Our staff

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.

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.

Cat is a Project Coordinator working across different areas of work in CELCIS. She supports programme governance as well as helps to coordinate projects such as the PACE Collaborative, and the CYC-Net 2021 Conference. In her free time Cat enjoys making all sorts at her pottery club.

Jane Scott has over 35 years’ experience in research and practice development in the field of child care and protection with a particular interest in the recognition and responses to child neglect. She has worked within government departments in Scotland and England, for several universities in research and teaching roles, and independently undertaken practice reviews, including Significant Care Reviews and Learning Reviews, research studies and practice evaluations for a range of public, statutory and third sector organisations. This has allowed Jane to work alongside children, young people and families, frontline staff and managers, and strategic leaders. At CELCIS, Jane heads up the Early Help and Protection hub which has a particular focus on early help, children’s hearings system and protecting children.

Working closely with members of the Strategic Management Team, Laura provides the all-important PA and administrative support required to keep the team running smoothly. Laura first joined the Strathclyde family at the age of 16 as a Modern Apprentice and since then has completed an SVQ level 4 in Business and Administration and ILM level 3 in Leadership and Management. As a new mum Laura spends her free time with her family and friends.

After a long career spent in children and families social work practice, Claire now plays an important leadership role within the CELCIS Directorate. Claire's principle focus is to make sure that we really know and understand what works best when it comes to supporting looked after and vulnerable children, their families and care leavers. Claire is a champion for this knowledge to be included in legislation, policy and guidance and implemented in support services. Free time is spent with her triplet nieces, going running, and singing in the Rock Choir.

Katherine is the Policy Implementation Lead at CELCIS.

She has worked in various policy roles in the third and public sector, including with Children in Scotland and Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations Council (EVOC), alongside a role as the Third Sector Advisor to the Getting it Right for Every Child (GIRFEC) team at Scottish Government.

Her background is in youth work, having changed careers after gaining a degree in Immunology. Prior to working in policy, Katherine worked with children and young people in different roles, in particular a project with Barnardo’s to support care experienced young people into employment or further education.

Katherine has a master’s degree in Community Education where she researched care experience and employment opportunities.

When not working, she enjoys anything in the outdoors: going up Munro’s, swimming and going along to a very muddy outside exercise class every week.

Michelle is one half of the CELCIS events team. Her main role is to coordinate and manage our events, seminar and conference programme. Michelle helps us deliver informative, relevant and creative events for anything from 40-400 delegates, covering a wide range of specialist themes for all of those people working in the looked after children's sector. Michelle has an extensive shoe collection, loves a good book, a good chat and good times with her family.

Leanne comes from a background in education and health services research and evaluation. She was awarded the PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2016, for her research on educational farm visits for primary school children. Leanne is part of the Evidence and Innovation Hub at CELCIS. Outside of work, she enjoys attending gigs and science fiction conventions, and often travels around the UK for these.

Claire is responsible for the management of the admin and operations functions within CELCIS. She leads a dynamic and responsive team, managing and developing the team to ensure successful delivery of CELCIS’ support activities. She provides operations management and support to develop and improve core functions across the organisation, driving forward the continuous improvement of CELCIS' environment and processes.  As People and Operations Manager, Claire oversees the development and improvement of CELCIS People processes, procedures, and support. When not at CELCIS, Claire enjoys spending time with her family, walking her dog and weekends away - especially exploring the East Neuk.

With a background in applied social research, higher education strategic planning and performance monitoring, and social work information system implementation, Micky is our resident Data Analyst. Never shy of a mental or physical challenge, he enjoys grappling with data-related issues faced by CELCIS and partner organisations as we seek to evidence improvement. A committed all-weather cyclist, Micky also loves to island hop by sea kayak and endurance running.

Lesley is all things comms at CELCIS. She's our brand advisor, puts together our marketing campaigns, and writes content for our own Reach magazine and other publications. As well as broadcasting our great work to the outside world and to our own staff, Lesley also keeps CELCIS up to speed with developments in the sector.

Carolann has a truly analytical mind. She uses her logical, numerical skills to produce easily accessible data and visuals as baseline to improve systems supporting vulnerable children. Every point on one of her graphs represents a real child, on his or her journey towards a permanent home. Carolann applies her analytical mind and sense of order to everything, including the kitchen sink. Every item on her desk and in her wardrobe is lined up in perfect order, and she simply doesn't do crossed lines on her data charts.

Mihaela came to work in Scotland via her homeland of Romania, and Vienna, and she brings a decade's experience working on policy and research projects with Save the Children and the Agency for Fundamental Rights. At CELCIS she will support the Neglect Programme by developing effective data and empirical evidence systems to measure progress. She's been blown away by the friendliness of Glaswegians, and cant wait to explore more of Scotland, but she won't be inviting new friends for dinner - she literally can't boil an egg.

Based in the Improving Protection and Permanence Team, Lisa provides the all-important admin support required to keep CELCIS's Protecting Children Team ticking over smoothly. Lisa is also the Secretariat Support for Child Protection Committees Scotland. Despite her youth, Lisa's a Strathclyde University veteran, going all the way from apprenticeship to ILM leadership training and likes to say that she's a leader-in-waiting. As a plate-spinning working mum, free time is scarce, but Lisa likes to let her hair down whenever opportunity arises.

Social anthropologist Brandi Lee is a research associate in our Evidence and Innovation Hub. With a background in the youth work sector, she is passionate about working alongside public bodies to use research evidence to inform and improve policy and practice. Her work is driven by children and young people's rights, their experiences of services, and sense of identity and belonging. When not working you'll find her outdoors with her wife and child, either walking in the woods or growing food in their garden.