Our Trustees

Sally Allen, Chair

Sally was appointed to the Board in Sept 2019 and became our Chair in July 2020. Sally has 30+ years’ experience of working within local authority education, housing, social care, and voluntary sector settings undertaking both frontline service delivery and strategic commissioning and Senior Management roles.

As an experienced Programme Manager her passion lies in bringing people together who have a wide range of experience, skills and perspectives and harnessing that knowledge and expertise to bring about positive change. Working with a passionate team of people who have different perspectives is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding aspects of her role. Sally feels blessed to have experienced living with difference throughout her life – the challenges and gifts that living with an additional need or disability has brought to people closest to her, and to her family as a whole.

Treasurer

Deborah Holden, Trustee

deborah.h@familyvoicesurrey.org

SEND experience:

Lived experience with my son.

Professionally, I have worked in many roles where I have created and delivered services that support families to access their entitlements within the education, health and social care sectors.

What do you bring to your role?

Empathy and understanding alongside 20 years in leadership roles in the charity sector.

Fun fact about you:

Abba fan!

Hobbies/interests:

I’m an avid reader and am always reading at least three books at any one time. I love swimming and can often be found at Guildford Lido.

Andrew Stevens, Trustee

andrew.s@familyvoicesurrey.org

SEND experience:

Parent Carer of two teen Autistic girls, one with an ASD diagnosis and likely PDA (Pathological Demand Avoidance) profile.

Self-diagnosed PDA profile Autistic adult, on the waiting list for diagnosis assessment.

Attended numerous courses on Autism, PDA profiles and related topics, personal experience of the SEND system.

What do you bring to your role?

Lived experience as an Autistic adult, and a parent of Autistic girls perspectives.

Personal experience of the SEND system, and empathy with other parent carers.

Years of experience as an I.T. 3^rd line/Backoffice Engineer/Administrator, mostly Wintel, also including ISO standards, cyber security, social media, instant messaging and VoIP social platforms.

Passion for making improvements for SEND families, I’m told I’m a good communicator,

Fun fact about you:

I agonised over what to put in this section for over a month and half before giving up and stating this instead. A strong contender for “Tell me you’re autistic without telling me you’re autistic.”

Hobbies/interests:

Advocating for Autistics, particularly PDA Profile Autistics, has become a primary interest.

Computers and technology.