Kevin Lowe

Co-Director, Young People in Focus

Young people in focus helps individuals and organisations working with young people and families to provide better services by:

• carrying out research and evaluating services
• running projects that develop professional practice
• producing practical resources such as guides, toolkits and training packs
• training professionals in a wide range of topics
• influencing policy-makers.

We work across the UK and cover: health and emotional wellbeing; learning and education; parenting and family life; youth social action and participation; and youth justice.

Fiona Weir

Chief Executive, Gingerbread

Fiona Weir started as Chief Executive of Gingerbread in April 2008. Gingerbread was formed from the merger of the two largest single parent family charities in 2007, bringing together the policy and service delivery experience of One Parent Families with the grass roots reach of Gingerbread, working together to provide better support and a bigger voice to Britain’s 1.9 million single parents and their children.

Fiona Weir has extensive experience in senior management roles in the voluntary sector, working from 2002-2007 as Director of Policy and Communications for Save the Children. She has held similar roles with Consumers Association, Amnesty International UK and Friends of the Earth.

Dr Jane Evans

Research and Policy Officer, Barnardos

Dr Jane Evans has a PhD from the Institute of Education. She is a Research and Policy Officer for Barnardo’s leading on education research and contributing to Barnardo’s policy influencing work on education. Recent research focuses on the implications for disadvantaged young people of raising the participation age from 2013. Second Chances (March 2009) explored effective practice with young people who risk being not in employment education and training (NEET).

Teen mothers are 7 times more likely to be NEET so Not the End of the Story: supporting teenage mothers back into education (March 2010) takes an in-depth look at teen mothers’ support needs.

Teen mothers are often excluded from school, so Jane is currently researching work and practice to prevent school exclusions for secondary school pupils.

Kate Billingham

Project Director, Department of Health

Kate Billingham originally trained as a paediatric nurse before becoming a health visitor. She worked as a health visitor for 10 years before setting up a health project for young parents in Nottingham in the 1980s. Since then she held a number of posts in primary care and public health development before working as a public health specialist in Sheffield. Kate joined the Department of Health in 2001 where she was Deputy Chief Nursing Officer at the DH until June 2007 when she became the project director for the Family Nurse Partnership Programme. She is a visiting Professor at Kings College London and Fellow of the Queens Nursing Institute and The Faculty of Public Health.

Nona Dawson

Research Fellow, University of Bristol

Nona Dawson, a research fellow at Bristol University and expert on teenage pregnancy, made a study of 10 local authorities in England.She found that young mothers developed a new-found ‘belief’ in education - not just for their own sake but also for their child(rsq)s.The most successful schemes were where teenage mothers attended pupil referral units, rather than going back to school.

‘These young women are generally disfranchised before they become pregnant’ she said. ‘Education was not a priority.’

Maureen McDaid

Participation and Commissioning, Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council

Maureen has been involved in youth work for over thirty years. She has held a number of posts in the field of youth services starting as a centre based youth worker in Belfast in 1979. Other work experiences include some time in St Helens as a Community Development Worker. In 1989, she moved to Wirral where she has held a number of posts as Area Youth Officer, Deputy Principal Youth Officer and in 1996 she was appointed Principal Youth Officer. Since 1996, Maureen has been involved in a number of initiatives which were developed to promote engagement in learning by young people are vulnerable and hard to reach. This has involved partnership working with schools, health services, Job Centre Plus and the Voluntary and Community Sector.

Maureen’s experience was significantly broadened when she was seconded in 2002 to 2004 into the then Department for Education’s Youth Service Unit National policy Unit. Her remit was to support and advise on the implementation of the Transforming Youth Work Policy agenda. Other work areas have included being an Additional Inspector for Ofsted and being involved in inspections of Youth services, Youth Offending Services and Connexions. In 2008, Maureen was the lead inspector of Wiltshire’s enhanced youth inspection.

In 2008, Maureen took up her post in Wirral as Principal Manager for Commissioning and Participation. This work has resulted in the commissioning of activities both to promote the engagement and achievement of young people through their involvement in positive activities but also to provide appropriate support to vulnerable young people. As strategy lead for the Making a Positive Contribution strategy group, Maureen is responsible for the monitoring and effective implementation of strategies that have been devised to address issues ranging from youth offending, teenage pregnancy and the exclusion of young people.

Tracey Hind

UK Youth

Tracy Hind is a freelance youth & community development consultant and trainer with 20 years’ experience working in both statutory and voluntary sector settings. She is an Associate Consultant of UK Youth and WSA Community Consultants and an Associate Tutor at Sussex University where she teaches on social exclusion, equal opportunities and reflective practice. Much of her work focuses on equality, and she has a particular interest in how our own personal attitudes and values impact on our commitment to equality.

Gailyn Groves

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Gailyn Groves is Development Officer for Parental Support and has worked for ContinYou since 2001. Gailyn has developed several Parental Support programmes including Share Plus and has also developed engagement programmes such as

Gill Frances

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Gill Frances is an independent consultant and Chair of the Teenage Pregnancy Independent Advisory Group. She was a former Director of the Sex Education Forum and Director of the Well

Carmel Bartley

Family Support Manager, Bliss

Sarah Lowndes

Young Parents Project, Axiom Housing Association