Giles Gaddum
Chair

Giles’ family has had an association with the Trust since its very earliest days, and is the fifth member of his family to serve on the Board over the course of more than a century. He is currently the Chair of the Board of Trustees and has also served on the governing bodies of both Inscape House and Bridge College. He is also a member of the HR and OD Subgroup and Chair of the Governance Subgroup. 

He runs his own tree-felling and dry-stone walling company and is also a school governor and trustee of a number of charities.

Anthony Farnworth
Trustee

Anthony joined the Board in November 2018, having recently retired from Deloitte LLP, where he was Audit Partner for the voluntary sector in the North West.

He is currently our Honorary Treasurer, chairing the Finance and Audit Sub-group of the Board of Trustees.

Gani Martins
Trustee

Gani joined the board in October 2021 and is Chair of the Safeguarding Scrutiny Subgroup.

Gani is a registered social worker. She has held a number of senior children’s services positions in local authorities across the North West over the course of her career, with specialisms in improvement and safeguarding, and she is currently an Improvement Consultant. She is also the Chair of the Board of Trustees AFRUCA – Safeguarding Children.

Geoff Durbin
Trustee

Geoff joined the Board in 2022 and is the Vice Chair of the Supporting People Subgroup.

He brings with him over 35 years’ commercial, marketing and fundraising experience, primarily in the sports sector, including Manchester City FC and Lancashire County Cricket Club, where he was commercial director.  He was a non-executive Director on the Support Board of Jigsaw Homes Group until 2020 and he has previously been a school governor at Claremont Road and Queens Road schools. More recently, he has also been involved in campaigning work, including discussions with the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care.

Geoff is currently a foster carer and also Vice Chair of the Stockport Foster Carers’ Association. 

Ian Johnson
Trustee

Ian joined the Board in October 2018. He has a wealth of commercial and audit experience in educational settings in the UK and overseas and is currently Head of Finance at St Helens College.

He is currently Assistant Honorary Treasurer on the Finance and Audit Sub-group and is Vice Chair of the governing body at Bridge College.

Jane Grime
Trustee

Jane joined the Board in October 2021. She was a former governor of Ashcroft School for several years, including safeguarding chair, and played an instrumental role in a school build project. She is currently Vice Chair of governors and Inscape House School and is the link governor for careers and employability at Inscape House School.

She has considerable experience in using autism services in the North West and also long-term home schooling.

Jane Walapu
Trustee

Jane joined the Board in 2022 and is a member of the HR & OD and Safeguarding subgroups. She is a qualified psychotherapist who runs her own private practice and works as a trauma-informed therapist at the Manchester-based charity We Are Survivors.

Before becoming a psychotherapist, she worked for over a decade in the corporate world with previous roles at Co-op and Barclays, including Chief of Staff, private bank executive and colleague engagement lead, and has five years’ experience in HR, specialising in colleague engagement.

She is a member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and is also a former support line volunteer at NAPAC (National Association for People Abused in Childhood). 

Marcell Edwards
Trustee

Marcell joined the Board in 2022 and is the Chair of the HR and OD Subgroup. He is a Global Talent Acquisition Manager with adidas, and is experienced in recruitment, DEI, career guidance and events management. 

He is also an advisory board member of the Leaders Black Excellence Advisory Board, supporting access to sports industry careers for people from disadvantaged groups. He is also part of the Manchester Metropolitan University mentoring programme, giving ongoing mentoring support to MMU students taking their first steps into industry from education. 

Mike Henshaw
Trustee

Mike joined the Board in December 2022 and works for United Response, a charity that provides care and support nationally for people with disabilities. Mike qualified as a solicitor over 20 years ago and for the first half of his career worked in local authorities across the northwest. He has worked in various areas of law, including child protection, community care, housing and mental health.

For the latter part of his career, he has worked for charities and in his current role he is the contracts manager and DPO as well as dealing with property, governance, and charity law.

Noral Flood
Trustee

Norah is the Vice Chair of the Board of Trustees. She joined the Board in July 2019 and has over 35 years of experience in the NHS. She is a retired physiotherapist, having clinically specialised in elderly care and neurology. Her later career was in Therapy Services Management and Leadership, following which she held posts at Director level within the health service. She is also a former Chair of the North West Allied Health Professional Network. 

Norah is also Vice Chair of the Governance Subgroup, and a member of the Supporting People and the Health and Safety, Environment and Risk sub-groups. 

Rebekah Pierre
Trustee

Rebekah joined the Board in March 2023. She is a care-experienced author and campaigner with a background as a child protection social worker and currently works for the British Association of social work. She is the editor of ‘Free Loaves on Fridays’, a forthcoming anthology on care-experience, as well as several other books on social care. 
 
Rebekah has drawn upon her lived and professional experience to expose wider policy failures in peer-reviewed journals, news outlets such as BBC and Radio 4 and The Guardian. She is passionate about ensuring equality of care for all children and young people.

Roger Horne
Trustee

Roger was appointed to the Board in 2002. He is a retired solicitor with a wide range of interests both in the UK and overseas and is an overseas volunteer team leader. 

He is currently Chair of Health and Safety, Environment and Risk Subgroup and Chair of the governing body at Bridge College.

Steven Pitt
Trustee

Steven joined the Board in June 2023 and brings with him over 15 years of experience in the public sector and government organisations. Steven is an independent consultant with a wide breadth of experience transforming complex organisations to improve service provision for their customers.

Specialising in digital transformation, Steven has delivered high profile change for the NHS, Central Government departments, child protection for the National Crime Agency and Children’s Social Care for Westminster Council. He is currently leading the digital transformation programme at Islington Council. With his experience, Steven will play a key role in the Board’s Digital Subgroup.