The Team
Alan Cooper
Alan has many years post qualified experience. He has worked for several Local Authorities and an NSPCC Special Family Unit as a Child Care Social Worker, Practice Teacher; and (since 1988) Approved Social Worker (ASW). He has also worked as an Emergency Duty Team (EDT) Manager and as a Senior Training Officer, Children and Families. He has worked privately for more than fifteen years as a Psychotherapist specialising in treatment using Neuro - Linguistic Programming (NLP), Brief Therapy and Hypno-Analysis. He is a GLPQ approved PQ Assessor / Mentor.
Gillian Heath
Gillian qualified as a social worker in 1984 and since that time has worked in a variety of statutory settings, specialising in childcare since 1989. She has gained experience across the whole range of childcare work with a focus on safeguarding. She is a qualified practice teacher and has been involved in enabling others for many years. She has held posts which have focussed entirely on staff training and development. She has also gained considerable experience in managing frontline services. Whilst working for the ACPC/LSCB in Southampton she had a more strategic role and was involved in the development of services. With a strong commitment to her own continued professional development she has gained a number of additional qualifications.
Jo Norman
Jo Norman currently works as a trainer and consultant specialising in the field of child care and protection. A trained nurse with experience both as a staff nurse on a surgical ward and as district nurse, she has also worked as a health visitor and child protection advisor. She has extensive experience working with adults and service users as well as service providers, and children, particular those in need of protection.
Since becoming independent, Jo has also developed and delivered training programmes for the NSPCC and other charitable organisations, several local authorities, Voluntary Organisations, health authorities, probation departments, education departments including schools, colleges and universities and a number of individual private organisations. The training is needs led following consultation and topics include:- Child Protection, Domestic Violence, Working with Serious Offenders, Supervision skills- clinical and child protection, Communicating with Children, Child Development, Investigative Interviewing (Achieving Best Evidence), Drug and Alcohol Abuse, Parents with Mental Health Challenges, Parents with learning disability, Training for Trainers, Stress Management, Coping with Change, Assessment Framework, Emotional Abuse and Neglect, Inter-Agency Working, Working in Partnership with Parents. The training is well received and considered of a high standard.
Margot Veronica Pallett
I have been working in training and development for 20 years. During this time I was the Staff Training and Development Officer at Harrow Council with lead responsibility for the Children & Families Division.
I have also worked as an Associate Training Consultant for the N.S.P.C.C. for 16 years and as a freelance Trainer and & Consultant for Access Training Company for 8 years: Access offers a range of short courses for school staff.
Prior to becoming a Trainer, I was a qualified social worker with experience of both residential and fieldwork. I specialised in working with children and their families, including child protection. It is this specialism that I have put to use over the years to develop many training courses and learning opportunities for a wide range of staff at different levels.
Mark Colmar
Mark is an experienced training consultant, and specialises in a number of diverse programmes which have contributed to his success.l. He comes from an educational background, specifically working with children and young people with learning disabilities for many years.
Since being a consultant with Outcomes UK, Mark has completed a file and practice audit with Hertfordshire Children, Schools and Families Service in preparation for Joint Area Review, Team Manager and mentoring in Hertfordshire County Council. He also completed child protection training in Berkshire Council. Learning and development project with residential homes.
Immediately before becoming a consultant, Mark worked as an Assistant National Director for Sedgemoor College. During this time, he held full responsibility for all HR functions, Personnel and training, 600+ staff which were multi-disciplinary. The College was NVQ registered, including NVQ 3 and 4, Certificate in Learning Support, and D units 32, 33 and 34. Mark was responsible for all referrals, interface with 40 + Social Services departments, and all contracting for 105 students. He also produced and updated in line with legislation and organisational need all policies and procedures relating to staff and children.. Through Mark’s work, Sedgemoor College gained and maintained Investor in People status.
Pete Unwin
Pete has extensive professionalism delivers to the highest standards at all times. His technical training skills are proven and he encourages his participants and values their contributions. His main interest is in stimulating discussion and reflection around the delivered content and in helping contextualise this information with participants’ own workplace realities.
Pete has a substantive post as a Senior Lecturer at the University of Worcester where he teaches across Early Childhood, Health and Social Care degree and postgraduate courses. He has also kept abreast of national developments and has attended a range of national and local conferences.
As an Independent Social Worker and trainer, he has worked particularly in the field of foster care, carrying out training such as “Preparation and Assessment” and “Change for Children”. He has also undertaken Form “F” preparation. This work has also helped keep him contemporary in the field of Child Protection and has been beneficial for his University teaching. Additionally he spent an extended period in the summer of 2003 as an ISW working as part of a Child Protection team in a multi – ethnic area of Coventry.
He has also completed two pieces of advocacy work for Birmingham Social Services, one in the field of mental health and one in the field of physical disability. Additionally, he has been engaged by the Workers Educational Association to deliver a series of Community Action training programmes for adults.
Steve Cameron
Steve offers skills and experience based upon over 20 years work in Social Care Services for Children and Families. He has worked for Local Authorities, the NSPCC, CAFCASS and has undertaken work with school staff in the independent sector. He has extensive social work practice and management experience and a record of developing national frameworks and specialist services including implementation through direct training delivery.
Steve commenced his employment in June 1986 as a social worker for Wiltshire Social Services in Swindon. This was in a children and families team covering an urban area. The work involved the full range of child and family support and child protection responsibilities. After gaining more experience he took responsibility for the assessment of new work coming into the team which frequently involved child protection conferences, care proceedings, juvenile justice, adoption and other statutory and voluntary interventions.
He later became involved in a wider multi-agency initiative to develop services in the area of child sexual abuse for survivors, perpetrators and non-abusing parents.
Previously Steve was appointed as Children's Services Manager with the NSPCC. His role was to develop a Specialist Investigation Service covering the South West. This involved the recruitment of a team of very experienced social worker practitioners with the flexibility and skills to work across the region. The principal aim of the work was to provide services to local authorities and other agencies for the investigation of allegations against their staff and other enquiries.
Yvonne Bayo
Yvonne Bayo is an experienced social work manager working within the children’s social care sector. She has worked in several Resource Centres, progressing from social worker to centre manager. She has developed and continues to co ordinate the Black Identity Group which since 1994 has worked with children and young people of African Caribbean descent particularly those of dual heritage., enabling them to develop a positive self identlty. The project had been shot listed twice for the “ British Diversity Awards”
