Who we are

Hello! This is us.

Purpose

Shared

Yorkshire

London

Purpose

Amber Wright

Purpose Circle Delegate

Amber leads a team of Personal Assistants and has designed digital tools to facilitate person-centred support. Her work with small employers (people with disabilities employing their own staff) is award-winning and she has deep experience in creating support perfectly shaped to fit the person.

Amber is our current Purpose Circle Delegate, facilitates many of our workshops and is currently leading the training of peer supervision among our care and support workers.

Emma Back

Setting up & Product

Emma has worked in social care and community development. Previously trustee for community based charity Stepney City Farm, then working for major mental health charity Richmond Fellowship and advocacy charity VoiceAbility, she offers insight into how support services are designed, developed and commissioned. She saw that power over how services are delivered sits with commissioners and managers. It's rare for people on the front-line to be in charge.

Emma is leading on setting up and developing Equal Care Co-op. She is the Nominated Individual for CQC purposes.

Kate Hammon

People & Service

Kate ran and transformed a small social enterprise (the Feel Good Bakery) working with ex-offenders getting back into work. She has given front-line support in residential care settings. Kate has also had direct experience as a teen carer, being the main carer for her mum for several years before her death in 2007.

Kate is leading on our co-operative care and support services, regulation and recruitment. She is the Yorkshire Registered Manager for CQC.

Trevor Hilder

Chair of Purpose Circle

With an extensive ICT background spanning almost five decades, Trevor Hilder has consistently excelled in solving complex problems and leveraging technology to enhance various business domains. His mastery of cybernetics and systems thinking sets him apart as he applies these principles to address real-world challenges. Trevor's true passion lies in exploring the intersection of politics and technology, delving into the future of civilization, and harnessing emerging technologies such as Distributed Ledger Technology (DLT).

His wealth of experience and unwavering commitment to societal progress make him an invaluable asset to the team. As Chair, Trevor brings a unique blend of technical expertise, strategic thinking, and a profound vision for a better future.

Liz Robinson

Purpose Circle (Worker) Member

Liz is a passionate multipotentialite. She is a diagnosed neurodivergent and proudly part of the LGBTQ+ community. She focuses a lot on self-improvement, growth, and empowerment with herself and others in and outside work.

Liz has a lot of working and personal experience in complex learning differences with behaviours that challenge, advocacy, and outreach in and outside prisons with disadvantaged adults and substance misuse.

Liz deeply believes that what individuals perceive as their greatest weaknesses are actually their most amazing strengths.

A health and safety team trainer and a purpose circle member, Liz also engages in independent support work and advocacy in the co-op.

Lydia Nicholas

Purpose Circle (Investor) Member

Lydia is an anthropologist and technologist working across health and care technology policy. After an early career as a developer she studied medical and digital anthropology at UCL. As a senior researcher in Nesta's Futures team and Health Lab, a programme manager at Doteveryone and as a freelance consultant with the Wellcome Trust, Science Museum and New Scientist, she has led research into technology supported innovation in artificial intelligence for healthcare, public understanding of health data, social movements in health, patient-led research, and innovation in the social care sector.

Ged Haley

Purpose Circle Member

Hello, I'm Ged Haley. My strong connection to Equal Care is rooted in my journey with Multiple Sclerosis (MS), which I've had since 1978, leading to my reliance on a wheelchair since the late 1990s.

Before discovering Equal Care I had received care from several agencies. The people supported me always did their best but I felt they were overworked, poorly paid and exploited by the agencies they worked for. They were asked to work very long hours, often on their days off with little pay or respect for their well being.

The main priority of these other organisations, besides providing care for ever more clients was profit. I felt very sorry for those carers because of that. Many of these agencies eventually went bankrupt.

Neither I nor the people who came to care for me, were able to get to know each other since the relationships were very much an ad-hoc. I rarely saw the same carer twice, on one occasion having over 20 carers visiting who I had not met before.

I realised that there was a tremendous need for care in the local community, and agencies working for profit putting ever greater pressure on their workers was not fair, sustainable or desirable.

When I first heard about Equal Care and the principles upon which it worked, it was a breath of fresh air. Since first coming into contact with the Co-op I pledged to do everything I could to help it to prosper and expand.

My personal background is that I was born in Dewsbury and educated at Dewsbury boys Grammar School, I’ve got a degree in Social Sciences and have done a course at Leeds University in Philosophy and History which has always been my passion. I have a wide range of interests – which includes everything from societal issues, and science, politics local , national and global and culture in general.

Monica Haley

Purpose Circle Member

Hello, I'm Monica Haley. I was brought up in Dewsbury where I attended Wheelwright Grammar School for Girls going on to study at Bradford University for a degree in social work. Following that I was employed as a social worker in children's care, specifically in fostering and adoption services.

I had a relatively straightforward life until my husband Ged was diagnosed with MS. Since then, I've gradually taken on more caregiving responsibilities. Today, it's a round-the-clock commitment, with valuable support from Equal Care.

I first became aware of Equal Care when they organised a community meeting in our local area. We were later among the first families to receive care when they were just starting out, and I've been dedicated to the Co-op's ideals ever since.

Together my husband and I hope to be able to share our experiences, both positive and challenging, with the Purpose Circle to inform the development of Equal Care and to represent the voices of others receiving care and family caregivers.

Adam McNichol

Purpose Circle Secretary

Adam is an experienced project director who has worked across both the private and public sectors delivering a hugely diverse range of digital products.

His way of working uses progressive ethical business practices, deep industry knowledge and creative thinking to motivate individuals, teams and businesses to deliver their best work. Adam is also the founder of Well Good (a product that helps prevent mental health crisis) and is on the Leeds Digital Festival organising committee.

Adam is leading the project delivery of our platform.

Vivek Nanda

Treasurer

Shared

Matt Williams

Lead Software Engineer

Matt is our software swiss army knife twice described as "wise". He loves talking to people and understanding their problems. Sometimes they can be solved by writing some software, which he really enjoys.

Matt's career path is a windy one; he's worked at organisations large and small, private and public, digital and physical. Above all, he likes working on things that might make a real difference to people's lives. Equal Care Co-op was a natural fit.

Adam McNichol

Platform Lead

Adam is an experienced project director who has worked across both the private and public sectors delivering a hugely diverse range of digital products.

Adam is leading the project delivery of our platform.

Emma Back

Product

Emma is supporting the platform's development to the Equal Care service model.

Marc Sweeney

Communications and Campaigns

As the Communications and Campaigns Officer for Equal Care Co-op, Marc is dedicated to articulating Equal Care's distinctive identity and impactful work to both our members and the wider world.

With a background in politics and philosophy and a flair for visual presentation and illustration, Marc can switch between creative and advocacy work with ease.

Marc worked for a number of years in a library on the island of Jersey, where he begun his communications journey in earnest. He is still at his happiest when leafing through a book, silently willing everyone around him to be quiet.

Giles Dring

Platform Technical Advisor

Giles is an independent IT Consultant based in Hebden Bridge, West Yorkshire. He used to work for a large international corporation, and has a wealth of experience in designing and supporting large IT systems, particularly in the public sector. He is director of delivery at ODI Leeds and is also working on projects for the DWP.

He has a passion for local community, and in response to a couple of devastating flooding events in his town, he developed the Hebden Rising website which aimed to support the business community during recovery.

Giles is advising on the technical specification and platform architecture.

Marcus Coleman

Software Engineer

Yorkshire

Kate Hammon

Coach

Kate ran and transformed a small social enterprise (the Feel Good Bakery) working with ex-offenders getting back into work. She is an extremely experienced manager and has given front-line support in residential care settings. Kate has also had direct experience as a teen carer, being the main carer for her mum for several years before her death in 2007.

Kate is leading on our co-operative care and support services, regulation and recruitment in Yorkshire. She is to be our Registered Manager for our CQC registration.

Joan Scott

Policy & Recruitment

Joan worked in a Social Services Childrens’ Home in Dewsbury, the Probation Service in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire and, before retiring in 2013, in London for three years at a strategic & policy post. She is an “active grandmother” of her daughters’ five children. She helped her sisters advocate, co-ordinate and give care at home for her father and then her mother who both died at home in 2013 and 2016 respectively.

Joan is writing policies and working on our visual governance project, helping with recruitment and at whatever, whenever, her organising skills are required.

Matthew Shallow

Finance & Compliance Lead

Matthew worked for Camphill Village Trust for over 20 years as a support worker for adults with special needs, also working in HR and finance. In his role as landcare and estates manager he supported a team of people with very different needs to work together on the land. He experienced how people with care and support needs often support each other whilst working together. He now works as a support worker and DJ.

Matthew leads on our health, safety and wellbeing work, our bookkeeping and due diligence.

Dan Cahill

Learning Circle

Dan worked in social care as a care assistant in ‘virtually every care setting imaginable’ (and maybe a few more!) for fourteen years, dividing his time between Devon and Yorkshire, before relocating to Hebden Bridge where he learned about Equal Care Co-op through a friend and colleague. Dan was one of the first workers to deliver care and support through the platform, having his first introduction and completing his first shift in November 2019.

Dan’s introduction to care saw him working in a psychiatric hospital where he was trained up in the then outdated ‘manual patient lifts’. A bumpy start which led him to develop a passion for helping people to move in the most sensitive and compassionate way possible while also preserving the health of carers who participate in these moves. This is what he currently leads on in his work for Equal Care, both in terms of training and policy, as well as being a founding member of the learning circle.

London

Luke Tanner

Circle Founder

Luke is a father of two young children, living in Clapton. Luke has worked in a variety of care roles and social care settings; older people's care; dementia care; residential care, day care, home care, PA work. Luke is the author of the book “Embracing Touch in Dementia Care. A person-centred approach to touch and relationships” and provides training and consultancy to care providers in culture change and relationship-centred care. Having worked with both the best and worst social care providers, Luke recognises the importance of creating cultures of care ourselves; from the people, places and things that make up the communities we belong to.

Florence Nazziwa

Circle Founder

Florence is a third year student at London metropolitan university pursuing a B.Sc. degree in community development and leadership .Florence is a mother of 3 with a wide experience in social care including mother and baby units where she was awarded the employee of the month award in 2016 in her current employment as a senior support worker of young adults with special needs. She has worked with organisations such The Trussell Trust for food banks, Tweeddale children's centre, Aid Health foundation (AHF) and Gillette square regeneration project. Florence has a high passion for Personal Centred Care and believes that everyone who receives care must be treated as an individual and not as a group and this is one of the co-op core values.

Agnieszka Rolkiewicz

Circle Founder

Agnieszka is a mother of two growing up boys and applied theatre practitioner, dedicated to engaging community members by using creative and participatory methods to transform their lives. She has experience of living and working with different communities in various roles from Healthcare Assistant, Housing Officer to a Creative Facilitator.

Marcus Duran

Clapton Commons Partner

Marcus is a father of two boys and has lived and worked in-and-around Hackney for 18 years. He is from a dual-heritage background (Venezuelan / British) and to this day this lived experience informs both his passion and curiosity for how we bring about the conditions for authentic connection between people, whether across cultural, economic or physical boundaries.

Marcus has worked in a variety of roles in civil-society and the voluntary & community sector; delivering a programme for Toynbee Hall in Tower Hamlets focussed on connecting isolated young people and disparate school communities, later managing the community development team there; he then worked for London Citizens as the Community Organiser for North Hackney, where he went on to establish long-term working relationships as a freelance Community Builder with a host of local civil-society institutions in Stamford Hill in Hackney, which continue to this day in the work with community anchor, Clapton Commons.

Marcus is a creative who also works as a part-time freelance photographer and musician.

Douglas Racionzer

Circle Founder

Douglas is a qualified social worker and ethicist working in local communities promoting social entrepreneurship and cooperatives.

He is a qualified and experienced training facilitator and assessor. He has run his own businesses and is a recognized social entrepreneur having received an Ashoka fellowship in 2004 for his work in township trading and a Lemmelson fellowship in 2006 for the invention of a display fridge.

Douglas' personal imperative is to engage communities to dream and flourish, organizing with them and empowering their lives.

Marian Fakhrudin

Circle Founder

A third year student of Bsc. Community development and leadership. Originally, Marian worked for many years in the private sector. During the pandemic, she decided to return to university for a career change.

Her main motivation was to feel she was able to work with communities to make a difference. Her long term goals are to use her current skill set/degree as well as develop her digital skills to eventually bring them together and positively impact on communities from disadvantaged backgrounds.