Stephen Burke
Stephen Burke, Co-Chair, became a trustee of Grandparents Plus in 2003. He is co-Director of United for All Ages, an intergenerational social enterprise. He is also the former 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 20 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 the former director of Finance and Fundraising of Contact a Family. He is now Chief Executive of Bag Books, a UK-wide charity providing tactile and multi-sensory stories to people with learning disabilities. He has an MBA and an MSc in Charity Accounting and Financial Management. He became a step-grandparent at the age of 34.
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 and 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.) Hera 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.
Brian Dimmock
Brian Dimmock is the Principal Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Gloucestershire. He is a qualified social worker and family therapist. He currently also works for the 2Gether Mental Health Foundation Trust as a consultant family therapist and has previously worked for the Open University and University of Bath. Brian has also worked for Barnardos and the NSPCC. His research interests include family and family change, leadership and management.
Gladys Edwards
Gladys has an extensive background in Voluntary Sector Management and Medical Social Work. She recently retired, after ten years in post, as Chief Executive of The Psoriasis Association – a national charity supporting people living with psoriasis and their families. Prior to this she was Director of Milton Keynes Council of Voluntary Organisations supporting the development of local groups.
She was a hospital social worker in London and Milton Keynes working largely in paediatrics and maternity. She was also Area Director of Family Welfare Association in Milton Keynes managing different funded projects as well as supervising social work students and a team of volunteers.
Gladys has experience as a Trustee having served as a Director of the Skin Care Campaign and been a member of committees both national and local. She is currently a Trustee of Milton Keynes City Counselling Centre.
On a personal level Gladys is an involved grandmother to five grandchildren.
Patrick Grattan
Patrick Grattan set up the Equality and Diversity Forum in 2002. He also founded The Age and Employment Network (TAEN) in 1997 and was Chief Executive for 10 years to 2007. Patrick built up TAEN as a leading centre of expertise and policy body and as a network of organisations committed to better opportunities to learn, work and earn. He was appointed MBE in 2001 for this work. He was a member of advisory boards and groups for Government departments, the Learning and Skills Council, Jobcentre Plus and a number of voluntary organisations. He continues to work in a supporting role for TAEN.
Patrick has had a varied career in the Diplomatic Service and Civil Service and in the oil industry, working in the UK, the USA and France. He ran the operations of the Prince’s Youth Business Trust. He was a member of the Parole Board from 1997- 2003 and a former board member of Notting Hill Housing Trust. He is an active performing musician.
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.
Helen Jackson CBE
Helen Jackson was born near Leeds in 1939. She has lived in Sheffield for 35 years. Leaving Oxford in 1960 with a History degree she cared for her family of three and trained as a teacher, working mainly with special needs children. Elected to Sheffield City Council in 1980, she chaired the Economic Development and Works committees. She became MP for Sheffield Hillsborough in 1992. In 1997 she was appointed PPS to Mo Mowlam with a brief to liaise with women’s and community groups during the intense period of the Good Friday Agreement. Since leaving Parliament in 2005, she worked with the Equal Opportunities Commission to form the Women and Pension Network. She was appointed as a Commissioner for the Women’s National Commission in September 2008, and was a Trustee and Vice Chair of the Fawcett Society until recently. She teaches adults about Politics and Public Life, is a Trustee of Age Concern Sheffield, President of Homestart (Sheffield) and Chair of her local village green. She now plays an active role in the lives of her eight grandchildren aged 1 to 20.
She was awarded a CBE in the New Year Honours 2010 for her work in the South Yorkshire community, and the Women and Pension Network.
Stephen Mold
Stephen Mold is a Sales and Marketing professional; he leads the sales operations for leading US technology firm Roxio in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Stephen is a holder of the Institute of Directors Diploma in Company Direction which deals with Board best practice. Stephen has extensive international experience in Europe and the US, having managed European operations for a number of successful hi-tech Silicon Valley businesses. He brings strong commercial expertise and is comfortable working with new technologies and managing change.
Over the 3 years preceding the 2010 General Election Stephen was the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate in Derby North and narrowly lost by some 600 votes.
Stephen is married with two young boys and has a special interest in parenting and the wider support of families in whatever form.
Gail Pringle
Gail Pringle is an experienced and successful third sector professional who is an East Midlands committee member for the Heritage Lottery Fund. She works as an Agency Development Manager for Refugee Action. Gail has also worked for Leicester City Council as a project consultant and for Leicester University as a lecturer in sociology and media studies. She is also a parent representative at a nursery and a school appeals panel Chair. As a child, Gail’s wider family played an important part in her family life.
Jean Stogdon
Jean Stogdon, Co-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.
Pat Strachan
Pat has a great interest in later life developed over 27 years working and volunteering time with older people. She is an Older Person’s Services Manager for Peabody Housing Association.
Pat started at East Cambridgeshire District Council (as their first dedicated ‘Elderly Person Adviser’), later returning as the Head of their Strategic Housing Service. She managed leasehold and sheltered housing in 5 counties at Hanover Housing Association, and was Chief Executive at Age Concern Peterborough for 11 years. Pat joined Care and Repair England in April 2009 to promote the involvement of older people in housing in order to improve housing conditions, housing related services and plans across the South of England (South East, London and Eastern regions).
She is not a grandparent but has two sons who have benefitted from close relationships with their grandparents.
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.
