trustees
Jean Stogdon
Jean Stogdon, chair, and co-founder was for many years a social worker, Social Services manager and guardian ad litem. She has long been interested in the role of grandparents and until 1999 was chair of the Grandparents Federation. A Winston Churchill Travelling Fellowship enabled her to study the role of grandparents within kinship care in the USA and convinced her that in many situations grandparents and other kin should be the first and preferred choice for the care and protection of children when parents are unable to fulfil this role.
Elaine Arnold
Elaine Arnold became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2005. She qualified as a teacher in Trinidad and Tobago, West Indies and taught for several years before changing career to Psychiatric Social Work. She worked in Child Guidance in Trinidad and in Brighton England before supervising social work students of Wandsworth Social Services, and taught Social Work at Goldsmiths College and Sussex University. She researched the effects on children of broken attachments from mothers and extended families through Immigration from the West Indies to Britain. After retiring from Sussex University, she was Director of training for Nafsiyat Intercultural Therapy Centre. She is currently Director of Separation-Reunion Forum which aims to raise awareness of the effects of broken attachments, separation and loss across the lifespan.
Stephen Burke
Stephen Burke became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2003. He is Chief Executive of Counsel and Care a charity giving advice and information to older people, their relatives and carers across the UK. Previously he was Director of the Daycare Trust which campaigns for quality affordable childcare for all. He has over twenty years' experience in public relations, fundraising, journalism and management in national organisations. His work has been recognised in several major public relation awards. As a local councillor, non-executive director of a health trust and trustee of several charities, he has been involved in a wide range of community initiatives seeking to address disadvantage.
Stephen Burke became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2003. He is Chief Executive of Counsel and Care a charity giving advice and information to older people, their relatives and carers across the UK. Previously he was Director of the Daycare Trust which campaigns for quality affordable childcare for all. He has over twenty years' experience in public relations, fundraising, journalism and management in national organisations. His work has been recognised in several major public relation awards. As a local councillor, non-executive director of a health trust and trustee of several charities, he has been involved in a wide range of community initiatives seeking to address disadvantage.
Dean Casswell
Dean Casswell became a trustee of Grandparents Plus in 2007 and is currently our treasurer. Dean is director of Finance and Fundraising with the charity Contact a Family and he has been with them since 1991. Contact a Family is the only UK-wide charity providing advice, information and support to the parents (and grandparents) of disabled children - no matter their medical condition. He has an MBA and an MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management. He became a step-grandparent at the age of 34.
Jill Curtis
Jill Curtis became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2005. She is a Consultant Psychotherapist in a private health clinic, has been a full-time Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Practice since 1981 and was formerly a psychiatric Social Worker at Tooting Bec Hospital. She runs a website which offers support to parents and grandparents on a variety of issues. She is the author of a number of books on parenting issues: Where's Daddy?, a book about helping children after a divorce; Making and Breaking Families, 'The Way Ahead for Parents and their Children'; Find Your Way through Divorce; Does Your Child have a Hidden Disability? and How to Get Married ... Again, a guide to second weddings.
Geoff Dench
Geoff Dench for many years honorary research adviser to Grandparents plus was appointed a trustee in 2007. He has a BA and MA in Archaeology & Anthropology from Cambridge and a PhD in Social Institutions from the LSE. He worked as research assistant at the Institute of Community Studies from 1962 to 1966 before returning to it as research associate in 1992 and research fellow in 1999. Meantime, he became Professor and Head of the School of Sociology and Social Policy at Middlesex Polytechnic and then Professor of Sociology at Middlesex University. He has a special interest in grandparenting and amongst his many publications are: Grandmothers of the revolution (ed.) Hear Trust, London, 2000; Grandmothers: the changing culture (ed.) Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, 2000; and Grandparenting in Britain (with Jim Ogg). Institute of Community Studies, London, 2002.
Maria Hamilton
Maria Hamilton is a co-founder and partner in the law firm, McMillen, Hamilton McCarthy. Maria specialises in family work, focusing predominantly on care and adoption. Maria is a member of the Law Society Children Panel. She sits on the panel of the Independent Review Mechanism, which prospective adopters can use when they have been told that their adoption agency does not propose to approve them as being suitable to adopt a child. Maria is a member of the Law Society Access to Justice Committee.
Jan Pahl
Jan Pahl became a Trustee of Grandparents plus in 2003. She is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent and has a long-standing interest in research on families and family issues. Her work on the control and allocation of money within the family led to the publication of Money and Marriage (1989) and Invisible Money: Family Finances in the Electronic Economy (1999). Her research on domestic violence was published as Private Violence and Public Policy (1985) and recognised by invitations to represent the UK at international meetings organised by the UN, WHO and others. Jan Pahl has worked as a researcher in the health service, was Director of Research at the National Institute for Social Work, and is currently advising the Department of Health on research governance in social care. She also very much enjoys being involved with her six grandchildren, who range in age from teenagers to toddlers.
Jan Pahl became a Trustee of Grandparents plus in 2003. She is Professor of Social Policy at the University of Kent and has a long-standing interest in research on families and family issues. Her work on the control and allocation of money within the family led to the publication of Money and Marriage (1989) and Invisible Money: Family Finances in the Electronic Economy (1999). Her research on domestic violence was published as Private Violence and Public Policy (1985) and recognised by invitations to represent the UK at international meetings organised by the UN, WHO and others. Jan Pahl has worked as a researcher in the health service, was Director of Research at the National Institute for Social Work, and is currently advising the Department of Health on research governance in social care. She also very much enjoys being involved with her six grandchildren, who range in age from teenagers to toddlers.
Judith Trowell
Judith Trowell became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2004. She is Professor of Child Mental Health and Director of the CAMHS Learning and Development Centre at University College, Worcester. She is also a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, a research fellow with Dartington Social Policy Unit, an independent expert to child abuse enquiries and a medical legal expert. She has published a range of research and books on children and their families.
Judith Trowell became a trustee of Grandparents plus in 2004. She is Professor of Child Mental Health and Director of the CAMHS Learning and Development Centre at University College, Worcester. She is also a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist at the Tavistock Clinic, a research fellow with Dartington Social Policy Unit, an independent expert to child abuse enquiries and a medical legal expert. She has published a range of research and books on children and their families.
