Ruth Dobson

Director and Chair of the Board of Trustees

Ruth is an independent advisor to purpose-driven organisations in the private and social sectors. She has a background in business and finance and was formerly a Partner with PwC, where she specialised in mergers and acquisitions. Ruth has extensive international experience. She was based in China from 2001-2010 where she established PwC’s Sustainability and Climate Change practice and was involved with a community organisation supporting economic migrant communities in China, Nepal and Bangladesh. Ruth is a former Board member of UnLtd, the Fund for Social Entrepreneurs. She is an on-going member of the UnLtd Impact Fund Board and a Trustee of Embercombe, a land-based leadership development charity based in Devon. Ruth is a Chartered Accountant, holds a BA in History, a Masters in Poverty Reduction and is a Clore Social Leadership Fellow.

Ruth became a trustee in December 2017 and took over as the Chair in October 2019.

David Archibald

Trustee

David is the Non-executive Chair of the Board of Achieving for Children, a Council-owned Community Interest Company, which provides the full range of Children’s Services for three Councils. He is also the Independent Chair of two Local  Safeguarding Children Boards. A social worker by training, and after management positions in several councils, he has almost 20 years of director level experience,  as Director of Social Services, Director of Children’s Services, and Director of Adults Social Services. David has a strong track record of service improvement, and has undertaken various consultancy and interim management roles. He was recently the Independent Chair of a review of specialist regional facilities for children and young people in Northern Ireland. David served for 6 years as a trustee of the Social Care Institute for Excellence, and has been a trustee at Dartington since late 2018.

Joel glover

Trustee

Joel is the Director of Commercial Development at QTS LLP, a business within the NHS. Prior to this he was a Deputy Commercial Director in Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, having previously worked in the Department of Health's Commercial Directorate and Cabinet Office's Civil Service HR function where he led finance and commercial teams. 

Formerly a Non-Executive Director of Dr Foster Intelligence and a Trustee of Avenues South East he is currently a Trustee of the Children's Liver Disease Foundation. A Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply, he holds a BA in French with International Studies and an MBA.

DR Shivonne Gates

Trustee

Dr Shivonne Gates is an experienced social researcher. She has designed, delivered and commissioned a broad range of evaluations of interventions seeking to tackle social problems affecting children and young people. She also has extensive experience conducting qualitative research exploring race and ethnicity, youth identities, and linguistic practices.

Shivonne is currently the Impact Lead for Frontline as well as the Chair of a professional network, Social Researchers of Colour.

Previous work experience includes the National Centre for Social Research, Youth Futures Foundation and Queen Mary University of London. Shivonne also holds a First-Class degree, MA, and PhD in Linguistics.

Peter Grigg

Trustee

Peter joined Home-Start in January 2020. As Chief Executive for Home-Start UK, Peter’s leadership role includes supporting and advocating for the local network, influencing policy and building partnerships, and raising the profile of Home-Start’s vital work.

Previously, Peter was Director of External Affairs at The Children’s Society leading policy, campaigns and communications.

Dr maria NEOPHYTOU

Trustee

Dr Maria Neophytou is Director of Strategy and Knowledge at the NSPCC, joining in 2020 from Impetus, where she was Acting CEO. 

Maria has worked on strategy, public policy and research in the children’s sector for over ten years, exploring how we can harness evidence in aid of social change.

Prior to that, she worked as a public servant in the European Parliament and for the Equality and Human Rights Commission.

She gained her PhD at Cambridge University, where her research was on gender equality and international relations.

Lee Mauve PATRON

Trustee

Lee Mauve is a senior leader in children & young people’s service provision with over 15 years’ experience in the sector across health, charity, education and local government. She has most recently held senior positions at Become – the national charity for children in care & young care leavers, and at Solace leading their award -winning children & young people’s education, clinical and community services. She is a qualified teacher and has worked in faith and state schools, and alternative provision settings.

Lee Mauve holds an Honours Bachelor of Arts from the University of Toronto, a Master’s Degree from Goldsmiths, University of London and a PGCE in Secondary Citizenship Education from the Institute of Education at University College London.  She is a trustee at a London-based LGBTQ+ mental health charity, an RSA Fellow and previously volunteered for 7 years at CliniQ – a health & wellbeing clinic supporting trans communities and their allies.

Lee Mauve’s professional interests and specialisms include youth participation, safeguarding, organisational change leadership, supporting and engaging marginalised groups.

She joined the board in 2022.

Hannah STODDART

Trustee

Hannah is passionate about working with children and young people and has a wealth of professional experience in the areas of strategy, research, evaluation, policy, communications and campaigns.

She is currently Director of Strategy and Insight at National Citizen Service, and has previously held senior roles at Step Up to Serve (#iwill campaign), War Child and Oxfam. 

David Derbyshire

Trustee

David Derbyshire is an experienced senior manager of children’s services and has worked in both statutory and voluntary sector services. David is the current Director of Safeguarding with Action for Children, a national children’s services delivery charity. 

David has led and participated in several service evaluations and learning review processes and is experienced in developing innovative new services and replicating these where possible. David has been leading on the expansion of child mental health and emotional well-being services for the last two years and increased the scale of delivery in school based and other community programmes aimed at tackling anxiety and low mood among teenagers. 

David is also the trustee with safeguarding responsibilities for the Sea Cadets charity. David started out his education with a degree in Renaissance history and qualified as a teacher before completing his Masters and social work qualification at the LSE. David is also a qualified Prince2 project manager.