SCHOOL-HOME SUPPORT - Key Persons
Adele works to support the Family Intervention team, and administers the Welfare Fund. Her background is primarily in delivering training workshops within the public sector, and coordinating global conferences for creative and innovative marketing and event companies. Adele is also training to become an Accredited Psychotherapist to support the mental health and wellbeing of children and adults.
AJ leads the Finance and HR function across the organisation. After over 25 years in commerce, AJ moved into the non-profit sector and has been working with charities for over six years. She is passionate about supporting the whole School-Home Support team and helping drive operations and strategy to reach more families and young people.
Alec leads the Fundraising Team and is responsible for developing and delivering the associated Fundraising and Marketing strategy for the charity. His team works across School-Home Support to support communications needs and ensure we have enough voluntary income to deliver many of our services. Alec has worked across fundraising and marketing at a senior level for the past 15 years.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Head of Education at the Children
Alice is Head of Education at the Children's Commissioner's Office. Her research ranges from supporting children who are severely absent and excluded from school to creating training opportunities to address regional skills gaps. Alice advocates for policy change in Westminster. Through her previous role at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) and now at the Children's Commissioner's Office, Alice has experience in devising political campaigns and working with politicians to help deliver legislative reform.
Amy has spent the last ten years working within schools in a safeguarding and family engagement capacity in areas that present significant challenges. Her experience includes engaging with families and professionals to make sure families are accessing the best possible support. She knows and understands the importance of fostering good relationships and is passionate about relational practice when working with children and their families.
Ashleigh is part of School-Home Support's fundraising team, where she manages relationships with some of our trust and foundation funders. Before joining School-Home Support, Ashleigh worked with the British Red Cross, a responsible investment charity and a local homelessness organisation.
Beth is our Communications and Marketing Executive, supporting the delivery of all of School-Home Support's communications activity. She has recently completed a masters degree in Human Rights at the University of London, and is a long term volunteer for a number of community-led charities. She currently mentors a young person through The Kids Network.
Briana is part of our Corporate Partnerships team, managing existing relationships as well as helping to grow our account base. She has previously worked at a Superleague rugby club in both the foundation and commercial sales team, before moving on to a regional account management role. Briana is now working in the charity sector where she feels her true passion lies.
Job Titles:
- Group Digital Marketing Manager
- Vice Chair of Trustees
Carly is the Group Digital Marketing Manager at Aviva and Director of The Giving Department, a specialist consultancy that believes in the business case for corporate social responsibility. With almost two decades of experience in marketing and communications, Carly has a passion for embracing the ever-changing digital landscape.
Carol has worked in primary and secondary schools as a DDSL and Safeguarding Officer for over 12 years. Prior to this she worked in PR and Communication roles. Carol is also an experienced foster carer and works alongside her husband and two adult children, and has been fostering children and young people for over 16 years. She is passionate about expanding and enhancing the life outcomes of all children and young people and understands the importance of schools working in partnership with families in order to best achieve this.
Cat is responsible for shaping, implementing and strengthening the organisation's digital processes and infrastructure to support School-Home Support's growth into a national charity. With over thirty years' experience in IT, training, and operations delivery and management, Cat is passionate about driving forwards professional standards through effective systems and being impact evidence led with contributions to strategic decisions so that School-Home Support's expertise benefits families nationally.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Trustees
- Strategic Business Leader
Charles is a strategic business leader, financier and growth specialist with expertise across banking, small-medium and large corporates as well as charities. He is founder of consultancy and investment firm Karlsrock. Previously, he has held senior roles at firms including Anglo Irish Bank, Novell Inc., and Wall Street Systems. While at these firms, he successfully drove profit through prudent investment, treasury, asset and liability management, deal origination and structuring, sales and marketing. In his spare time, Charles has represented Ireland at an international level, most recently playing in the European and World Cup touch rugby championships.
Dan is a director and advisor to a number of events industry companies: Cuil Bay Capital, Raccoon Media Group and Pendragon Media Group. He is also a non-executive director of AIM listed Interecede Group plc, a cybersecurity software company. He was CFO and Chief Operating Officer at events organiser Tarsus Group for 12 years until its recent sale, and is a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW). He has worked as a finance director of listed and private equity owned companies across the media sector over the last 20 years.
Danielle has recently returned to School-Home Support as Coordinator for Liverpool and Blackpool and will be managing the new and exciting partnership with Liverpool Schools and the new team of outreach practitioners. Prior to School-Home Support, Danielle taught RE and Ethics to secondary school pupils. She has trained and mentored new teachers and worked in many schools in Greater Manchester and Merseyside in a variety of different teaching and middle leadership roles. Danielle is passionate about social change which is why she first joined School-Home Support as a practitioner in early 2022.
David is a highly experienced Executive Head Teacher of an All-through 3-19 community school. He has worked in diverse inner-city schools for 40 years. He is passionate about social justice and improving the life chances of every child through access to high quality education and health care.
Dominic has over 15 years experience with local and national youth organisations across both charity and local authority sectors - evaluating project impact and tracking performance, growth and outcomes using statistical data. As Impact Development Manager he leads on developing the collection and demonstration of the impact of our work, to be used as part of our growth strategy and supporting School-Home Support to become an impact driven organisation.
Eleanor is responsible for School-Home Support's corporate engagement. Her team works with businesses to raise the income needed to fund our programmes and to create direct, positive impact for the young people and families that we support. She has ten years experience building corporate-charity partnerships and is passionate about education and enabling young people to reach their potential.
Emma's role is to support and grow the School-Home Support profile in the north of England and manage teams of School-Home Support Practitioners in Bradford and Manchester. With over 20 years' experience working in the charity and education sectors, Emma's background includes working closely with schools as a Relationship Manager as well as creating and delivering training to schools for a leading examination board. She held the role of team leader (Manchester) in a children's charity which provided literacy interventions for children aged 3 to 16. Her most recent appointment was with Manchester Metropolitan University at the Centre for Youth Studies, where she facilitated research in this area.
Emma is currently Business Change Manager at the London School for Economics and Political Science. She has previously held leadership roles in the charity sector, including Director of Education for LGBT+ young people's charity Just Like Us. She specialises in effective organisational management, as well as how external providers can work with schools to improve life chances for children and young people. She began her career as a secondary school teacher and has always been committed to making the most of the transformative power of education.
Emma is responsible for School-Home Support's trust and foundation funders. She is passionate about equality of opportunity and ensuring access to education for children and young people. She has worked in the charity sector for over 10 years, building partnerships with a wide range of trust and foundations and enjoys developing opportunities for grantmakers to have a real impact.
Enkita works in the Fundraising team, managing existing relationships with our Corporate Partners and identifying new, potential funders. Having worked on numerous charity projects and causes, she remains passionate about supporting young people.
Evelyn works in the business development team, interpreting market intelligence and data, seeking new opportunities for growth and developing relationships with new and existing schools and local authorities. She regularly volunteers with food waste and community action charities.
Helen is responsible for delivering the SAFE Taskforce for School-Home Support in Bradford, working across 10 secondary Schools to deliver good practice around attendance and family support. Helen has worked in the charity sector for over 20 years, working firstly with missing young people and sexual exploitation, before becoming a team leader for Barnardo's to deliver a bespoke program around NEET to vulnerable young people across Yorkshire and Humberside. Helen has also worked as a teacher for an alternative provision to try and keep young people in education. Helen has also been a volunteer and director of an out of school club called Funtastik, set up as a cooperative to enable single parents to access good, affordable childcare to enable them to continue to work or get back into education.
Helen is responsible for School-Home Support Major Gift Funders. As someone who believes education is one of the key components to social mobility and life chances for young people, she is committed to children accessing education. Helen has worked for a variety of charities and has 25 years experience in the sector, specialising in Major Gift philanthropy.
Ibrahim is our IT Assistant, and his role is to assist the IT Manager with all the day to day tasks involved in the running of School-Home Support's IT systems. Ibrahim has a degree in Computer Networks from the University of East London.
Working with the Board of Trustees and others in the management team, Jaine is instrumental in developing strategies to reach more young people, thereby ensuring that they have the support they need to thrive and achieve; and along the way, responding effectively to changing demands and other external factors. She is passionate about the work of School-Home Support, having seen first hand the impact and positive change our work has on young lives. Jaine has over thirty years' experience in managing early intervention and community health services.
Jonathan received his bachelor's degree in Business Management and Accounting from the University of London South Bank. Within the finance and human resource team of School-Home Support, Jonathan is responsible for financial and office administration.
Job Titles:
- Chairman of Fundraising and Marketing Committee
Joseph has 23 years of experience working in charities supporting children, young people and their families in the UK to build better futures. Joseph has been Chief Executive of Buttle UK for five years and has previously held senior fundraising, and communications roles at Depaul UK, Action for Children and The Prince's Trust. He is also Chair of the End Child Poverty Coalition, a group of 110+ organisations dedicated to the cause of alleviating child poverty.
Josephine is our Finance Manager, handling all of School-Home Support's day to day financial activities. Josephine has over 18 years experience working in various sectors in finance. Before joining School-Home Support, Josephine worked for Bridgestreet Accommodations London as a Management Accountant for 9 years.
Our newest charity patron is actress and Royal, Lady Sophie Windsor.
Laura joined the SHS board in March 2020 and particularly supports the Impact Committee, having chaired it at its inception. She currently works as Deputy Director at the Social Mobility Commission, an arms length body to the Cabinet Office addressing Social Mobility across the UK. She has previously held Director roles at The Sutton Trust and led programme delivery, partnerships and impact in the charity and university sectors, as well as a range of trustee and advisory roles.
Luke's role as Data Lead consists of analysing the data submitted, finding trends which we can use to further develop the work we do within the community, as well as using the data to promote our work externally. Luke has experience as a Data Analyst from two previous charities, managing and analysing the impact of charitable work.
Maggie is responsible for managing all of School-Home Support's family intervention services, ensuring professional standards and outcomes are the best they can possibly be. Maggie has been working in services for children and families for over fifteen years.
Job Titles:
- Trustee
- Founding CEO of Learning Ladders Education
Matt is the Founding CEO of Learning Ladders Education, a mission-driven EdTech platform that improves school data management and parental engagement for International Schools. Matt is a former teacher, education author, speaker and also an elected Executive Council member for BESA (British Educational Suppliers Association), and a co-founder of the EdTech Evidence Group. Prior to switching to a career in education Matt was MD of a successful Marketing agency in London. He is also a parent, school governor and charity trustee.
Melissa works closely with the Development Manager, Chief Executive Officer and wider team members, providing executive support including research, planning, governance and administrative support. She wanted to work for School-Home Support as she shares the same values and is passionate that all young people should get the support they need to help them thrive.
Michelle is an education leader with over two decades' experience working in education, leading schools including, most recently, as Headteacher. As an educational consultant, she provides support to individuals, schools and to trusts; her specialism is in leadership development and values-led cultural and organisational change. Michelle is also a lay Education Quality Assurance Inspector for Social Work England.
Job Titles:
- HR Administrator at School - Home Support
Millie is the HR Administrator at School-Home Support, supporting the HR team in the development and delivery of HR and recruitment administration services. She comes with a history of administrative roles within the charity sector. Her interest in pursuing a career in HR stems from a position she held at an SEN school where she was responsible for the recruitment admin of school staff. During her role with School-Home Support, she plans to study for her CIPD and is passionate about supporting the work we do.
Natalie has a decade of experience in case work and family support, primarily within a Local Authority, although more recently for a small charity. She is a believer in an holistic approach to removing barriers to enable young people and their families to fulfill their true potentials. Natalie's role now is to support the practitioners within Croydon, Eastbourne, Kent and Medway helping them to improve outcomes for the families on their caseloads.
Nicola's role is to increase the impact School-Home Support has on children and families in England's northern regions, as well as manage the team of School-Home Support practitioners there. She previously worked for a charity offering literacy interventions to children aged 3-16, having spent many years working with other organisations offering various support to nurseries, schools and sixth form colleges. Nicola has also mentored underprivileged teenage girls in Manchester and volunteered as a co-elected school governor for four years.
Job Titles:
- Finance and Data Director at Winmark
Nikolai is Finance and Data Director at Winmark. He has over 20 years' experience providing financial governance and developing the data strategy for leading organisations in both the public and private sectors. Nikolai is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants (ICAEW).
Rachael leads School-Home Support's policy and public affairs work, raising our profile with Government and politicians and campaigning on the issues which matter most to the families we support. She has 20 years' experience helping a broad range of organisations engage with public policy makers in Whitehall, Westminster and the European Union. The daughter of two teachers, Rachael always had lots of support at home to help her flourish at school. She wants all children to have that same start she had.
Rachael is our Policy and Public Affairs Executive. To help schools get the support they need for children and families, Rachael builds engagement and relationships within Westminster and keeps the issue of school attendance at the forefront of the political debate. Her previous experience includes working in Parliament and in a public services think tank.
Sarah comes from a background of 20 years in primary education. Her previous role was deputy headteacher and DSL of a primary school in the heart of Blackpool. As a mum of 5, Sarah understands the ups and downs of family life. She is passionate about young people and families reaching their full potential and thriving by getting them the right support at the right time. Sarah is responsible for the safeguarding of our families, practitioners and central teams as well as leading the Pastoral Development Service.
HM Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London, Sir Kenneth Olisa, is the first black Briton to be appointed as Lord-Lieutenant of Greater London: the position means that he is the Queen's personal representative in the city.
Talitha is part of the Corporate Partnerships team primarily focusing on developing new partnerships. With a decade of experience working in the film / media industry and cultural non-profits, she strongly believes in the power of storytelling and collaboration to bring about social change and is thrilled to have found a home at School-Home-Support.
Job Titles:
- Creative Communications Specialist
Teresa is a creative communications specialist with a passion for storytelling, travelling and social justice. She has recently completed her research on gender roles and domestic violence prevention from a communications for social change (C4D) perspective. Teresa has several years of experience providing communication support for charities on projects relating to gender-violence prevention, economic empowerment for vulnerable youth, human rights and indigenous people's rights. She believes that when we all work together, we can achieve a better future for children, making sure they have access to health, quality education and protection against violence regardless of their background or origin.
Our charity patron, Tony Adams MBE, is a former football player and captain for Arsenal and England. He was born and raised in Romford and Dagenham; areas where School-Home Support has carried out its work for decades. Showing the world that you didn't have to come from a privileged background in order to achieve great success, he has been an inspiration to children throughout and beyond his sporting career.
"A few years ago, I attended one of School-Home Support's open days in Barking. I did so because I was working in Azerbaijan at the time, and I had come home to see worse conditions in the borough I was brought up than in Azerbaijan.
The fantastic work that School-Home Support has been doing for over thirty years helps children in the borough and beyond who are living in these conditions. This is an area which is very close to my heart; I grew up and went to school in Dagenham before being signed to Arsenal Football Club at the young age of 16. I was one of the lucky ones, but many young people in Barking & Dagenham and across the UK are growing up with low aspirations and limited opportunities.
Yadgar has responsibility for the updating and functioning of our IT systems, telecoms and online platforms to ensure their effective use by staff and members, and to provide reports and statistics from databases in order to demonstrate the charity's impact. He has a degree in Computer Networks from the University of East London.
Yun Hui is currently a senior legal consultant specialising in financial services and regulation. She has worked in the financial services sector for over 25 years in leadership roles working with senior stakeholders and executive management on matters of strategic and operational importance. Yun Hui is a dedicated advocate for diversity and inclusion in all aspects of her life, and in her career has striven to introduce and implement real structural change as well as changes in mindset, norms and perceptions as a driver for improving access and equality of opportunity. Her contributions have been recognised as those of a leader in conduct and ethics culture. Yun Hui is also a trustee at Sporting Equals promoting diversity across sport and physical activity at all levels.