Who we are

Hello! This is us.

Purpose Circle

Our Team

Purpose Circle

Amber Wright

Chair of Purpose Circle

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 chairs our board and facilitates many of our workshops.

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.

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.

Angie Mossman

Advocate Member

Angie has senior operational experience of managing major digital change projects in telecoms and at HMRC. Her belief in the equal care model is full and frank and we are already benefiting from her deep experience in managing design and implementation in large, complex environments. Together with her husband she is managing the care and support for her mother-in-law.

Angie is advising us and sits on our board.

Kenny Lee

Supported Member (Training)

Kenny has completed an online course in Social Media Marketing, passing with distinction. He has worked at Mencap and has experience of both giving and receiving care and support. He is an activist for human and non-human rights and an equalities and rainbow campaigner. Kenny is a transgender man, having stopped living as female towards the end of 2014. He is receiving support for gender dysphoria, a number of serious physical health conditions and is neurodiverse. Kenny is a wheelchair user and uses various other mobility aids and adaptations.

Kenny is offering training and attends our board meetings. He is a peer supporter and all-round confidence-builder.

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.

Claudine Ang

Board Member (Co-opted)

Claudine is an advisor and investor in early stage startups. Claudine has 12 years of experience practising law at international law firms including Freshfields, specialising in Corporate Finance, and Mergers & Acquisitions. She also has legal experience in the Commercialisation of Technology, IT, PFI and litigation. She has a dual degree in Bachelor of Laws (First Class Honours) and a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Queensland.

Claudine has co-oversight of financial regulation, governance and financial strategy.

Mauricio Preciado Awad

Board Member (Co-opted)

Mauricio is an Investment Director at Big Society Capital. He joined from AlphaMundi Group and previously he was also Commercial Projects Advisor at Christian Aid, Pipeline and Portfolio Manager for LAC and AME at ACRE and Senior Associate, London Top Tier Department, at PwC. We have the benefit of Maurcio's commercial business acumen along with strong financial modelling, analytical, problem solving, communication and financial skills. Mauricio was also COO and Co-founder at Theatre Delicatessen, a social enterprise using disused buildings in London’s Theatre District (West End) to host widely acclaimed theatre shows.

Mauricio has co-oversight of our financial and investment strategy.

Our Team

Emma Back

Setting up & Product

Emma is leading on setting up and developing Equal Care Co-op.

Val Bone

Lead Coach (Learning & Facilitating)

Val is a registered nurse with over 30 years experience, specialising in cancer nursing and then palliative care. She has worked in both the NHS and the charity sector in UK and New Zealand. Previously a trustee for Quakers, Val co chairs a group of national facilitators who offer workshops in deepening spirituality. She also has experience as a neighbourhood mediator. Val has a passion for inspirational organisations, inclusivity in diversity and community building.

Val is to be our Nominated Individual for our CQC registration. She holds care and support relationships and is leading on developing our learning programmes.

Hannah Batley

Community Circle Organiser

Hannah is a social justice activist with 13 years experience in the NGO/charity sector. She is a qualified Social Purpose Educator and holds a passion for Community and Adult Education. Within her community you can find her offering workshops on Understanding and Deconstructing Privilege, Creative Writing and Critical thinking.

Hannah volunteers with Radical Roots (a nationwide organization for coops) working within Inclusion, Diversity and Support Groups. Within Radical Roots she is working to raise awareness and challenge class inequality within the Cooperative Movement in the UK. She has also been an active member of a local housing cooperative for over 6 years.

Outside of Hannah’s Social Justice activism she performs spoken word poetry, enjoys cooking, baking and eating yummy bread, dancing, singing, walking and generally doing things which are creative or outdoors.

Hannah is developing and supporting local care and support community circles.

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.

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 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. She is to be our Registered Manager for our CQC registration.

Gill Crofts

Equal Care Facilitator (Safeguarding)

Gill has worked in the mental health field for many years and is a BACP accredited counsellor with an emphasis on systemic practice. At Relate Bradford she managed, developed and delivered relational counselling services for young people, individuals couples and families. She has a particular interest in the therapeutic needs of older people, setting up the 'Caring and Sharing' counselling service for partners and family members of people with dementia. In NHS settings she has given counselling services to patients and their relatives with a palliative diagnosis, a long term health condition or experiencing a depressive episode.

Gill is holding the giving and receiving relationships in Equal Care and is our Safeguarding Officer.

Nadia Clarke

Training & Recruitment

Nadia is an Ambassador of Travel for People with Disabilities, working to support other people with disabilities to have the courage to experience amazing travel experiences. She was a Mentor for other disabled students, who use a Communication Aid and has spoken at the Houses of Parliament about communication issues. She is living with cerebral palsy and wears a cochlear implant allowing her to hear.

Nadia is helping with recruitment, writing blogs for the website and providing disability awareness training.

Katrina Birch

Equal Care Facilitator (User Research)

Long ago Katrina used to be a Midwife. She has since worked in clinical system design at GE Healthcare and CSC, guidelines implementation at NICE, communications and education. She has turned a frustration with poorly designed systems into a passion for human-centred problem-solving - loving good design in all its forms and finding ways to improve how we do things.

She has strong links with her local community and can often be seen in wellies and a high viz jacket when the valley is at risk of flooding.

Katrina is holding the giving and receiving relationships in Equal Care and providing a key bridge between the platform development and direct support.

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. 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.

Giles Dring

Platform Technical Director

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 leading on the technical specification and platform architecture.

Matthew Shallow

Finance Lead (Policies)

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 is our bookkeeper and also writes policies and other documents as well as helping with recruitment.