Welcoming our new Trustees
At our AGM, on Tuesday 30 November 2021, six new Trustees were voted on to our Board.
Our new Trustees have committed to giving up their own time to work together to make important decisions about SDSS. They’ve agreed to abide by the fundamental values that underpin all the activity of SDSS:
- Accountability
- Integrity and honesty
- Transparency
We’re giving a warm welcome to Becs Barker, Michael Greaves-Mackintosh, Callum Ogden, Anne-Marie Monaghan, Tressa Burke and Laura Hendry. You can find out more about them below.
Becs Barker
Becs has a passion for promoting fairness for all. Starting out at the age of 14, she started her working life as a volunteer and then as a play-leader at Thames Valley Adventure Playground for disabled children. Here she learnt that with the right mindset and support, anything is possible. Following this, she trained and worked as a nurse, quickly realising that her strengths lay in working with people with new disabilities. Completing a degree with the Open University strengthened her interest in human rights and community development – getting to the ‘nitty-gritty’ and supporting people to be in charge of their own, ordinary lives became a driving force. A move to Scotland in 2004 saw a change in direction and Becs spent the next few years managing and facilitating peer support with Neighbourhood Networks. It was here that Becs first learnt about Self-Directed Support and the possibilities of the ‘SDS dream’. Redundancy and a period of time in the wilderness, led Becs to chance upon her dream job in 2013- as a Manager for Argyll and Bute’s independent SDS support service, Carr Gomm’s Community Contacts. She has been there ever since; further developing Community Contacts to cover Highland. She has been promoted and along with offering senior management to Community Contacts, she leads on participation, involvement and innovation with Carr Gomm.
In her spare time, Becs is also a trustee of a further three charitable organisations; she enjoys gardening and yoga.
Michael Greaves Mackintosh
Michael is currently Chair of DG Voice, a disabled peoples’ organisation and Chair of LGBT Plus. Further to this, he serves on the Board of the Dumfries and Galloway Housing Partnership.
By joining the SDSS Management Committee, Michael would act as a liaison between the organisation and the disabled population of Dumfries and Galloway. He is looking forward to gaining a better understanding of SDSS, and to providing appropriate information to disabled people in the region.
Michael believes that all disabled people should have the choice to determine all aspects of their support and care.
Callum Ogden
Callum currently works as a Development Manager for Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living, an Edinburgh based Disabled Persons Organisation where he coordinates the Self-directed Support Development Programme and Self-Management Programme. Lothian Centre for Inclusive Living provides a range of services to support Independent Living, developed and managed by and for disabled people.
Callum previously has worked as Head of Service Support and Development with Victim Support Scotland and Project Coordinator for the MECOPP Gypsy/Traveller Carers programme. Callum holds an MSc in Social Work and LLB in Scots Law.
Anne-Marie Monaghan
Anne-Marie is an experienced board member and currently sit on GGCNHS Board as a Non-Executive Director. She is also the vice chair of
East Renfrewshire Integration Joint Board, having previously been the chair. She sits on the Glasgow City IJB and is a member of the ILF Board. Further to this, she is the independent chair of the Thinking Differently Programme Board in East Ayrshire HSCP.
Anne-Maire is recently retired from being the chair of the Community Brokerage Network Board (CBN).
As a Trustee, Anne-Marie brings a wide experience of both strategic and operational work, having previously worked for over 40 years in social work, holding senior posts in Glasgow City Council in Operations, Commissioning and latterly as the Head of Learning disability. She also led the first Scottish Government Test Site in Glasgow and has been involved in SDS from the outset.
Anne-Marie lives with a disability and has an individual budget that she uses for her support.
Tressa Burke
Tressa has been CEO of Glasgow Disability Alliance (GDA) since 2006, steering GDA from its fledgling vision of supporting disabled people’s voices and tackling social isolation in 2001, to the multi-award-winning community of 5000 it is today. For over 25 years, Tressa has held senior leadership roles in third and public sector organisations developing people led programmes which build on disabled people’s strengths and increase capacity to participate and contribute to their own lives, communities and wider society. During COVID, Tressa has led GDA’s Resilience and Recovery response to COVID, adapting all GDA supports and programmes and establishing new services including GDA’s Lifeline- delivery of essential food and medication, GDA Wellbeing and GDA Digital supports.
A disabled person herself, Tressa has expertise around equalities issues, particularly disability equality as well as the cumulative impact of multiple discrimination and intersectional impacts e.g. disabled women and disabled LGBT people.
Through GDA, Tressa acts as strategic collaborator with and advisor to both Glasgow City Government and Scottish Government across a range of areas including participative democracy. She is currently a member of the First Minister’s National Advisory Council for Women and Girls, the National Group working on Participatory Budgeting and is Deputy Chair of the Disability and Carers’ Benefits Expert Advisory Group. Tressa is also a member of the Scottish Government Social Renewal Advisory Board and Glasgow City Council’s Social Recovery Task Force, responding to the impact of COVID.
Laura Hendry
Laura has been working for an SDS support service, Cornerstone Community Care, since 2015, having spent the last year managing the service. Cornerstone Community Care currently support over 600 clients in Aberdeenshire and a further 50-100 in Aberdeen with all things SDS. Laura helps support with option selection as well as practical support to set up and manage packages of support. This has given her a unique insight into how SDS works in practice and what the potential pitfall are with the current roll out of the legislation.
Through this work, Laura has developed excellent working relationships with local authority staff surrounding SDS.
Cornerstone SDS is also in receipt of SIRD funding which has been used to develop their support service in Aberdeen City.
Laura has a sound working knowledge of SDS and how it is practically implemented. She has a passion for SDS and ensuring that it is implemented fairly across the country and does not result in a postcode lottery of what support is offered where.
Laura feels that being a trustee would help put her in the heart of SDS and ensuring the implementation is fair. She looks forward to supporting SDSS as it is such an important organisation for support services and service users alike. Laura is keen to help shape the future of SDS and ensure that everyone is getting the same level of support from their local authority with regards to SDS.