Janet Grauberg

Senior Organisational Strategy & Learning Consultant

Janet is a senior organisational strategy & learning consultant with wide-ranging expertise in children and young people’s services. She is passionate about spreading practice and innovation through peer learning and is an accredited Action Learning facilitator. Current consulting clients include facilitating learning for 35 charities working with young people with care experience and supporting scale-up of professional development approaches for early years practitioners. Janet has previously held senior roles in the voluntary sector, including Strategy Director roles at Barnardo’s and St Christopher’s Fellowship, and in government, working on the Every Child Matters programme and the Children Leaving Care Act.

Rob MacPherson

Department for Education

Rob has worked at DfE for 25 years. Before he joined the care leaver policy team in 2015, he worked on a range of policy areas, including The Connexions Service, the Teenage Pregnancy Strategy and Children’s Rights. Rob led on the cross-Government care leaver strategy – Keep on Caring – and has since been involved in delivering the key commitments in it, including: the legislative changes introduced through the C&SW Act; the care leaver covenant; the Staying Close Pilots; the care leaver SIBs; the Civil Service care leaver internship scheme; and additional support for care leavers at risk of rough sleeping. Rob now leads on the care Leaver Ministerial Board and wider work to influence how other Government Departments’ policies can better support care leavers.

Richard Crellin

Esmee Fairbairn Foundation’s Leaving Care Learning Programme

Richard Crellin co-facilitates the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation’s Leaving Care Learning Programme. The prgoramme supports over 35 voluntary sector organisations working with care experienced young people to connect with each other, build capacity and work collectively to improve the support provided for care experienced young people.

Gareth Jones

Learning, Skills and Employment Manager

I started my career working on social inclusion, schools projects and post 16 employment and training programmes in both Liverpool and Wirral. I then joined the Wirral Council 17 years ago as an Extended Schools Co-ordinator before moving into the 14-19 team in 2010. I’m very fortunate to work with passionate, dedicated and talented colleagues in the team who go the extra mile to support some of the most vulnerable young people in the borough. My role is very varied from day to day whether this be working with employers to create employment and apprenticeship opportunities, working with partners on how social value initiatives can support care leavers, with colleges on Supported Internships or more recently with the Participation and Engagement and Leaving Care teams on the development of the Care Leaver Hub. I’m very excited about the opportunities that this particular project can offer our young people moving forward.

Claire Davey

Associate Director

Claire Davey, at Ecorys (an independent research organisation), led DfE’s Care Leavers Social Impact Bond (SIB) evaluation with a team of impact, process, economic, and SIB evaluation experts including ATQ Consulting and Dr Claire Baker. Claire will summarise the key evaluation findings focusing on what helped care leavers enter education, employment and/or training. As a global research-based consultancy, Ecorys helps clients make a positive impact on society. Claire is an Associate Director who specialises in research and evaluation with children, young people and families. She has a particular interest in helping to improve outcomes for vulnerable and lesser-heard groups.

Frances Flaxington

National Crime Agency’s Independent Ethics Reference Group

Frances has worked at a national and local level in children’s social care and the criminal justice system. She has supported councils and partners to test and scale approaches that support vulnerable children and young people. Frances is a member of the National Crime Agency’s Independent Ethics Reference Group Frances was Deputy Chief of HM Inspectorate of Probation and a Senior Civil Servant supporting victims and reducing re-offending. She was Strategic Director for vulnerable children and families at Catch 22 delivering services and testing innovative approaches.

Jordan Hay

Sessional Employment Co-Ordinator

I work as a sessional employment coordinator for Durham Council, working with care experienced young people to find them suitable work experience placements.

Meghan Joyce

Reboot West (SIB) Manager

Reboot West (SIB) Manager

Kieran Breen

Leicestershire Cares

Kieran has been working with care experienced young people since 1989 when he worked for Save the Children Fund UK. Alongside his UK based work, Kieran has lived and worked in Ethiopia, Tanzania, Costa Rica and Canada in various international development roles. He returned to the UK in 20017 to join Leicestershire Cares. Much of his work has focussed on seeking to bring about change, through understanding complexity and working through creative and agile partnerships between , business, community and public sector. Despite many things not quite going as planned he remains an optimist and believes our biggest mistake is not to learn from our mistakes.