About me

This mind map summaries my background, skills and experience. Click to enlarge or download a pdf here.

Profile

I am visual and critical thinker with a positive attitude. I have engaging people skills, loads of creative energy and am committed to inclusion and human rights. I have a range of management and research skills and can effectively capture ideas, design projects and implement plans, negotiating obstacles to change and leading teams and communities to deliver tangible results.

After leaving school with no qualifications I taught myself a range of graphicking techniques to support my visual learning style. This helped me manage in a range of jobs and gave me the confidence to return to study as a mature student, where I was told I was dyslexic. By using graphicking skills and assistive technology, I finally graduated in 2008 with a PhD in Social Psychology and Disability Studies (avaliable here). An abridged version of my thesis was published as a chapter in an international text in 2009 'Disabilities: Insights From Across Fields and Around the World'.

In 2000 I set up a disabled persons organisation in Tower Hamlets, now merged with Real. This provided information, peer advocacy and adaptive technology advice, as well as promoting equality and inclusion. During my involvement, the organisation won best Tower Hamlets community project for its disability hate crime initiatives. I have a wide range of people research and analytical skills, am well experienced in running participation projects to facilitate user voice and capture citizen experiences. Most recently, (from 2008 - 11) I ran the Disability LIB project, a £4million national lottery funded capacity building program, providing management consultancy skills to 200+ community organizations around business and strategic planning, quality reviews, fund raising, HR and leadership development initiatives.