Our staff

To Come

Deborah is a Children’s Services Implementation Consultant at CELCIS. She is a qualified children and families’ social worker with 20 years’ experience of working in child protection and early help and preventative work. Deborah is also an experienced Solihull Approach Trainer. Deborah believes that all children, young people and their families deserve the opportunity to be equal partners in how services that support them are shaped. She also believes that empathy, compassion, valuing each other’s differences and believing in other’s potential should be at the heart of everything we do. When not working, Deborah enjoys squeezing in a bit of running and general exercise, keeping up with friends & family from near, far and wide and listening to anything from early 90’s house anthems to Scottish folk music or Radio 6.

Joe comes to CELCIS with a background of almost 30 years in local authority work with children, young people and families, including youth work, groupwork, child protection practice and training. He is particularly interested in supporting the development of best practice in child protection and safeguarding and use of evidence and innovation to achieve positive change. A keen music fan and gig goer who also enjoys playing guitar and gigging himself, as well as exploring the great outdoors – when the Scottish weather permits!

Amy has a background in children’s residential care, supporting children with ASD and additional support needs. She has worked in the sector for over 10 years and more specifically within learning and development for the last 5 years. Her role at CELCIS is to help coordinate and manage the events that are hosted for workers across the children’s care sector.

Laura joins CELCIS from working as a social worker at Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership, and has 12 years’ experience working in children and families and fostering and adoption services. She also has experience of supporting families in a community addiction team.

Lorraine's been a registered social worker for 25 years, and still is. She's always worked with children and families, either in social work or learning and development settings. She remains a huge fan of the potential power of group work to bring out individual and collective strengths, and for solving problems. A dedicated gig-goer and music lover, Lorraine prefers small, sweaty and sticky-floored venues over gigantic arenas, but she'll go to see her all-time favourite band Admiral Fallow any time, any place.

Throughout Steven's career he has worked in organisations that support children and young people to improve their experiences and life opportunities. At CELCIS, he leads business development, financial planning and HR to ensure effective and efficient delivery of all of our services. As a Fellow of the Chartered Management Institute, and former graphic designer, Steven combines practical and creative approaches to problem solving. Steven also delivers inputs as a guest speaker on Leading Change, including partnerships with HR, at other UK Universities.

Emma has worked as a speech and language therapist for many years, specialising in autism. She has worked as a Speechie in a range of contexts, from the big blue skies of remote and regional Australia to a vibrant inner city Manchester. More recently, she was involved in the implementation of the Scottish Strategy for Autism, sitting on the National Governance Group. She currently works as part of the Protecting Children Programme team and is enjoying applying Active Implementation methodology to support whole systems change, in order to address neglect and enhance wellbeing. Emma enjoys going for a good stomp and discovering new bands at local venues.

Lynsey is admin for Professional Development Services and works to assist with international projects and provide support for the many learning and development opportunities available at CELCIS. She brings her experience from her various administration roles in the education sector which has developed an appreciation of lifelong learning. Away from work, Lynsey is happiest when spending time with her family and friends.

After completing a PhD in Statistics, Joanna spent several years working with children and young people in a community outreach setting. She is now marrying these two interests through her role as a Data Analyst at CELCIS, where she is primarily focused on researching outcomes for children and young people growing up in kinship care. Outside of work, Joanna is happiest when riding her bike, climbing a hill or splashing in puddles with her little ones.

Mairi is the Administrative Support for the Protecting Children Team at CELCIS having been with the Permanence and Care Team (PACT) since 2012. Mairi is also the Secretariat Support for Child Protection Committees Scotland so with her sensible, down-to-earth approach, Mairi keeps the busy team organised and working efficiently.

Katie has a great head for numbers. She keeps CELCIS right on the money with important financial, HR and contractual stuff. One of her most critical roles is to keep the staff up to speed with the dreaded Financial Management System. After bringing up five children, Katie has finally found some time for herself and uses it mainly for yoga and running. She's already completed the Berlin Half Marathon and is hatching plans to add swimming to her impressive activity repertoire.

Elaine is CHIP Learning and Development Lead at CELCIS.

Kirsty is CELCIS' resident legal eagle. She comes from a local authority and government background where she specialised in looked after children, child protection, and permanence, both in practice and in policy. She helped to deliver, and latterly led on, the PACE Programme which supported Councils and their partners to make improvements to the processes they use to secure permanent homes for looked after children. She was also part of the CELCIS team that produced the 'Staying Together and Connected' guidance to support the rights of brothers and sisters for the Scottish Government. A big am dram fan, Kirsty's appeared on stage in the Edinburgh Festival and in musicals. She can act and sing a wee bit, but says please don't ask her to dance.

Emma is one of the Communications Managers here at CELCIS. She supports colleagues across different areas of work to share what we do through marketing campaigns and a variety of publications, as well as keeping up-to-date with the sector more generally. Outside of work, Emma enjoys keeping active, particularly through martial arts, practicing her German, and spending time with her friends, family, and rescue dog, Winston.