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Officers and Council members of NAGALRO take
part in many other social work related activities, aside from their work
as Children's Guardians and members of the Council. Their roles as Officers
and Council members may advise or enhance these other roles and vice
versa. However, when a member has a personal interest in an activity in
which NAGALRO has a current role which is not related to their official NAGALRO role, it is
essential that the Council is informed and that no approaches are made to another organisation which could represent
a conflict of interest either for the member or for NAGALRO. Such
personal interests, which may involve research, consultation or training,
should be advised to the
Council prior to any outside
undertaking.
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Ann Haigh -
Chair
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Ann brings experience of being
a practitioner and manager in social services and in the voluntary sector. She has been a Children's Guardian for
10 years and served on governmental working groups including Chief
Justice Thorpe's committee assisting the Bulgarian Government on their
child care legislation. Ann has actively lobbied to bring about change in adoption and the
Human Fertilisation and Embryology legislation.
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Sue Clarke –-
Secretary
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Sue first qualified as a
Probation Officer in 1989, working as a Family Court Welfare Officer. She
has worked in a variety of social services settings including
Child Protection and Adoption and Fostering, where she gained
extensive experience in Public and Private Law both as a practitioner and
manager. In 2001 she moved to
London and worked as a Service Manager for CAFCASS. Sue currently works
as an Independent Social Worker undertaking independent
assessments in Court proceedings and for Local Authorities. She
also works as a Children's Guardian
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Sukhchandan Kaur
– Vice Chair
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Sukhchandan is
an indepencent social worker based in the Midlands.
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Polly Baynes
– South West
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Polly is currently a self-employed guardian, independent social
worker and trainer. Polly has a particular interest in life story work and family violence.
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Sarah
Saunders – South East
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Sarah
qualified as a social worker in 1979, having worked in local authority
social work since 1973. She has an early background in generic social
work followed by a specialisation in children and families work including
fostering and adoption. She became a GALRO in 1984 working in this role
until 2002. She served on three Panels and two Panel Committees at
different times. She has worked as an ISW since 1998 and as an Expert
Witness from the same time. Sarah has also undertaken training and
complaints work in the past. She has has experience of working as an
independent chair for Case Conferences and Looked After Children reviews.
She was also involved in the original development of the NAGALRO Directory believing that it is vital that NAGALRO
also represents the needs of ISWs and that as an organisation it should
be instrumental in setting high standards in this area of work. Sarah's
main interest is in neglect and why this does not receive the profile it
deserves in relation to
children's welfare and development, even though the evidence of harm to children through neglect is now much better
researched and understood.
This was the subject of her dissertation when completing her MSc in
Professional Studies (Children and the Courts) in 2002.
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Chris Rivers
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Chris has been a social worker and
manager in the NW region and has specialised since 1980 in permanency
planning, adoption, child protection and later GALRO work and acquired
almost 20 years managerial experience. He first became a Children’s
Guardian in 1984 as a member of the Merseyside and Cheshire Galro panels,
taking his last case in 2007.
Chris contributed to
the pre-Cafcass project team work and set up the Cafcass Smartgroup
online forum in 2000 to
promote the exchange of views and information prior to Cafcass Vesting Day. After experience as a Cafcass service
manager he became self-employed and now works mainly as an independent
social worker, undertaking family-finding, post-adoption support and
family court assessments. His
areas of particular interest are the impact of antenatal substance
misuse, parents with learning disabilities and sibling contact.
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Judy Tomlinson
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Following
over ten years working in local authority as a social worker in children
and family teams she became a children’s guardian in 1993. She now works
as an independent social worker in the North West providing reports in both
private and public family law proceedings. She has worked for NYAS since
1994 as an advocate and as a caseworker, representing children under rule
9.5. She was appointed to
NAGALRO Council in 2003 and has been secretary since 2006.
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Ann Way,
Treasurer
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Ann has been a member of the
Norfolk panel since 1993 and is also a freelance researcher. She was
employed for over 20 years in a variety of social work and related posts,
including research and teaching. For some time Ann worked directly
with children and young people and their families during which time she
came to specialise in child
protection work, permanency planning and adoption. She has worked
on 2 studies commissioned by the DoH relating to
the operation of the Children Act 1989 under the directorship of Professor June Thoburn at the
Centre for Research on the Child and Family, University of East Anglia.
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Kathy Butcher - London
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Kathy has been a Children's
Guardian in London since 1986. Before that she worked as a social
worker in mental health, then with children and families.
Eventually she took a post as
a Principal Officer managing homes for children, day nurseries and family
centres. She established a family centre jointly between the local
authority and National Children's Homes. Currently Kathy is a
senior lecturer in public sector
management and human resource management. Kathy joined the council to work towards
the enhancement and development of the role of the guardian and to influence developments of the service.
Kathy has taken part in organising training and conferences for guardians.
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Julia Denning –
South East
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Julia qualified as a social
worker in 1973 and began a career specialising in work with children and
families. In 1975 Julia was hired to
work in a non-profit adoption and fostering agency in Philadelphia where
she developed clinical supervision and management skills and undertook a pilot study researching patterns of
fostering outcomes. In 1991 Julia returned to
the UK and in 1994 resumed her career as a Local Authority senior social
worker and subsequently Assistant Team Manager for a large L.A. Adoption
Team specialising in domestic and intercountry adoption, family
assessment and training before becoming an Independent Social Worker and
trainer in 2002.
Julia has a particular interest
in attachment issues and completed the initial training in Theraplay last
year at the Theraplay Institute, Chicago.
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Paul Greenhalgh
– North Yorkshire
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Paul Greenhalgh began working
in statutory child care 35
years ago. He has managed Child Placement Services in two local
authorities and a voluntary sector
Adoption Agency. For the past thirteen years Paul has operated as an
independent child care practitioner, mainly within the court setting, and
has worked as a Children’s Guardian for the past nine years. He has been
a member of several Child Placement Panels and independent sector Fostering Panels, and has also undertaken
formal complaints as an independent investigator
for a number of social welfare agencies.
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Eva Gregory –
South East
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Eva has worked as a Guardian
since 1985. Eva initially trained as a probation officer and as a
psychiatric social worker. She has worked in psychiatric hospital and in
the community mental health service; but has also worked as a researcher
and management consultant in a private research organisation and has held
senior management posts in social services and education
departments. Eva is now appointed as an external assessor and
examiner to three university
social work courses. She is also engaged by two local authorities as an
independent investigator of
complaints under the Children Act and Community Care Acts.
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