Team Biographies

Accreditation Panel

Susie Knight, Chair

Susie Knight has worked as a senior manager within the Learning and Skills Sector for some years. She is an experienced teacher in schools and colleges where she taught education and social care practice to care students. She moved into teacher training and worked with several universities to design and deliver teacher training programmes for the post-16 sector. She has managed a large department responsible for the delivery of a number of professional qualifications in teacher training, counselling and management. She was responsible for Quality and Development and led a large organisation through IIP in addition to other quality assessment processes. She worked on the original national group, developing the Standards for Assessment Practice in Training and Development, and has worked as an external verifier for a number of awarding bodies. For the last seven years she has been a free-lance consultant supporting organisations to improve quality and manage change. Until recently she was a part time Ofsted Inspector and she is currently a lead consultant for the Association of Colleges in auditing and inspecting management and governance processes in Further Education Colleges. Susie has also been a School Governor and was the Vice Chair of Governors for a large secondary school. She has served as a trustee on the board of a charity for the last seven years.

Libby Cooper, Member

Libby Cooper is Director of Amber Analysis - a research, evaluation and capacity building consultancy that works internationally and in the UK with charities, grant making organisations and central and local government departments. Libby has twenty-two years experience of working in the field of evaluation and organisational development in the UK and fourteen years experience of international working on development issues. In 1990 Libby was the founding Director of Charities Evaluation Services (CES), an organisation that was initiated by the British Government's Home Office to help improve the effectiveness of voluntary organisations through the use of evaluation and quality assurance. During that time Libby managed a programme of work to test out the relevance of the European Quality Model to the British voluntary sector and managed and contributed to the design of PQASSO - a quality assurance system for small organisations. Libby was a founding Board member of the UK Evaluation Society and sat on the Board of the Quality Standards Task Force, UK . In addition to her extensive experience of project and programme evaluation and consultancy, Libby has provided training in management, evaluation and institutional development to a wide range of initiatives and has conducted a variety of research studies in the UK and abroad. Prior to the Directorship of CES, Libby lectured in social research at North London University and founded and directed its Community Research Advisory Centre. She is a member of 'Women of Influence' an NSPCC fundraising group and a Trustee of Interact Worldwide.

John Banks, Member

John is a qualified accountant with an MBA from Warwick University. After an early career as an accountant, he worked in the newly emerging computer industry in systems design and development, becoming production director for one of the most successful computer businesses in the UK . He then had a brief but not unsuccessful couple of years in motor racing, both as a constructor and a driver, during which time he was co-founder of a small business involved in the sport which is still in operation thirty years later. He is now a trainer and writer in finance, management and business planning. He has also been involved with voluntary groups and organisations for most of his working life (usually as Treasurer!) He has been a Trustee of the Rural Media Company for 13 years and was Chair for 5 years. This is a fast-growing communications charity with a national reputation in participatory media production, working in a variety of media with young people and with rural communities. He has also worked with charities involved in international development, and as an Associate Fellow of Warwick University Business School has delivered training to clients from the public and voluntary sector. He has travelled and worked abroad extensively, and built his own house.

Assessors

Caroline Cook

Caroline Cook has over 20 years experience of working in the voluntary sector in a range of roles, including trustee/ management committee member, development worker, trainer, consultant, supervisor and mentor. Caroline has been the manager of a Volunteer Bureau and Director of an organisation supporting organisational development within the sector. As a consultant Caroline works with individual organisations, often undertaking organisational reviews and strategic planning processes, and with forums and partnerships. Specialisms include capacity building and volunteer management. She is a facilitator of action learning sets and delivers training in subject areas such as fundraising, leadership, emotional intelligence and supervision. Caroline is qualified as a community and youth worker and as a counsellor and has a MSc in Management Development and Social Responsibility from Bristol University.

Judith Ellis

Judith's career experience includes the management of a variety of local voluntary sector organisations, most recently the PRTC Carers Centre (North & West Oxfordshire). Judith has been a freelance consultant and trainer since 1999, offering change management support; training for health and social care professionals, and carers; and PQASSO training and consultancy for Charities Evaluation Services. She has undertaken evaluation of projects and supported user groups in self-evaluation. She also organises and facilitates conferences and courses in 'Involving Users and Carers'. Her management experience has also been used in a voluntary capacity, as a Trustee of colleges, voluntary and community organisations (including as Chair of Trustees). One of her current interests is co-ordinating a Community Archive for her local history society.

Chris Hickey

Chris has been an independent consultant and trainer in the not for profit sector since 1999. He has extensive senior management experience at strategic and operational levels having been the CEO of a national charity and is currently a Non Executive Director in the NHS. He has wide experience of staff management, project management, fundraising and devising and running training courses. His life work has been with those marginalized or disadvantaged in some way, for example young offenders, victims of domestic violence, the homeless, those with physical or learning disabilities and those suffering from long-term health problems. Chris has given much of his own time to working with voluntary organisations and charitable trusts. He has been on the Board of 5 different voluntary organisations and is currently the Chair of a Carers Charity.

Julia Kaufmann

Julia has had nearly 25 years experience in senior management positions in the voluntary sector. After 10 years as Gingerbread's first Director, she set up the charitable side of BBC Children in Need from scratch and ran it for 13 years. For the last 5 years she has been a part time commissioner for Postcomm, the regulator of the postal services and a freelance consultant in the voluntary sector, specialising in organisational reviews, programme evaluation, and capacity building. Julia is currently a trustee of 3 voluntary organisations, a member of the Charities Aid Fiundation Grants Advisory Panel, and principal advisor to a grant making trust, the John Lyon's Charity.

Marc Mordey

Brought up in Hereford , Marc has a wealth of experience of working in the voluntary sector, initially as a project worker in a night- shelter, and then as CEO of two Hampshire based charities. His work has involved management of people, finances and projects, and he has an empathetic approach coupled with a belief that voluntary organisations should be, and generally are both business-like and value-based. Marc has a particular focus on service user issues, and has good knowledge of the needs of people with mental health problems, as well as those with substance misuse related needs. As well as undertaking voluntary work in South India after university, Marc has been a Trustee of a number of organisations, including a Council Of Community Service, agencies working with young people, as well as a number of homelessness agencies. He has been a Chair of a MIND group and SW regional Chair for Children in Need. He is currently a Director of Pembrokeshire MIND, and a volunteer member of a group trying to establish affordable housing in Newport (Pembrokeshire) where he now lives.

Louise Smith

Louise has worked in the voluntary sector for most of her career but also has experience of assessment within the City & Guilds examining board. Louise worked for 7 years as Manager of a local Relate Centre then for 5 years as Governance and Quality Assurance Manager for Relate Central Office. She has also been a trustee and Chair within Relate. She now works as a consultant in the VCS as well as helping to manage her husband's osteopathic practice in Malvern. Over the past 15 years she has been centrally involved in Relate's development of membership standards and systems to ensure that these are maintained across the Relate Federation, including the use of peer review based on PQASSO. In 2003 Louise was appointed by NCVO in 2003 to act as NCVO Quality Champion for the West Midlands .

Accreditation Broker

Barbara Parkinson

Barbara has been involved in the voluntary sector in many capacities all her working life, with extensive experience in senior management as Chief Executive of two voluntary organisations, strategic leadership of the sector, locally and nationally, trustee and director of many organisations and advisor and consultant in the sector and across sectors. Her in-depth knowledge of Herefordshire's voluntary sector was gained during her long service as the Chief Officer of Voluntary Action - North Herefordshire when she was involved in delivering services to support and develop voluntary and community groups as well as establishing many joint initiatives in the County - including the inception of the Alliance . She holds strong principles on the value of the sector and in its ability to be responsive and resourceful and to shape policy development and service delivery, particularly in a rural context. She has keenly promoted joint and collaborative working, including partnership initiatives with the statutory sector, to maximise efforts and resources to better understand and meet the needs of communities and address disadvantage. Her recent independent work includes the development of Herefordshire Council's Voluntary and Community Strategy and research into joint commissioning of health and social care services for the Alliance . She is also working with Advantage West Midlands in rural regeneration across Herefordshire, Shropshire and Worcestershire. She is a trained counsellor, a member of the Chartered Institute of Management and has been engaged with the National Association of Councils for Voluntary Services Trustee Board for five years as Vice Chair. She is also a volunteer business mentor with Business in Prisons and Business Link specialising in social enterprise.

Contact Details

accreditation@allianceherefordshire.org.uk

01432 355976

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