CWDC board members

Meet our board...

Sir Paul Ennals – Chair, CWDC

Sir Paul Ennals has had a long career of working in the public and voluntary sector. He was awarded a knighthood for services to children and young people in the Queen's birthday honours list in June 2009.

Sir Paul is chief executive of the National Children's Bureau (NCB), a post he took up in 1998, having previously been director of education and employment at the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB). 

He has played a leading role in developing the integrated approach to children and youth services with particularly close involvement in issues concerning disabled children, participation of children and young people, children and family social work, play work, integrated workforce development, and promotion of child health.

He was instrumental in supporting CWDC when it was formed in 2005, as the shadow chair.

 

Jane Haywood – Chief Executive, CWDC

Jane has substantial experience in the children and youth field with a particular interest in learning disability, volunteering, play and youth work.

At the time of her appointment to CWDC in 2005, she was managing the Children and Youth Division at the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), where she led the modernisation agenda for youth work and the successful delivery of the flagship Millennium Volunteers Programme, the Children's Fund and the Local Network Fund.

She has been an active volunteer since 1970 and is the joint organiser of a small voluntary organisation that provides a residential summer camp for more than 450 children from Kirklees each year.

Jane is a school governor at a comprehensive school and a trustee of Endeavour, a youth development organisation. She has an MA in post-16 education and training and was awarded an MBE in 2005 for her work with young people. Jane was also awarded an honorary degree from Kingston University in 2009.

 

Dorit Braun

Dorit has worked with a range of professionals who work with children, young people and their families for many years, and most recently was chief executive of Parentline Plus. Dorit now undertakes a number of consultancies working with third sector organisations to support business development.

She has a background in adult and community education, has been a health commissioner, has developed training programmes in family education and in child protection and has worked with a number of boards.

Dorit is also chair of the charity Working with Men. She was awarded an OBE in 2000 for services to parenting.

 

Howard Cooper

Howard is director of children's services at Wirral local authority. Howard has a strong background in education and served as head teacher of an 11 to 18 school before moving to Liverpool City Council as assistant executive director for shool effectiveness.

In 2002, Howard was appointed to Wirral as director of education and cultural services, and since 2006 as director of children's services. He chairs the Local Safeguarding Children Board and the Youth Justice Board and has had regional involvement in the Child Health Programme and in Multi-Agency Public Protection Arrangements (MAPPA).

He has had very significant involvement in the introduction and development of learning mentors in Merseyside and in the work of the Connexions service. Howard is a national council member of the Association of directors of children's services and chairs its Policy Committee for Workforce Development.

 

Jane Held

Jane has 30 years of experience in social work. For 15 years she worked directly with looked-after children in a variety of settings, managing a range of children's residential foster and adoption services.

She continued to specialise in children's services and held a number of senior management posts, most recently as director of social services in the London Borough of Camden. During that period she was chair of the Association of Directors of Social Services (ADSS) Children and Family Committee.

She now runs her own consultancy and has worked on a range of projects relating to Every Child Matters and other key parts of children's policy. She is also a member of a programme team, sponsored by the DCFS and led by the Local Government Association, looking at what works in narrowing the gap between vulnerable children and all children.

 

Nigel Pursey – Chair of Audit Committee

Nigel has spent his career in local government, beginning at Cheshire County Council, working for the Mid Glamorgan and Wiltshire County Councils before becoming county treasurer at Shropshire County Council in 1992.

In 1997 he became chief executive of Shropshire and then moved to Staffordshire County Council as chief executive in 2003 where he was responsible for more than 30,000 employees and a revenue budget of almost £1 billion.

He took early retirement in October 2007, and is now pursuing a mixture of interim management, consultancy and board roles.

He has taken a strong interest in the development of services for young people, and while Staffordshire's chief executive he also chaired the Youth Offending Service management board. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy.

 

Jon Richards

Jon is senior national officer in UNISON's Education and Children's Services Group. UNISON is the largest education union in the UK with more than 300,000 members working in children's settings, schools, local authorities, further education and sixth form colleges, Ofsted, universities and Connexions / careers settings. Jon leads for UNISON on children's workforce policy.

He is UNISON's lead negotiator for higher education and Ofsted and sits on Lifelong Learning UK's higher education panel.

He previously worked in UNISON's health section and was one of the lead negotiators for the NHS pay system Agenda for Change. Before UNISON he worked for the British Association of Occupational Therapists and the London Borough of Camden's HIV unit.

 

Jonathan Vickers

Jonathan has spent much of his career in the oil and chemicals industries, working for Royal Dutch Shell until 1991, and then for Burmah Castrol until 2001.

Since then he has undertaken a broad range of non executive roles, with organisations such as NHS South West Strategic Health Authority, the Fire Service College, Government Office for the South West, and Connexions.

He has also been a school governor for a number of years.