REVOLVING DOORS - Key Persons
Andy's job is to make sure the voices and experiences of people caught in the revolving door inspire us, shape policy and set our priorities. He has worked in this type of role since 2004 primarily in the homeless, mental health and substance use sectors, including eleven years at St Mungo's. During that time he has established lived experience employment and volunteer schemes, forums, delivered peer research projects and set up the first recovery college outside the NHS. In his spare time he plays a lot of football, supports Charlton Athletic and loves going to gigs, where he admits he's stuck in a 90s electronica, techno, indie time warp!
"If you focus on abilities and provide opportunities, people can transform their lives. Involvement leads to a more creative way of working and I'm excited by the potential of peer support to empower people. I've seen the idea of involvement evolve from something tokenistic or ‘too difficult' to an exciting time where those with lived experience are genuinely setting the agenda and shaping services. There's still more to achieve ─ we're only beginning to understand the true impact of this approach."
Carol Hedderman is a researcher by training and inclination. Her working life was spent both inside government and in academia as a criminologist trying to ensure that government policy was informed by research in all its forms. She is particularly interested in understanding sentencers' decision making, especially in relation to women; the use and enforcement of community sentences; and the role of the voluntary sector in making involvement in the criminal justice system less harmful. She finally left government service as Assistant Director of the Home Office Research and Statistics Directorate with particular responsibility for all research and statistics on prison and probation. During her academic career she served on the Parole Board and acted as advisor to the Organization of American States as well as a number of UK based-charities. She retired from academic life as Professor of Criminology at the University of Leicester. Her involvement in Revolving Doors stems from a belief that for the criminal justice system to have any social value it must be informed by the views and experiences of those caught up in it.
Job Titles:
- Director of Policy, Research and Communications
Cordelia leads the Policy, Research and Communications directorate at Revolving Doors. It is Cordelia's job to bring together all of these different elements to push for real change and to make the criminal justice system work for those stuck in the revolving door of crisis and crime.
Cordelia has over eight years' experience as a policy expert, including over five years within the specialist women's sector. Cordelia started her career as a human rights campaigner at the United Nations, focusing specifically on arbitrary detention, freedom of expression, freedom of religion or belief and male violence against women and girls (VAWG). Cordelia has managed several policy and public affairs teams, including at some of the largest specialist women's service providers in the country. Cordelia oversees all of the research, policy and communications work of Revolving Doors and specialises in establishing an evidence base for best practice in supporting women who have experienced male violence against women and girls (VAWG), and developing long-term systems change recommendations. For the past few years, this work has focused on women who have had contact with the criminal justice system as a result of trauma and abuse.
As Involvement Manager at Revolving Doors, Emma works supporting lived experience members so they can strategically shape, influence and impact on research and policy. She has a background in support work with people experiencing multiple disadvantage. She previously worked as a Lived Experience Advisor for NHS England Health & Justice, leading lived experience on the National Women in prison Health and Social Care Review.
Through her work as a Health & Justice Advisor and Lived Experience Involvement Consultant at Revolving Doors, she has contributed to the design and delivery of services and programmes to improve outcomes for people involved in the criminal justice system. Emma is passionate about system change and equality in partnership with people with lived experience.
Emma supports lived experience members to strategically shape, influence and impact on research and policy, as well as overall organisational processes. She organises and supports the growth, impact and reach of the Regional Lived Experience Forums and Women's Forum. Emma also leads on a range of projects nationally such as the Lived Experience Team (LET).
Job Titles:
- Consultant
- Advisor to the Justice Select Committee
Gemma Buckland spent twelve years as an advisor to the Justice Select Committee in the UK parliament. This brought her into close contact with those who make decisions on our behalf. She led influential inquiries on prisons, probation, crime reduction and the treatment of young adults and women in the criminal just system. She is now the director of Do It Justice, a research and advocacy consultancy.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Associate Director Public and Social Policy
Imogen Parker is Associate Director Public and Social Policy at the Ada Lovelace Institute. She led the scoping and development of the Institute in partnership of the Nuffield Foundation, the Alan Turing Institute, the British Academy, Luminate, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Royal Society, the Royal Statistical Society, techUK and Wellcome. She is also a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University's Centre for Science and Policy and has first-class degrees from both the University of Oxford (BA MAOxon) and the London Consortium (MRes).
She has a decade and a half of experience working on the intersections of social justice, policy research and technology. She worked with Baroness Kidron to create 5Rights, the children's digital rights charity. Other roles include Head of the Nuffield Foundation's programmes on Justice, Rights and Digital Society, acting Head of Policy Research for Citizens and Democracy at Citizens Advice head office, and Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR).
She is passionate about lived experience, amplifying public voice and convening diverse voices to influence policy, and is proud to serve as a trustee of Revolving Doors, an organisation that works with service users ensure those with multiple problems and poor mental health are supported to reach their full potential, stopping the revolving door of crisis and crime.
After studying Forensic Psychology and Criminal Justice at Liverpool John Moores University, Jenna joined the Home Office, where she's worked for the last 12 years. She began her career managing claimants through the asylum process and supporting unaccompanied asylum seeking children.
In 2008, Jenna became a policy adviser on domestic abuse and has since worked in a number of roles covering a range of social justice policies. These have included neighbourhood policing, honour-based violence, female genital mutilation, drug strategy and crime prevention. She has also worked as a private secretary to four Home Office Ministers, responsible for crime and policing issues.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Board Director and Head of Health at Grayling
Kathryn is a Board Director and Head of Health at Grayling, a global communications agency. She has more than twenty years' experience providing communications advice and reputation support for clients in the public and private sectors. She has particular expertise in healthcare, having worked for clients including the Department for Health, hospital Trusts and clinical commissioning groups, and arm's length bodies such as Health Education England and the Care Quality Commission. In the private sector she has worked for global brands including the Mayo Clinic and United Healthcare. Kathryn was formerly chair of the PRCA public sector group and is a regular judge on industry award panels.
Katy is our Head of Partnerships. She was previously with Nacro where she managed the Offender Health Collaborative of which Revolving Doors is a key partner. She learned her project management skills at UNESCO in Paris where for over a decade she worked on programmes from open technologies for education to HIV and health education. She then returned to the UK the long way round, completing a circumnavigation in the Clipper Round the World Yacht Race. This hasn't cured her of the sailing bug - her best weekends are those spent on the water.
Lauren is our Evaluations Manager. She leads on our evaluation projects and aims to design and deliver high-quality research, and ensure that our evaluation findings are communicated effectively so that lessons can be learnt across the criminal justice, and other sectors. Before joining Revolving Doors, Lauren spent more than five years at Learning and Work Institute where she managed research and evaluation projects, with a particular focus on disability employment. In her spare time, Lauren enjoys watching football (especially when Spurs win), listening to podcasts and exploring new places in London and beyond.
"I am excited to join Revolving Doors because of the range of interesting and important projects I will have the opportunity to work on. I am passionate about using research to create positive change. Working at RDA provides a unique opportunity to incorporate the perspectives and skills of our lived experience team and the expertise of the policy team, to think about how our project findings can be used to have an impact within services, the wider system and society at large."
Job Titles:
- Income Generation Consultant
Leah has almost two decades experience as a senior manager and fundraiser in the voluntary sector where she has worked in, and with, organisations to be help them become more effective through a combination of support services covering governance, strategy, income generation and implementation. Her consulting work specialises in fundraising and strategic planning and includes support to a range of local and national charities and social enterprises - both generating income directly and advising senior staff on related matters.
Job Titles:
- Senior Involvement Manager
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Vice - Chair of Trustees
Max is vice-chair of trustees at Revolving Doors. His day job is Director of grant programmes at People's Health Trust, a grant-making charity addressing health inequalities. Max was previously Head of policy and practice at the Association of Charitable Foundations, the membership body for grant-making charities in the UK, where he led its Stronger Foundations initiative. He also worked for the Barrow Cadbury Trust where he led its criminal justice programme, and served as a member of the Charities SORP Committee for three years. He has been a trustee of a brain injury charity and his local council for voluntary services.
Job Titles:
- Member Engagement Coordinator
Pavan is our Chief Executive. She is an equalities and human rights expert and has worked across many sectors for more than 15 years. These have ranged from grassroots community organising to high level advocacy in the UK and internationally.
Pavan has a special interest in criminal justice, education and women's sexual and reproductive health rights. Most recently she led the Corporate Affairs directorate at MHA, the largest elderly social care provider in the UK, including their Covid-19 management response.
Prior to this, Pavan was Director of Public Affairs and Policy at the British Humanist Association and Vice President of the European Humanist Federation. There she worked on areas as varied as secularism, social cohesion, LGBT rights, women's sexual and reproductive health rights and assisted dying.
Pavan started her career at the 1990 Trust and Race on the Agenda, two social justice and race equality organisations. A founding member of the UK/US collaborative initiative Equanomics UK, she was also a trustee of CRJ UK, a charity working to tackle disproportionality in the criminal justice system. She is currently on the board of the Public Law Project.
Spending more time indoors due to Covid-19 has led Pavan to reignite a passion for reading fiction. Her top recommendation from 2020 was ‘On earth we're briefly gorgeous' by Ocean Vuong.
Saadiya is a practising solicitor, with over 20 years' experience in Criminal and Human Rights Litigation.
She has represented clients from all backgrounds and ages on a wide range of criminal matters in all courts in England and Wales.
Saadiya has built a reputation for handling complex cases involving young people caught up in gang-related crime and county lines offences. Over the years, she has seen first-hand the hugely detrimental effect that government cuts and policy changes have made to the criminal justice system. She has also seen the effect these have had on people caught up within the system.
Saadiya has helped her clients address breakdown in family relations, lack of resettlement and homelessness, inadequate provision for mental health or addiction issues and general medical treatment. She has also sat on a number of boards including St Georges Hospital Charity, Citizens Advice Bureau and has been a Governor at South Thames College.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Chairman of the Board of Trustees
Sarah studied French and Russian at university before joining the Prison Service's graduate scheme in the Home Office. After 24 years of working in the Prison Service, she moved to lead a policy unit in the Home Office's policing directorate. She then became Chief Executive of a charity, spent three years as the Chief Executive of Wales Probation, before becoming a Director in the Ministry of Justice with operational responsibility for prisons and probation services in Wales.
Since her retirement in 2016, Sarah has taken on a range of advisory and voluntary roles with a focus on health and all aspects of justice. She is the independent adviser to the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care on security in the three High Security Hospitals in England. She recently completed two years as a commissioner on the Commission on Justice in Wales, led by the former Lord Chief Justice Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd.
In 2016-17, Sarah was a member of the advisory panel for the Lammy Review on the treatment of, and outcomes for, Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people caught up in the criminal justice system. She is a member of the Inspector of Probation's advisory group and was recently appointed a Trustee of the Children's Society.
Sarah also draws on her experience as a senior manager to mentor - voluntarily - charity Chief Executives and other senior managers. Retirement from full-time work has provided more time for her to devote to her interests in travel, reading, art and gently keeping fit.
Sean Comes to us with over twenty years' experience in Adult Education and Higher Education, where he worked with many people coming from multiple disadvantaged backgrounds, supporting their journeys back into learning and supporting them back into the world of work or their journey onto Higher education. Sean has many years of experience as a trade unionist as well as an understanding of the criminal justice system with over five years' experience as a Magistrate. He has an M.A in Peace and Conflict studies which supports his interest in International Relations and a keen interest in community development.
Sean supports lived experience members to create system change and influence criminal justice agencies, including through training with Integrated Officer Management services. He acts as a coordinator for the National Experts Citizens Group (NECG) which brings statutory services and the voice of lived experience together to improve systems and services for those facing multiple disadvantage.
"I have a great passion for social justice and supporting grass roots organisations, helping to bring to fruition the hopes, dreams and aspirations of those considered marginalised."
Stephanie qualified as a solicitor in Banking & Finance Law in 2006 at Olswang LLP. Since then, she has worked in the legal teams at a number of financial institutions, including Barclays Bank PLC. She has over 13 years' experience and expertise in corporate law and became the sole legal counsel of the London Branch of a German private bank in 2005.
Over the last four years, Stephanie has gained general legal experience dealing with matters ranging from employment law, intellectual property rights and regulatory law to real estate and construction matters.
Tessa Webb has had an extensive career with the probation service, beginning in 1980 at a bail hostel in Oxfordshire. She worked as a probation officer in London and Essex for many years, before progressing through a range of training, management and leadership roles. These have included Deputy Head of Public Protection at the Home Office and CEO for Hertfordshire Probation Trust.
As a director for the Probation Chiefs Association Tessa was the lead for localism and improving the connectivity between probation services and local services. She was appointed an Officer of the British Empire January 2015 for services to probation, and currently works with H M Inspectorate of Probation.
Zahra is our Policy Manager, who works to coordinate our influencing and communications relating to policing and diversion, sentencing and probation, resettlement, multiple disadvantage, and systems change. Before joining Revolving Doors, Zahra worked for Clinks on health and criminal justice policy and development. She spent over two years in India working for a grassroots human rights organisation, advocating for reproductive rights and documenting the experiences of Rohingya refugees in India.