Meet our leadership team

During this time, the charity has grown in size and impact, including through pioneering evidence-informed programmes, expanding peer support approaches and influencing policy and practice. During the Covid-19 pandemic, she led Kinship’s activities focusing on understanding, advocating for, and responding to the specific needs of kinship care families, with significant extension of support services across England and Wales.
Lucy is a Trustee for Children England, and a member of the Adoption & Special Guardianship Leadership Board (she chairs its Special Guardianship Task Group), the steering group of the Kinship Care Alliance, and the Nuffield Family Justice Observatory Stakeholder Advisory Council.

She is a frequent media spokesperson on kinship care, including recent interviews on BBC News, Sky News, Channel 5 News, BBC World at One, BBC Five Live and Radio 4 Woman’s Hour.

Previously she spent 11 years at The Fostering Network where she was Director of External Affairs and then Director of Development. Her teams led the successful Staying Put campaign, the introduction of Mockingbird, the London Fostering Achievement programme, the development of The Skills to Foster, delivery of Foster Care Fortnight and foster carer recruitment projects with the Department for Education and local authorities.
She has a PhD in Politics from Southampton University and has worked in research roles in universities and the voluntary sector. She has three children, who are all at secondary school.

I’m Kate and I oversee our commissioning with local authorities and the design and delivery of all our programmes and services. I’ve worked in the charity sector for more than half my life (no guessing my age!) and feel very passionate about supporting vulnerable families to enable children to have the best chance in life. I worked at Save the Children for 11 years, mainly on child protection in humanitarian settings around the world, but then chose to focus on UK-based work once I had to focus on protecting my own children! Most recently I was Director of Programmes at Mentor UK, preventing youth drug and alcohol misuse.

What I love about Kinship is the genuine feeling of making a difference to families who are often invisible, as well as working with a fantastic team. It’s also a cause close to my heart as my mum was predominantly brought up in kinship care by her aunt and uncle.

I have a BSocSc from the University of Birmingham in International Studies with French, am a governor at a local primary school and a committee member of the City Women Network. I love languages, running and anything to do with Latin America, especially salsa!

Motivated by bringing together different communications disciplines to deliver engaging, integrated and impactful campaigns, Rhiannon has experience in successfully securing changes in policy and practice at local and national level. With experience working for national charities including Whizz-Kidz, NSPCC, Re-Engage (formerly known as Contact the Elderly) and Anchor-Hanover, she’s led teams working across PR, digital, campaigns and external affairs.

Rhiannon was part of the team behind Sport England’s flagship This Girl Can campaign, and went on to team up with her job-share partner Lisa Watch to lead the external affairs  for the it, securing support from Parliamentarians and key stakeholders.

Most recently, Rhiannon and Lisa shared the role of Director of Policy, Communications and Campaigns at Become, the national charity for children in care and care leavers. During their tenure, they built the charity’s influencing and communications capacity across research, policy, PR, digital and participation; successfully lobbied for the inclusion of care leavers in the terms of reference of the Government’s Independent  Review of Children’s Social Care; and developed a successful inclusive recruitment process to bring care-experienced communications and participation professionals into the charity’s workforce.  They also oversaw the launch of Become’s first social media campaign for National Care Leavers Week 2020, #whenIwas18, backed by celebrities including Samantha Morton, Annie Mac and Deborah Francis-White, who supported the charity’s call for better support for care leavers.

Her main experience and interest is in children’s policy, having worked on issues ranging from better support for children in the criminal justice system to equipping parents to talk to their children about online safety at organisations including NSPCC, Barnardo’s and the LGA.

She is driven by developing innovative and impactful ways to bring about change, testing new ideas to work to achieve cut through and empowering people with lived experience to be the agents of change.

Most recently, Rhiannon and Lisa shared the role of Director of Policy, Communications and Campaigns at Become, the national charity for children in care and care leavers. During their tenure, they built the charity’s influencing and communications capacity across research, policy, PR, digital and participation; successfully lobbied for the inclusion of care leavers in the terms of reference of the Government’s Independent Review of Children’s Social Care; and developed a successful inclusive recruitment process to bring care-experienced communications and participation professionals into the charity’s workforce. They also oversaw the launch of Become’s first social media campaign for National Care Leavers Week 2020, #whenIwas18, backed by celebrities including Samantha Morton, Annie Mac and Deborah Francis-White, who supported the charity’s call for better support for care leavers.

Hi I’m Louise. I joined Kinship after the merger with Grandparents’ Association where she had worked for 10 years. Since joining the team almost 5 years ago I have moved on to the role of Head of Finance and Operations. I’m responsible for maintaining and strengthening an effective organisational development of IT and systems, HR and overseeing the financial management and supporting Governance.

I have a broad experience of over 20 years within sales, administration, customer service and finance roles in varying industries.

After many years of working in the private sector, I have found my home in the charity sector. It means so much to know that I am part of a team that supports such an amazing cause. I am passionate about Kinship and the work that we do to highlight the wonderful kinship carers who step in to care for children when they cannot live with their parents.

I am married with three children whose grandparents played a large and active role in their lives growing up. I love gardening, reading, our pets and the outdoors. Most of all I enjoy spending time with my family and extended family.

I’ve worked with Kinship since March 2019. I’ve been the policy and practice advisor for Kinship since August 2020 and before that I was a social work consultant.

I have been a post-graduate researcher in the School of Social Work at the University of East Anglia (UEA) since 2017. My research interest is kinship care with a focus on special guardianships. I’m currently undertaking a qualitative Ph.D. research project exploring grandparents’ experiences of being a special guardian. I have disseminated my findings both nationally and internationally and have won an award for using my research to engage with the government, professionals, and special guardians.

I worked as a part-time lecturer at the School of Social Work at the UEA between 2019-2020 and continue to lecture there as an associate tutor. I am an associate fellow with the Higher Education Academy.

I worked as a social worker and then senior social worker in the child protection team from 2011 until 2015. I became the manager of the family intervention team in 2015 where I worked until 2017.

I graduated with a first-class BA (hons) degree in social work in 2011 from the UEA. I also received a master’s degree with distinction in advanced social work from the UEA in 2016.

I’m registered as a social worker with Social Work England, registration number, SW30809 and continue to practice as a relief social worker and manager in an emergency duty team.

Emma joined Kinship in July 2020 to set-up our award winning Covid-19 Kinship Response, having previously supported the charity as a strategic consultant focussing on programme development.

Her role encompasses service design, strategy, digital transformation and impact, leading on our development into Wales and volunteering. She now oversees our National Lottery Digital Fund project, ensuring that all our services for kinship carers meet their needs.

Previously Director of Education and Prevention at Roy Castle Lung Cancer Foundation, she won The King’s Fund GSK Impact Award for their Cut Films behaviour change youth programme. Most recently she was interim Co-CEO at Animal Free Research UK, responsible for governance, marketing, fundraising, retail operations and strategic development.

Constantly curious, Emma is a qualified digital marketing and marketing specialist with experience in developing exciting brands and user-led websites. She’s worked at The Children’s Society, BAFTA and the British Safety Council to deliver high impact award winning communications and fundraising campaigns.

She lives in Edinburgh with her husband, two dogs and two cats and is incredibly passionate about creating services that really work for kinship carers.

I’m Sarah and I joined Kinship in February 2022. I oversee the Peer-to-Peer Support Service for kinship carers.

My career has focussed on building and improving services that enable people to live well in their community. I’ve worked at large and small charities, as well as a local authority. Most recently I worked at Versus Arthritis, where I supported the scale up of evidence based programmes and collaborated with commissioners and healthcare leaders to improve NHS services for people living with musculoskeletal conditions and chronic pain. I also volunteer at a local environmental social enterprise as chair of the board of trustees.

What I love about Kinship is the level of passion that everyone shares to make a difference for kinship carers and the children they are looking after.