View LinkedIn profile Sian is a graduate with a Masters in Social Work Studies from London University and a qualified social worker. She worked in a wide range of statutory and voluntary sector organisations in the UK and Africa before becoming in 1991 the Chief Executive of a charity in the north of England providing a variety of community and family based services including Shared Lives (Adult Placement). Sian was elected Chair of Shared Lives Plus (the umbrella organisation representing Shared Lives and other small community services in the UK) in 2002 and in that role worked closely with UK governments to promote the value of very small localised services and ensure that legislative and regulatory requirements were appropriate. She continued and extended this work when she was appointed as the charity’s first Chief Executive in July 2004 and has been instrumental in securing recognition by central and local government of the important of micro social care and health services to the successful transformation of adult social care.
Sian is the first Chief Executive of Community Catalysts, a Community Interest Company launched by Shared Lives Plus in January 2010. Community Catalysts works directly with local authorities, PCTs and other organisations to ensure that people wherever they live have real choice of very small scale, high quality support and services. Sian was awarded an OBE for services to social care in the Queen’s Birthday Honours List 2010.
Sian is much in demand as a speaker. Her knowledge of policy and politics and how they impact on the realities of practise is immensely valuable. She has a calm authority which adds weight to any subject, tempered with a lightness of touch and a great sense of humour. If you’d like Sian to speak at an event, please get in touch.