Our staff

With a PhD in applied anthropology and a Masters in Social Work, along with a background in child protection social work and youth justice, Melissa brings her passion for the science and practice of implementation and systems improvement from the USA to Scotland in 2015. She continues to be inspired by Scotland's progressive vision for addressing the unmet needs of children and families and is excited to be building a team of implementation specialists at CELCIS to support local areas to address neglect and enhance wellbeing and to fully and effectively implement GIRFEC.

 

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

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.

 

 

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.

 

Robert is a psychology turned legal researcher. He provides evaluation and research to the Permanence and Care Team, as well as working on other social research projects for CELCIS. Due to defend his PhD in law soon, Robert enjoys doing applied research in environments with a real-world impact. Outside of work, Robert runs the Bantuan Coffee Foundation.

 

As a social worker, family support manager and team leader, Linda is passionate about the practical application of child development and early year's research in supporting our understanding and decision making for children. Linda loves gardening, growing her own food and making preserves to share with family and friends.

 

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.

 

 

 

With a background in local economic development consultancy, Alex plays a critical role gathering and analysing evidence for the Child Protection Improvement Programme and Addressing Neglect and Enhancing Wellbeing programme. He's the person devising and implementing user-friendly recording systems to illustrate the scale of neglect and child protection and the effectiveness of approaches to tackle these issues. Alex is an advocate for active living - cycling, running, swimming, football - and his passion for sport stimulated his PhD on community stadia.

 

Samantha heads up the Communications and Engagement team as the Communications and Engagement Lead for CELCIS, helping us to share what we do and inform best practice and policy.

 

In her role on the senior management team Kathleen takes a 360' view of CELCIS's work. Her focus is all about supporting strategic and successful delivery of CELCIS's work with its partners, by assessing how that work is communicated and implemented. Kathleen brings long experience in knowledge and information exchange and remains passionate about how evidence is best used in practice. She's a self-confessed yoga fanatic, its what she does to stay sane and balanced. A trained dancer, she occasionally finds time to trip the light fantastic.

 

Joanne is a qualified children and families' social worker with 25 years' experience in a wide range of local authority, voluntary and policy roles. Joanne heads up the Improving Care Experiences team at CELCIS which has a particular focus on core practice, assessment, planning and review for our looked after children. Joanne believes if you care, support, and carefully challenge people you will get the absolute best from them. Her growth and nurture agenda extends to the care she bestows on her beloved garden.