Our trustees

Fiona Millar (Chair)
Professor Janet Walker (Vice Chair)
Laurie Edmans CBE (Hon Treasurer)
Dr Tanya Byron
Dr John Coleman OBE
Professor Leon Feinstein
Penelope Gibbs
Dr Joanne Liddy
Professor Ann Phoenix
Chris Pond
Anne Weyman OBE
David White

 

 

Photo of Fiona Millar

Fiona Millar (Chair)

Fiona Millar is a journalist specialising in education and parenting issues. She started her career Fiona Millar is a journalist and writer specialising in education and parenting issues. She started her career on the Mirror Group's graduate training scheme then worked on the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express as a news reporter, lobby correspondent and freelance feature writer. She co-authored a book of interviews with prominent women' By Faith and Daring' with Glenys Kinnock in 1993.

Between 1997 and 2003 she worked at Downing Street as a special adviser to the Prime Minister. She now writes a column for Education Guardian and regularly takes part in television and radio debates about education.

Fiona wrote and presented a film "The Best for My Child" about parental choice for Channel Four in 2004 and has presented several programmes for Teachers TV about parents and schools. In 2006 she co-authored a pamphlet for the pressure group Compass about comprehensive education and is now writing a book about working mothers. Fiona is a governor of two schools in North London, where she lives with her partner and three children.

 

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Professor Janet Walker (Vice Chair)

Janet Walker is Emeritus Professor of Family Policy at Newcastle University and a Strategic Research Advisor in the Institute of Health and Society. Between 1985 and 2005, she was the Director of the Newcastle Centre for Family Studies.

Together with colleagues in her research team she has conducted over 40 studies on family life and relationships including marriage and divorce, domestic violence, family mediation, counselling, family communication and post-divorce parenting. In recent years she directed the evaluations of the Family Advice and Information Service, Youth Inclusion and Support Panels and Family Group Conferencing. She is currently evaluating several new programmes in children's services for the DCSF. She is on the Board of Trustees of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners (NAPP) and is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee.

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Laurie Edmans CBE (Hon Treasurer)

Laurie Edmans has had a long career in financial services. Formerly deputy chief executive of a mutual life insurer and chair of the industry body on pensions, he now has portfolio of commercial and public interest roles. These include the board of the Pensions Regulator, chair of the Safe Home Income Plans group, trusteeship of two pension schemes and of the Quest School for Autistic Children. He has a continuing involvement with the Financial Services Authority's Consumer Financial Capability work. He received a CBE for services to pensions reform in 2006. He has five children and, currently, five grandchildren

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Dr Tanya Byron

Tanya did her first degree in psychology at York, her clinical psychology Masters training at UCL and her doctorate (on the treatment of cocaine, amphetamine and ecstasy misusers) between University College Hospital and Surrey. She has been working in the NHS for almost 20 years working in Drug Dependency, HIV/AIDS and sexual health, adult mental health and eating disorders services. She was the Consultant of an in patient unit for 12 – 16 year olds with severe mental health problems and child protection issues. Tanya designed and ran an NHS beacon awarded NHS and Care Staff training programme in the assessment and management of aggressive and violent behaviours.

Tanya now works two days a week as a Consultant in child and adolescent mental health in a general practice. In addition Tanya writes a weekly column for the Times newspaper and for several women's magazines. Tanya is Chancellor of Edge Hill University.

Tanya works at the BBC presenting programmes on child behaviour, science and current affairs (e.g. Little Angels; Teen Angels; House of Tiny Tearaways: Panorama; How to Improve Your Memory – with Professor Robert Winston; Am I Normal?). Also, after appearing in the French & Saunders Christmas Special, Tanya now co-write a comedy series with Jennifer Saunders – most recently about a daytime chat show host (The Life and Times of Vivienne Vyle).

Tanya has published four books on child behaviour and in march this year published her government review of harmful and inappropriate material (for children) in video games and on the internet (The Byron Review: Safer Children in a Digital World – www.dcsf.gov.uk/byronreview).

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Dr John Coleman OBE

John Coleman trained as a clinical psychologist at the Middlesex Hospital, and obtained his PhD from University College, London in 1966. He was a Senior Lecturer at the Royal London Hospital (University of London) for 14 years, and he has also been the Director of a therapeutic community for troubled adolescents. In 1989 he founded the Trust for the Study of Adolescence, an independent research and training organisation based in Brighton, and was Director until he retired in October, 2005.

He was the Editor of the Journal of Adolescence from 1984-2000, and has written widely on topics to do with young people. His textbook "The nature of adolescence", published by Routledge, is now in its third edition, and he is also well known as the author of "Key data on adolescence" the fifth edition of which was published in 2005.

Since 1997 he has worked closely with Government, and he is currently Deputy Chair of the Independent Advisory Group for the Teenage Pregnancy Unit. During 2005 he worked part-time as a Policy Advisor at the Dept of Health. He was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to youth justice. In October 2006 he took up a post at Oxford University as Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Education. He is the Chair of the recently formed Association for Young People's Health, and he has served as a trustee of the National Academy for Parenting Practitioners.

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Professor Leon Feinstein

Leon Feinstein is Professor of Education and Social Policy at the Institute of Education, University of London. Since Jan 2009 he has been on secondment as Chief Analyst in the Prime Minister's Delivery Unit. From Jan 2008 to Jan 2009 he was on secondment to the Ministry of Justice, acting as Assistant Director in the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. From 2005-2007 he was Director of the Centre for Research on the Wider Benefits of Learning, a centre funded by the UK Government's Department for Children, Schools and Families and others to investigate the social and personal effects of education. He has conducted research on the importance of schools and other formal and informal learning institutions for social justice, health, social cohesion, family formation and wider well-being. Much of his research has focused on the role of parents, schools and wider social networks in the intergenerational transmission of inequality and on appropriate policy responses. He is an associate of the Centre for the Analysis of Pathways from Childhood to Adulthood at the University of Michigan.

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Penelope Gibbs

Penelope Gibbs is presently Director of "Criminal Damage" - the Prison Reform Trust's campaign to reduce child and youth imprisonment in the UK. This five year campaign is supported by The Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund.

Penelope was previously Director of the Voluntary Action Media Unit, part of the charity TimeBank. VAMU is a three year project, the aim of which is to investigate and improve the relationship between the media and the voluntary sector, with a particular focus on volunteering. The project has two other charity partners, the Media Trust and the Institute for Volunteering Research and is managed by a Project Board, chaired by Mark Thompson, Director General of the BBC.

Before becoming Director of VAMU Penelope worked for the BBC for 12 years as Producer and Manager. Latterly she has worked for BBC Strategy and Distribution as Manager of a project on how the BBC met the needs of its disabled audiences.

Penelope has two children, aged eleven and thirteen and lives in Kentish Town.

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Dr Joanne Liddy

Dr Joanne Liddy is a Home Office senior civil servant. She is currently the North West Regional Director for the UK Border Agency. During her career she has also worked in the Cabinet Office, the Department for Education and Skills, and the Office for Criminal Justice Reform. She developed the Every Child Matters green paper, and recently developed the cross-departmental Youth Crime Action Plan. She was also national lead for policy for victims of crime, and Chief Executive of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Authority. Jo gained her PhD in History from Liverpool University in 1999 and she has lectured for both the Metropolitan University and the Open University. She also has an MBA from Imperial College.

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Professor Ann Phoenix

Professor Ann Phoenix is Co-Director of the Thomas Coram Research Unit, Institute of Education, University of London. Her research interests centre on social identities, including those of race, ethnicity, gender and motherhood. Her publications include Black, White or Mixed Race? (with Barbara Tizard, 2nd ed. 2002 and 1993), and Young Masculinities with Stephen Frosh and Rob Pattman (2002).

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Anne Weyman OBE

Anne Weyman is a non-executive director of Islington Primary Care Trust. She is.chair of two NICE Programme Development Groups: Personal Social & Health Education and Contraceptive Advice for Vulnerable Young People. She is also the Vice Chair of the Independent Advisory Group on Sexual Health and HIV. Anne was previously Chief Executive of fpa (The Family Planning Association) and Information and Public Affairs Director at the National Children's Bureau, where she founded the Sex Education Forum, of which she is now President, and the Drug Education Forum.

In 2000, Anne was awarded an OBE for services to Family Planning and in 2005 she was made an Honorary Doctor of Laws by the University of Bristol, in recognition of her contribution to women's rights.

 

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Chris Pond

Chris Pond is Director of Financial Capability at the Financial Services Authority. He was previously Chief Executive of One Parent Families/Gingerbread, MP for Gravesham, Work and Pensions minister, Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Treasury, a member of the Social Security Select Committee and honorary visiting professor at Middlesex University.

Before entering Parliament, Chris was Director of the Low Pay Unit and Chair or trustee of a number of voluntary organisations in the social policy field. He now chairs Capacitybuilders, a funding agency for the Third Sector responsible to the Cabinet Office.

He is married with three daughters and a son.

 

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David White

David White was appointed Chief Executive of the Children's Mutual in July 1999.

The Children's Mutual is the first and only company in the UK dedicated to children's savings. The organisation has used this expertise to help develop the Child Trust Fund (CTF) and is a leading provider of CTF and other products to help families give their youngsters a financial springboard into adulthood. The company has grown its customer base, sales and profits rapidly in recent years.

Under David's stewardship, the customer has been put at the heart of everything the organisation does. As a result it won the accolade of Company of the Year in the Financial Adviser LIA Service Awards in two successive years and achieved the Moneyfacts "Best CTF Provider" award in 2006 and 2007.

David is a Trustee of pfeg, the Personal Finance Education Group, a respected charity which exists to help teachers prepare Personal Finance lessons. He is a member of the ABI's Consumer Strategy Committee and on the Board of the Tax Incentivised Savings Association (TISA). David is also a member of the advisory group set up as part of the FSA project on Financial Capability and of an advisory group on Social Policy for the Institute of Public Policy Research. David was Kent Business Person of the Year in 2003 and the firm was Kent Business of the Year in 2002.

Having started his financial services career in 1976 in the pensions division of Scottish Life, prior to joining the organisation (then Tunbridge Wells Equitable), David was Product Group Director (Pensions) at Prudential where he was responsible for the marketing and profitability of Prudential's wide range of Pensions products.

David is married to Melanie and has three teenage children. He enjoys sport, especially golf and current affairs. His other hobby is speaking Spanish.

Last updated: 19th May 2010 at 02:05:17