Lucia Winters

Senior Development Officer, National Transition Support Team

Lucia has worked at the Council for Disabled Children since 2002. Lucia works in the transition team at the Council where she runs the Transition Information Network (TIN), which is based at the Council. TIN is a source of information and good practice standards around transition for disabled young people, families and professionals. As well as producing a range of publications and resources for young people, families and professionals TIN works with government departments and service providers to influence policy developments at a national, regional and local level.

Lucia was an author on a transition guide, published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in 2007. Lucia is also involved in work focusing on young people with learning disabilities in the criminal justice system.

In November 2008 Lucia took on the role of Policy and Planning Coordinator for the National Transition Support Team, which is based at the Council for Disabled Children and works on the Transition Support Programme.

Tim Swingler

Project Director, Soundbeam

Tim Swingler trained in psychology and as a teacher and worked as coordinator for a music education charity before setting up the Soundbeam Project in 1990. He is founder member of the UK National Community Music Association and has been a regular contributor to the International Society for Music Education (ISME) commission on Music in Special Education, Music Therapy and Music Medicine. He has run workshops and courses on the uses of music and music technology for children and adults with disabilities throughout the world.

Richard Hawkes

Chief Executive, Scope

Richard Hawkes is Chief Executive of disability charity Scope. Scope runs services and campaigns that support disabled people to have the same opportunities as everyone else. They are experts in working with people who have complex support needs and cerebral palsy. Prior to this Richard was the International Programmes Director of VSO, with responsibility for VSO’s programmes in more than 40 countries across the world, and the Chief Executive of Sense International, an international charity working throughout the world for people who are both deaf and blind. He has also worked for a variety of national and international organisations, including the United Nations in Vienna.

Richard also holds a number of non-executive roles. He is a member of the BBC Appeals Advisory Committee and a Trustee of Skills

Richard Selwyn

Commissioning Support Programme

Richard is a national expert in efficiency and commissioning for local and central government. He is currently the Commissioning Support Programme national lead for efficiency and has worked on major government change programmes for more than 10 years.

In 2005 Richard led the national change programme which redesigned the joint planning and commissioning of all children’s services. Key elements of this approach were then adopted by the major central government departments. Richard’s career however started in the Ministry of Defence in 1996 working on international naval procurement projects and space engineering. He then progressed through the Department of Health and Department for Education and Skills where he was a policy lead for Children’s Trusts and the consequent national service redesign. Richard is now a consultant, originally working for PriceWaterhouseCoopers before moving to PIPC UK Ltd where he has continued a career managing major change programmes.

Richard is the primary author of the HMG Joint Planning and Commissioning Framework for Children, Young People and Maternity Services; CSP Achieving Better Outcomes: Commissioning in Children’s Services; CSP Commissioning Development Programme training; DfE Change Management Jigsaw; and has been published in leading sector newspapers and magazines.

Rob Fountain

Head of Training, Consultancy and Events, Shared Care Network

Rob Fountain is a qualified social worker who has worked in both statutory and voluntary sector roles, largely in services for people with disabilities. For several years he worked as a lecturer in social work and joined Shared Care Network in January 2009 to develop the organisation’s training service. Shared Care Network - the short break charity - has existed since 1990 with a remit to promote more and better short breaks for disabled children. Shared Care Network offers learning opportunties to all parts of the sector - from managers & commissioners, to practitioners and short break carers.

Professor Geoff Lindsay

Director, CEDAR, University of Warwick

Liz Sayce

Chief Executive, RADAR

Kate Martin

Making Ourselves Heard, Council for Disabled Children

Ruth Owen

Chief Executive, Whizz-Kidz

Helen Wheatley

National Transition Support Team,, The Council for Disabled Children

Esther Burridge

Daycare Trust

Lucy Aston

Senior project worker, The Children’s Society’s Disability Advocacy Project

Philippa Stobbs

Principal officer, Council for Disabled Children