NAGALRO Working Groups

Editorial Group: Ann Haigh, Judy Tomlinson, Chris Rivers

ISW Directory Group: Karen Harris, Ann Way, Sue Clarke

Training Group: Carol Edwards, Eva Gregory, Karen Harris,  Ann Way, Ann Haigh

Policy Officer: Judith Timms

Judith Timms O.B.E., M.A. (Econ.) is Policy Adviser to NAGALRO. She is the founder, a patron and former Chief Executive of the National Youth Advocacy Service. She was a Board member of Cafcass (Children and Family Court Advisory and Support Service) from March 2004 - April 2008 and has many years’ experience as a Children’s Guardian and Independent Social Worker. She has also had an extensive involvement in the training of guardians. She is a Honorary Research Fellow in the Faculty of Law at the University of Liverpool, a Vice President of the Family Mediators Association and a former Chair of The British Association of Social Workers. She has also served as a non-executive director on both regional and area health authorities. She was appointed O.B.E. for services to young people in June 2000.

Her publications include:

· Department of Health’s Manual of Practice Guidance for Guardians ad Litem and Reporting Officers (H.M.S.O. 1992)

· Children’s Representation: A Practitioner’s Guide (Sweet and Maxwell, 1995)

· Effective Support Services for Children and Young People when Parental Relations Break Down: A Child-Centred Approach (co-author) (Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1999)

· Your Shout! The Views of 706 Children and Young People in Public Care (NSPCC, 2003), written with June Thoburn as part of the NSPCC’s Review of Legislation Relating to Children in Family Proceedings to which she acted as Independent Consultant.

· Your Shout Too! A Survey of the Views of Children and Young People who have had their Residence and Contact Arrangements ordered by the Courts’ with June Thoburn and Sue Bailey (NSPCC 2007).

Press Officer: Alison Paddle

Alison Paddle is NAGALRO’s Press and Publicity Officer. She works in the North West of England as an independent social worker and freelance Children’s Guardian and runs a small adoption support agency providing therapeutic support to adoptive and foster families. Alison was Chair of Nagalro from 2003-8, and having become a Council member in 2000 and served as Vice Chair for a year. She spent ten years as a part-time tutor on professional social work courses at Lancaster University and has undertaken training and mentoring on post-qualifying child care courses. She has written articles on family law practice and policy that have been published in Seen & Heard, Representing Children, Family Law Journal and Childright.

NAGALRO sends representatives to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Children (APPGC), NYAS, NAPO, BAAF (Adoption Regulations), Surrogacy, President's Interdisciplinary Group, Child Law UK),  and a range of Cafcass professional groups

NAGALRO maintains close links with the Association of Lawyers for Children, SFLA, Law Society Children Panel, ChildRIght, Bapscan.