Who Are We?
Board of Trustees
ThePromise has 6 Trustees.
Mrs Sarah Settelen Chair
Ms Clare McKeown Vice-Chair
Mrs Clare Nash Secretary
Ms Anne Warner Treasurer
Mrs Vicki Brown
Ms Joanie Speers
Advisory Board
We have an Advisory Board whose members willingly offer advice as and when necessary. We are enormously grateful to them for this:
Mr Martin Bax, Consultant Paediatrician DM(Oxon) FRCP FRCPCH
"As a Paediatrician I have had some contact with Eastern European Services for disabled children. I paid a visit 10 years ago to Russia leading a group of paediatricians and obstetricians looking at obstetric services, outcomes and the care of children with disabilities. More recently and on-going I have been carrying out a study of services for disabled children throughout Eastern Europe and know something therefore of the conditions in Russian residential institutions and orphanages. I am quite certain from what I have heard of the Ryazan Baby Home that Portage is an excellent early intervention programme to introduce."
Ginevra Burton, Chartered Physiotherapist BA BSc MCSP
Alexis Chapman, Accountant BSc ACA
Lesley Carroll-Few, Speech and Language Therapist MRCSLT
Elizabeth Hindmarch, PR Consultant EHPR
Mrs Joy Horne, Educational psychologist BA Hons MSc AFBPsS
"As an Educational Psychologist and currently manager of the Hounslow Portage Service, I know first hand what an absolutely vital service Portage is to children with special needs. Portage is an early intervention teaching service for children with any type of difficulty or disability under the age of 5. It breaks down tasks into very small steps, setting goals and planning activities to support the child in the achievement of these goals. The Russian children in the Ryazan Baby Home will be suffering from a severe lack of positive interaction, access to stimulating toys and are not currently in a position to be able to reach their potential. Receiving the Portage service through ThePromise will give them an extraordinary chance to do this."
Naomi Hulford, Occupational Therapist BSc MCOT
Gillian Slade, Dietitian RD HCP registered
Tanya van Dalen, Occupational Therapist BAOT MCOT
Mrs Diane Williams, Senior Portage Teacher
Mrs Mollie White, Educationalist and Portage Specialist Dip Ed MA
"I first came across this method of working with children with special needs in 1976. I count myself fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in a very successful pilot project examining the Portage model in action, set up by the Wessex Health Care Evaluation Research Team. As a result of our confidence in the results achieved by the project, we worked together as a team, over a number of years, to disseminate the approach across the UK where it is now a recognised part of established practice, benefiting many thousands of children with special needs each year. More recently I have worked on projects to establish the service in other countries, and I am excited to be involved in its introduction to the Ryazan Baby Home. I truly believe that it will make a huge difference to the lives of these Russian children".
Jo Wooster, Chartered Physiotherapist BSc MCSP
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