conducts confidential investigations and prepares reports for companies on sensitive issues.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant / Organisational Development
- Organisational Development Specialist
Rita is an organisational development specialist with over 30 years experience in the private, public and voluntary sectors. She is passionate about working with others to support personal, organisational & system transformation to improve community engagement, health and well-being, and reducing health inequalities.
Rita is one of the first NHS validated system organisational development leaders in the UK. She is strongly values led and works collaboratively with others to enable change.
As Director of Organisational Development (OD) for Sheffield Health and Social Care NHS FT, Rita was responsible for all aspects of the OD strategy to deliver strategic priorities and a complex culture transformation programme of work. This included leading the OD team and enabling others through matrix working to design, deliver and evaluate innovative OD and change interventions.
In her previous role as the Leaders in Greater Manchester (LiGM) Programme Director, Rita was responsible for leading a major culture transformation programme and ensure engagement across all boroughs and sectors in Greater Manchester. This involved working with all public services, the voluntary sector, senior leaders and multi-disciplinary teams at a system level; to develop leaders, support cultural change and bring about transformation across the region.
Prior to this Rita worked with Manchester CCG's and Manchester City Council, providing organisational development support for the Working Better Together Programme. She has also worked with Stockport Together, supporting the major transformation programme across the health and social care partners in Stockport.
Rita's past roles include Assistant Director for Organisational Development and Learning at Stockport NHS Foundation Trust; Head of Client Development for The Beech Centre; Leadership Programme Manager for the Improvement Foundation and Lead Consultant with Oliver Wyman Leadership Development.
Rita also spent seven years as Head of Learning and Development with Compass Group, the largest foodservice organisation in the UK & Ireland, where she led the implementation of a national award-winning learning and change programme for a new IT system.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant / Governance & Organisational Development
Sabah is an award-winning professional with 10 years' business development experience in sectors management consulting, energy and automotive including Bentley Motors and Nissan. Sabah has worked across a range of transformation projects and is well-rounded with experience in consulting, coaching, strategy, change management, project management, business architecture and product marketing. She is a qualified coach and passionate about the power of coaching in supporting individuals and organisations to achieve their goals.
Sabah's experience spans implementing both technical and non-technical changes. Stakeholder and relationship management is at the heart of her approach which she uses to bring everyone along the journey to ensure each project's success.
Outside of work, Sabah keeps herself very active in her community and her commitment was recognised by being chosen as a Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth Games Queen's Batonbearer. She is Vice-President of Future Faces Chamber of Commerce supporting the development of young professionals in Greater Birmingham and Charity Board Trustee of Birmingham & Solihull Women's Aid, fighting to end violence against women and children. Sabah loves sewing and has transformed her life by training in Muay Thai boxing for nine years, stepping into the ring on multiple occasions to continually challenge herself. She is also an aspiring presenter and YouTuber talking about topics on personal and professional development.
Sally Layland qualified as a social worker in 1994 and has considerable practice experience in a range of social work settings.
Sally became an Independent Social Work Consultant in 2005 and in order to direct her specific passion in social work in supporting the rights of the most vulnerable people in our society, she sought a good working understanding of social care law, so she could advise, enable and stand up for these people. In practice this translated to training practitioners at all levels, concerning their responsibilities when Safeguarding Adults, MCA 2005, Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards, The Care Act, Person-Centred Risk Assessments and Best Practice in Recording. She has also undertaken independent MCA assessments and Best Interests decisions, Independent Chair in dispute Adult Safeguarding situations, various Case File and DoLS audits and supporting councils with Safeguarding Adult's policy reviews.
Job Titles:
- Sally Watson Consultant
Job Titles:
- Lead Consultant - Social Care
Sarah Clay is a qualified, experienced trainer and consultant with expertise in training and facilitation of managers, staff and volunteers, organisational strategic development, anti-discriminatory practice, senior staff mentoring, action research and project evaluation. Over the past 29 years she has worked in and with a broad range of community, youth and social care organisations within the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors.
Since 2002 Sarah has worked as a training consultant for a range of large and small companies. She regularly delivers training programmes to social work, supported housing and youth work staff/managers as well as volunteers and individuals returning to employment. She is an associate trainer with a large national Children's Charity delivering a broad range of training to managers and staff including: Supervision Skills, Effective Recording Practice, Equality & Diversity and Safeguarding. During 2012-14 she worked as a part time Further Education Lecturer teaching on an Access Course and Enrichment programme and received an outstanding grade for her teaching.
Sarah has been part of Central's Social Care team delivering large scale programmes related to community care for a number of years. This has included numerous programmes providing core skills in person-centred, outcomes focussed assessment and care/support planning, most recently as part of the implementation of the Care Act 2014in several authorities. Enabling delegates to gain a working knowledge of social care legislation has been an important aspect of programmes. She has also been involved in improving the learning opportunities for parents of adopted children and delivering training programmes for supported housing staff who work with young people and community interpreters.
When facilitating learning, Sarah uses her counselling/mediation skills to listen to delegates, promote discussion within the training room and challenge when necessary, always with a view to supporting them in their professional development. Her experience of delivering a wide range of nationally and locally accredited courses influences her robust approach to all training commissions including a clear focus on the achievement and assessment of specified learning outcomes.
In 2014 Sarah became a volunteer Dementia Friend Champion. She also brings an understanding of adult social care from the perspective of a carer of an elderly relative.
Job Titles:
- Sarah Groves Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Sarah Pilkington Consultant
Sarah has worked in adult social care for over 25 years, with a background in learning disabilities and dual diagnosis. For the past 13 years she has specialised in adult safeguarding and helped to develop the first national competency framework for this. She is the author of a national training resource on adult safeguarding published by Skills for Care. Sarah has a particular interest in the impact of domestic abuse on women with disabilities and recently completed a Masters focussing on this area of practice. Sarah has also authored practice guidance for local authority social workers, including assessment tools for self-neglect cases.
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Stephanie Bamford Consultant
Stephanie Bamford is an experienced consultant with an extensive background in governance, assurance, compliance, strategic reviews, regulation and communications. She has worked previously in both the public and the private sectors. She is a Trustee of the Town and Country Planning Association. She is immediate past Chair of the UNECE CHLM's Housing Advisory Network, and recently retired after completing 9 years' service as a NED with A2Dominon HG.
Job Titles:
- Susanne Evans Consultant
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Consultant / Governance & Organisational Development
Vikki has over 20 years of housing and public sector experience at operational and strategic levels combined with central services roles in performance and inspection. She has a broad knowledge of the sector, academic understanding and operational experience of management, leadership and personal performance. She has worked with service users and tenants, operational teams, executive personnel in both local and national organisations. She holds two non-executive roles as well as working with clients from the public, private and charitable sectors to improve leadership, governance and organisational resilience.
Vikki is passionate about supporting staff to operate at their optimum potential whatever their role and believes that successful organisations are built on high performing individuals and teams. She has recently worked with Sage Online University and Lambent Productions to provide a 'Strength Based Leadership' resource for students.