Board of Trustees

Details of the current members of the Board of Trustees are below:

Dr Sarah Davidson MBE
Sarah is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist in a nationwide, specialist children and young people’s service at the Tavistock & Portman NHS Foundation Trust. She is the Deputy Clinical Director on the Professional Clinical Psychology Doctorial Programme, and Programme Leader of the MSc in International Humanitarian Psychosocial Consultation at the University of East London. She is the Psychosocial Advisor for the British Red Cross, and was previously the Vice Chair of the British Red Cross Board of Trustees. She is also Trustee on the Board of Interhealth

Dewi Hughes
Dewi has twelve years' experience as an educational psychologist including several years representing colleagues on the National Executive Committee of the Association of Educational Psychologists, which involves serving on the Professional Policies Committee. Through this work he has access to peer reviews of educational and psychological research on child and adolescent development. He brings a psychological perspective to the work of the Board and to the issues which NCB is currently working with.

Chris Born
Currently at North Somerset Primary Care Trust, Chris has worked for the NHS as chief executive for 19 years. This involved heading a mental health NHS trust, including services for children and young people and running two Primary Care Trusts in Bristol and North Somerset. Chris was a founder member of the local Children's Trust arrangements in Bristol and then chair of the Children and Families partnership (previously the Children’s trust) in North Somerset. He has also worked for MIND, the mental health voluntary organisation, for the Department of Health and for local government as a social worker and social care manager. His main interests are in developing integrated, community-based services, closer to people’s homes and reducing reliance on acute hospitals and out of area placements for patient care.

David Rimington, Treasurer
David is married with two adult children. He has worked as an accountant in the commercial sector for most of his career. He has served as a trustee for Together Working for Well-being, a mental health services charity of a similar size to NCB, and was formerly a trustee of its pension fund. He has also undertaken work for the homelessness charity Shelter and is involved with young people as secretary of his local canoe club.

Peter Phippen
Peter is Managing Director of BBC Magazines. He is a Director of BBC Worldwide, one of the UK’s fastest growing commercial media companies. He is also Chairman of joint venture media businesses in Australia and India. Previously, Peter was President and Chief Executive Officer of BBC Worldwide Americas, Inc. based in NYC, where he was responsible for expanding the company’s range of products in the U.S., including TV sales and a number of TV channels. Peter is married to a Speech and Language Therapist, has four children (three of them still in full-time education), and lives in Buckinghamshire. His interests include playing jazz piano, competing in triathlons, history and the countryside.

Dame Gillian Pugh, Chair
Dame Gillian Pugh retired in 2005 as Chief Executive of Coram Family, a leading children’s charity which aims to develop and promote best practice in the care and support of very vulnerable children and their families. She has published widely, including London’s Forgotten Children: Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital (2008) and Contemporary Issues in the Early Years (5th edition 2009). Gillian chaired the Advisory Committee for the Cambridge Primary Review and is a co-author of the final report Children, their World, their Education (Routledge 2009). In addition to chairing the National Children’s Bureau, Gillian is President of the National Childminding Association, and a vice President of Early Education. Gillian is on the panel of the Family Justice Review, is a member of the Children’s Workforce Development Council, is on the Board of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, and is visiting Professor at the Institute of Education, She has advised governments in this country and overseas on policies for children and families, and was an advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee for children, schools and families. She was awarded the DBE in 2005 for services to children and families.

Jane Held, Vice Chair
Jane Held took retirement from local government service in April 2004 and is now running her own consultancy company. Her background is in children’s social work and she began her career working in children’s homes. She was Director of Social Services in Camden before retiring and previously Director in Southend on Sea. She was also co-chair of the Children and Families Committee of the Association of Directors of Social Services for three years. She has worked with a range of national bodies in the last three years, has published a range of reports and reviews and is on the Board on the Children’s Workforce Development Council, and a Trustee for Family Action and for the Fostering Network. She is currently the Independent Chair of the Suffolk Permanence Panel and also the Independent Chair of the Leeds Safeguarding Board as well as an Associate for the LGID Safeguarding Programme. She has 32 years’ experience in social care and has a national reputation and profile as a child care expert.

Hugh McLaughlin
Hugh is a registered social worker and is currently Professor of Social Work at Manchester Metropolitan University. Before moving into academia, he was an assistant director of a local authority's child and family services. His current research and publications include the meaningful involvement of young service users in evaluating/researching social care provision, developing a research informed social work practice and the development of learning organisations. Hugh is also chair of the trustee board for After Adoption, a member of the advisory group for Involve (NIHR) and a member of SCIE’s Partner Council. He offers a broad perspective in terms of social policy, practice and research to contribute to the achievement of the aims of the NCB.

Mike Greig FCMA, MA, MSc
Mike recently took early retirement following a career as Chief Financial Officer of public technology businesses, including most recently 20 years with RM Education plc, to allow him to pursue other interests. He is currently a non-executive director of Aberforth Geared Income Trust, a listed Investment Trust, a trustee of 4 other charities and a pension scheme. He and his wife are foster carers and in particular therapeutic foster carers for children with disrupted backgrounds and challenging behaviours. This work led them to help establish a charity to support vulnerable families and help teach them to be successful parents. They are also involved in pastoral care in their local church.

Cecile Wright
Cecile is Professor of Sociology at Nottingham Trent University, researching issues of education, social justice with particular reference to ‘race’, social class and ethnicity. She is the author of over 100 publications including books, reports and journals. Her recent publication is ‘Black Youth Matters’: From School to Success (2010) (with Standen and Patel), pub Routledge. She has been a member of various Government Advisory Groups, focusing on issues of education.

Kate Thompson
Kate is Director of Children’s Services at South Eastern Trust, Belfast. She was appointed to NCB’s Board of Trustees in November 2008.

Young Board representatives
There are two young Board members, appointed by Young NCB.  The roles are filled on a rotational basis from a pool of six young representatives who also fill the four young places on NCB's Membership Forum. 

Company Secretary: Lynne Stackhouse
email: lstackhouse@ncb.org.uk
Phone: 020 7843 6011

 

Honorary officers

There are three honorary officers, elected by the full membership:

Dame Gillian Pugh, Chair
Dame Gillian Pugh retired in 2005 as Chief Executive of Coram Family, a leading children’s charity which aims to develop and promote best practice in the care and support of very vulnerable children and their families.  She has published widely, including London’s Forgotten Children: Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital (2008) and Contemporary Issues in the Early Years (5th edition 2009).   Gillian chaired the Advisory Committee for the Cambridge Primary Review and is a co-author of the final report Children, their World, their Education (Routledge 2009).  She is chair of the National Children’s Bureau, President of the National Childminding Association, and a vice President of Early Education.  Gillian is on the panel of the Family Justice Review, is a member of the Children’s Workforce Development Council, is on the Board of the Training and Development Agency for Schools, and is visiting Professor at the Institute of Education,  She has advised governments in this country and overseas on policies for children and families, and was an advisor to the House of Commons Select Committee for children, schools and families. She was awarded the DBE in 2005 for services to children and families.


Jane Held, Vice Chair
Jane Held took retirement from local government service in April 2004 and is now running her own consultancy company.  She was Director of Social Services in Camden before retiring and previously Director in Southend on Sea. She was also co-chair of the Children and Families Committee of the Association of Directors of Social Services for three years. She served on the NSF CAMHS External Working Group. She was a founding member of the Inter-Agency Group (IAG). During that period she was co-author of Serving Children Well, the discussion paper that stimulated Every Child Matters, and was responsible for negotiations on ECM with DCSF in her ADSS role. She has 28 years’ experience in social care and has a national reputation and profile as a child care expert.


David Rimington, Treasurer
David is married with two adult children. He has worked as an accountant in the commercial sector for most of his career. He has served as a trustee for Together Working for Well-being, a mental health services charity of a similar size to NCB, and was formerly a trustee of its pension fund. He has also undertaken work for the homelessness charity Shelter and is involved with young people as secretary of his local canoe club.

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