Deirdre is an executive coach and trainer and founder of Éistim Consulting. An accredited executive and women's coach Deirdre specialises in strengths based personal and professional development for individuals and organisations. Deirdre has spent most of her career working within the voluntary and Higher Education sectors, primarily working with young people and adults.
Deirdre joined the Widening Participation team at Queen's University Belfast in 2014, taking up the role named contact for care experienced students, developing and implementing the framework supporting the growing number of care experienced students and successfully achieving the Buttle UK Quality Mark; she also created and delivered the successful Reading Together programme. In 2019 she took up the role of Student Development Manager within the Careers and Employability service, where she continued to advocate for care experienced and estranged students within the institution.
As Assistant Director for Aimhigher Greater Merseyside ( 2005 - 20012) Deirdre set up the Care Leavers into HE network facilitating partner institutions to obtain the Buttle UK Quality Mark, she was also a member of the National Advisory Group, leading the Quality Mark pilot for Further Education Colleges.
Hannah is a Social Sciences researcher based in CASCADE, Cardiff University’s Children’s Social Care Research and Development Centre. Since October 2019 she has been working on an HCRW-funded post-doctoral fellowship, exploring care experienced young people's opportunities to access and succeed in higher education in Wales.
Following a PhD in Urban Studies Hannah worked for Cardiff University's Widening Participation team, heading up a number of projects including mentoring programmes for young people with autism spectrum conditions, and care-experienced young people. This latter experience led to her move into research.
Between 2018 and 2019 she worked on a qualitative research project commissioned by Social Care Wales to explore the experiences of young people from Wales who have spent time in a Secure Children's Home, working with some of the country’s most vulnerable young people. She has also worked closely with the What Works Centre for Children’s Social Care.
Her interests include the education of care-experienced young people, child and adolescent mental health, children's residential care (including secure care), and policy change in these areas.
Lindsey has spent much of her career in widening participation, developing programmes to support people to reach their potential through education. As Outreach Manager at the University of Hertfordshire, Lindsey implemented an extensive programme of care leaver support and acted as the named contact for care leavers. Since 2018, Lindsey has run Alta Higher, which supports people from all backgrounds to access higher education and degree apprenticeships through providing inspirational and informative workshops and guidance sessions. Lindsey has also held roles with Aimhigher Liverpool and the South West Lifelong Learning Network, where she supported partners to meet the Matrix Standard for advice and support.
Lindsey is qualified in careers and holds degrees in English and Psychology. Lindsey has a master’s degree in practice-based research in which she explored white working-class boys’ relationship with university outreach.
Messiah is a seasoned higher education professional with extensive experience in student success, specialising in retention, outcomes, financial inclusion, engagement, and the end-to-end student journey. With experience across five diverse higher education institutions, his career has focused on advancing equitable access, participation, and success, particularly for underrepresented and vulnerable student groups.
Currently serving as Associate Dean of Student Journey at The University of the Arts, London, Messiah provides strategic leadership across the student lifecycle, ensuring policy, practice, and services are aligned to deliver inclusive and impactful student experiences. He has previously served as Head of Student Finance at the University of Hertfordshire, contributing to the Access and Participation Plan (APP) steering group and leading initiatives to strengthen financial support, continuation, and student outcomes.
Earlier roles at King’s College London, the Institute of Contemporary Music Performance, and the University of East London included leading work to address attainment gaps and delivering targeted support for care-experienced and estranged students.
Messiah has played a key role in developing sustainable support frameworks for care-experienced and estranged students and currently serves as Chair of the AccessHE Care Experienced and Estranged Students Forum, championing collaboration, student voice, and sector-wide improvement in access, support, success, and progression for care leavers.
He brings a strategic, evidence-informed perspective and remains committed to improving outcomes for vulnerable and underrepresented learners.
Patricia Ambrose served as NNECL Director from 2020-2023 and during that time worked on the launch and roll-out of the Quality Mark. Much of Patricia’s career has been spent in higher education policy work, including roles with Universities UK and as Chief Executive of GuildHE, as well as national evaluation projects. Her work has particularly focused on widening participation in higher education for underrepresented and disadvantaged people. Patricia is also currently representing NNECL on a longitudinal evaluation led by the University of Birmingham of an initiative in the London Borough of Camden to improve educational outcomes for care experienced young people.
Dr Stephanie McKendry has over 18 years’ experience in various teaching, learning and research roles in higher education. Since 2014, she has led the Widening Access Team at the University of Strathclyde, with responsibility for increasing opportunities and removing barriers to study and success for those from widening access backgrounds. From 2019 onwards, she has led the Access, Equality and Inclusion Service at the University, bringing together widening access and equality and diversity policy and activity. She has supported the Scottish Commissioner for Fair Access as Researcher/Implementation Advisor through a part-time secondment to the Scottish Government since 2016, leading on the development of the Scottish Framework for Fair Access. She has been a member of two National Expert Think Tanks on fair admissions, sits on the Universities Scotland Admissions Working Group, the Scottish Funding Council’s Persistent Inequalities Data Group and the Scottish Government’s Access Delivery Group. Stephanie is an editor of the Journal for Widening Participation and Lifelong Learning and an Executive Member of the Forum for Access and Continuing Education. She is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
Her research interests span widening participation; under-representation and the intersection between access and equality; and the experience of young adult carers and students from looked after/care backgrounds. Most recently, she led the award winning TransEDU research project exploring the experiences of trans and gender diverse applicants, students and staff in Scotland’s colleges and universities.
Susan Mueller has been working in widening participation in higher education since 2006 in both operational and strategic roles and has extensive experience of working with a wide range of different types of UK higher education providers and specific student cohorts (primarily care leavers, students with disabilities, estranged students).
As Project Officer from 2006 - 2008 and then Partnership Manager until 2011 for Aimhigher (London East Thames Gateway) her work focused on pre-entry outreach and information, advice and guidance and the development of programmes targeting care-experienced students and those with disabilities and learning differences.
Following the end of the Aimhigher scheme in 2011, Susan took over responsibility for the Buttle UK Quality Mark for Care Leavers until its completion in 2015. During that time Susan developed the Quality Mark for universities and expanded it into the FE college sector. In her role as Project Manager for the Buttle UK Quality Mark Susan was also a founding member of the National Network for the Education of Care Leavers in England (NNECL).
In 2015 Susan joined the charity Stand Alone as to start up the new higher education strand including the Stand Alone Pledge launched in October 2016. The Stand Alone Pledge is a commitment by UK higher education institutions to address the challenges estranged students face throughout the entire student life-cycle, and is part of Stand Alone’s wider higher education project to raise awareness of and establish estranged students as a target cohort within institutional and national HE widening participation policy.
Reuben is currently studying for his PhD in drama at the University of Hull. Harnessing his lived experience of being in care, Reuben’s research focuses on getting care leavers’ voices heard using drama and performance techniques with the end goal being to suggest informed changes which are required in the newest social care reform. He believes that care experienced people have the ability to thrive in education with the right support networks around them.
Reuben is also an associate fellow of higher education (AFHEA), a dramaturg, a physical theatre practitioner and a qualified academic researcher. Reuben's own experience of being a care leaver in the higher education sector informs his research and passion for supporting care experienced people to reach their full potential. His first-hand care experience in higher education positions him as an asset to the NNECL Quality Mark team.
