Jo Coles, Project Manager, Rainer

Jo runs a project aiming to improve the life chances of young people from care at Rainer, the national charity working for under supported young people. In 2006 Jo produced, Can the State be a good parent? which looked at how local authorities and others can make the difference for looked after children and care leavers. Before joining Rainer, Jo worked for former, Housing Minister, Yvette Cooper.

Helen Dent, Chief Executive, Family Welfare Association

Helen started her career as a social worker and then moved into policy and strategy as an Assistant Director in Cambridge County Council. Helen entered the voluntary sector as Director of Policy and External Affairs at NCH in 1990 and joined the Family Welfare Association as Chief Executive in 1996.

Helen is a non-executive director of Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children, NHS Trust, Trustee of the National Council for Voluntary Organisations and Council Member of the Economic and Social Research.

Paul Ennals OBE, Chief Executive, National Children’s Bureau

Paul Ennals is Chief Executive of the National Children's Bureau, a post he took up in 1998, having previously been Director of Education and Employment for RNIB. He was Vice-Chair of the Government's National Advisory Group on Special Educational Needs (SEN) from 1997 to 2001, Chair of the Council for Disabled Children from 1993-1998, and founder Chair of the Special Educational Consortium. He is Chair of the Children's Workforce Network, which brings together all the major agencies concerned with the children's workforce. He is also member of the DFES Stakeholder’s.

Richard Exell, Senior Policy Advisor, TUC

Richard Exell OBE works for the Trades Union Congress, where he is a Senior Policy Officer, responsible for work on labour market issues and the co-ordination of the TUC’s network of Unemployed Workers' Centres. Richard writes TUC guides, briefings and reports such as the recent publications Ready, Willing and Able:
www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-12248-f0.pdf and Globalisation
www.tuc.org.uk/economy/tuc-12299-f0.pdf.

Richard was a member of the trade union team that negotiated the European Directive on parental leave and is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee and the Disability Rights Commission. He is 50 years old, a graduate of Bristol University, and is married with a daughter, Madeleine, aged 13.

Alison Garnham, Chief Executive, Daycare Trust

Alison Garnham is joint-Chief Executive of the Daycare Trust, taking up her position in June 2006. Prior to this for nine years she was the Director of Policy and Research at One Parent Families. She worked for many years as a welfare rights adviser and for a number of women’s organisations before in 1989 joining the Child Poverty Action Group where she co-authored a number of publications about the Child Support Act.

She has subsequently written about lone parenthood and child poverty, including an edition of Poverty: the Facts, published by CPAG. Before joining One Parent Families she was a Senior Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of North London (now London Metropolitan University) where she remains an Honorary Research Fellow. She is a member of the Social Security Advisory Committee.

Kate Green OBE, Chief Executive, Child Poverty Action Group

Kate Green has been Chief Executive of Child Poverty Action Group since July 2004. From July 2000, she was Director of One Parent Families, and previously she worked for the Home Office and before that for Barclays Bank. Kate is a member of the London Child Poverty Commission which reports to the Mayor of London and the Association of London Government, a member of the National Employment Panel which advises Ministers on labour market policies and programmes and the New Deals, a member of the advisory board of the Resolution Foundation which is concerned with access to financial services. Kate received an OBE in the 2005 New Year’s Honours list.

Colette Marshall, UK Director, Save the Children

Colette Marshall is the Regional Director for the UK Programmes of Save the Children. Since its foundation, the charity has worked with children living in poverty in the UK. With a strong commercial background in the private sector, prior to joining Save the Children, Colette ran an international business for Lucite International, and before that headed up Innovations for an ICI business. She has also done a range of consultancy projects for social enterprises and charities looking particularly at growth and strategy.

Gerri McAndrew, Director, The Frank Buttle Trust

A qualified Social Worker Gerri McAndrew has worked in four Inner London Boroughs as a Practitioner and Assistant Director of Social Services, specialising in children’s services.  For eight years she was Director of Fostering Network, and joined the Frank Buttle Trust as Chief Executive in September 2003.  The Trust offers financial support to children and young people, and commissions research in the hope of influencing change in policy and practice in respect of services to children.

Gerri is currently a Trustee of Shaftesbury Homes & Arethusa. In addition, Gerri has been an Adviser on a number of Government groups throughout the UK and, in particular, the Prime Minister’s Adoption Review.

Martin Narey, Chief Executive, Barnardo’s, Chair of End Child Poverty

Martin Narey is the Chief Executive of Barnardo’s, one of the UK’s leading children’s charities. Until October 2005 he was the Chief Executive of the National Offender Management Service and a Permanent Secretary at the Home Office. He began his career in the NHS before moving into the Prison Service in 1982. In 2003 he was awarded an Honorary Doctorate by Sheffield Hallam University and in 2004 received the Chartered Management Institute Gold Medal for Leadership. In 2006, he was made a Visiting Professor at Sheffield Hallam University. In March 2007 he was elected as Chair of End Child Poverty.

Chris Pond, Director of Financial Capability, FSA

Chris Pond is Director of Financial Capability at FSA and Chair of Capacitybuilders, the newly-established infrastructure funding agency for the voluntary sector.  He was previously Chief Executive of One Parent Families and prior to that post in June 2005, Chris was MP for Gravesham, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Department for Work and Pensions, Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Treasury (to Dawn Primarolo) and a member of the Social Security Select Committee.

 Chris spent many years before entering Parliament in the voluntary sector as Director of the Low Pay Unit.  He is married with three daughters between the ages of 19 months and 19 years.

Adam Sampson, Director, Shelter

Adam Sampson has been Director of Shelter, the country’s leading housing and homelessness charity, since January 2003. Mr Sampson worked as a probation officer in London until being appointed Deputy Director of the Prison Reform Trust in 1989. Mr Sampson joined the Home Office as Assistant Prisons Ombudsman in 1994, returning to the voluntary sector as Chief Executive of national drugs charity RAPt from 1997-2002.

As Director of Shelter, Adam Sampson has broadcast and campaigned vigorously for improved housing policies. Among many high-profile activities, he has been an influential member of the Government’s Home Ownership Task Force, and was closely involved in the Barker Review of Housing Supply.