About the Race Equality Foundation - Staff
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Ratna Dutt, OBE
Ratna has been Chief Executive of the Race Equality Foundation (formerly the REU) since 1990. She is a social worker by profession and has 20 years of social work experience in a variety of settings.
As well as managing the Race Equality Foundation, Ratna is involved in training and consultancy.
Ratna has set on a number of Advisory groups set up by the Government and other bodies. She was a member of the General Social Care Advisory group, was on the National Task Force on Violence against Social Care staff and on the Adoption Task Force. She was a trustee of the National Family and Parenting Institute, and a trustee of Social Care Institute for Excellence. Ratna is a Chair of an adoption panel in London and Vice Chair of another.
Ratna, with Peter Ferns, wrote Letting Through Light a training pack on mental health and black communities (1998). With Melanie Phillips, she wrote, Race, Culture and Prevention of child abuse, a chapter in Childhood Matters, Report of the National Commission of Inquiry into the Prevention of Child Abuse (1996). Also with Melanie, she wrote Assessing black children in Need and their families, chapter in the practice Guide for the Framework for the Assessment if Children in Need and their Families (2000) for Department of Health (which is being updated). She is co-author with Vernon Harris Meeting the Challenge: a good practice guide for the recruitment and retention of BME workers.
In 2000 Ratna received the OBE for her work in race equality.
Jabeer Butt
Jabeer is the Deputy Chief Executive of the Race Equality Foundation and leads a number of our research and development activities.
Jabeer has carried out research on various aspects of Britain 's black and minority ethnic communities' experience of social care, including the work of voluntary organisations. For example he led an investigation of black and minority ethnic young disabled people's views and experiences of independent and independent living, funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. With Leandra Box, he investigated the use of family centres, which resulted in the report Family Centred (published in 1998). A number of the messages from this study were used to develop the Sure Start For All guidance document. He has recently completed work on the development of informal support groups for young black disabled people as well as major study of social and support networks of black and minority ethnic older people funded by the ESRC.
Jabeer's work has been used extensively in policy and practice development and the guide to better practice in meeting the housing needs of black and minority ethnic disabled and D/deaf people won the BMESpark award for innovation.
Helen Atanda
Helen is a Parent Programme Officer based in the Leeds office. She is a parent with learning disabilities and is working to make the SFSC programme more accessible to other parents with learning disabilities.
Alongside her co worker Beverley, Helen is organising and facilitating more SFSC programmes in Yorkshire and has recently finished running a programme in Islington for parents with learning disabilities. Helen will now take part in peer support sessions and monitoring visits.
Tracey Bignall
Tracey is currently a Policy and Practice Officer with the Race Equality Foundation. She has undertaken research within the social care field primarily on disability issues and is co-author of several reports, including The experience of independent living by young black disabled people and Something to do. Other research includes exploring the implementation of family group conferences and the career development of senior black managers in social services. In the last few years Tracey's work has concentrated on parenting and family policy issues, including parenting support for fathers. She is currently part of the health and housing team and is leading on a project promoting partnership working with Primary Care Trusts, Local Authorities and Black and Minority Ethnic voluntary organisations.
Leandra Box
Leandra is the Programme Manager at Race Equality Foundation and also manages the Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities Programmes. Leandra's publications include Supportive Services, Effective Strategies ( 1997, co-authored with Jabeer Butt); Family Centred: A study of the use of family centres by black families (1998, co-authored with Jabeer Butt); Respect : Learning materials for social care staff working with black and minority ethnic older people (1999, co-authored with Jabeer Butt and Suzanne Lyn-Cook); and a series of policy papers on the needs of black and minority ethnic families. Leandra was involved in adapting the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities Parent Programme for use with black and minority ethnic communities in the UK, and is also developing a group based programme for black young people.
Janette Bryan
Janette Bryan is the SFSC Parent Programme Officer and has been delivering the programme to parents since 2000. In addition to running parent groups, Janette supports facilitators and agencies, through advice, supervision and training, in the delivery of SFSC parent programmes. She organises the training of Facilitators on a regular basis and oversees the registration of programmes and the collection of evaluation data. She also monitors programmes nationally.
Janette joined the REU in 1987 at its inception, as Administrator and went on to become Office Manager from 1994 to 2000.
Prior to joining REU Janette worked in Leicester with the Commission for Racial Equality and various community organisations in various roles ranging from Administrator, project manager, community development Worker and youth worker.
Ronny Flynn
Ronny Flynn joined the Race Equality Foundation as Director of Health and Housing on December 1 2006, and previously worked as an academic in the Faculty of Health and Social Care at The Open University. She has over 30 years experience as an writer, researcher, teacher and trainer, most of it spent actively promoting 'race' equality. The Better Health and Better Housing Programme centres on using evidence to bring about effective change in services for black and minority ethnic people.
Yangna Li
Yangna is the Administration Manager at the Foundation. She manages the administration team and provides a wide range of support to the Chief Executive Officer and fellow colleagues based in both London and the regional offices. She is responsible for the smooth running of the Foundation office; arranging appointments, meetings and travel; organising conferences/events; maintaining accounts information including book-keeping, invoicing; liaising with external agencies; managing computerised databases; stock control, amongst other tasks.
Having previously worked for charitable organisations, an educational institution, a commercial company and legal firm, Yangna enjoys more working for the Foundation because it is ‘interesting, friendly and flexible’.
Amina Lone
Amina Lone is Regional Parent Programme Officer for the Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities programme in the Northwest. Amina is based in the Race Equality Foundation's Manchester office. She oversees training, delivery and provides support for the SFSC parent programme. She is the 'trainer for trainers' for the START young people's programme with freelance consultants. Additionally Amina delivers skills development training alongside Jabeer Butt nationally. Her background is extensive youth and community work in the West Midlands and London.
Sahira Nafees
Sahira Nafees is the Strengthening Families Strengthening Communities Administrator based in the London office. Sahira supports the SFSC team in a range of ways and is responsible for organising the training, answering the order line, and ensuring that programmes are registered and receive all the resources they need.
Assata Owens
Assata is the Race Equality Foundation Parent Programme Officer (Birmingham). She organises the Strengthening Families and Strengthening Communities training programmes, supporting both statutory and voluntary agencies in developing and embedding the programme within their organisations. A current focus is on improving support for black and minority ethnic parents with an emphasis on fathers.
She has extensive experience of working with families and young people nationally as a consultant, trainer/facilitator, mentor and coach.
Beverley Thompson
Beverley Thompson is a Parent Programme Officer in the North and is based in Leeds. Beverley is adapting the SFSC Parenting Programme to make it accessible for Parents with Learning Disabilities. Additionally Beverley is a trained SFSC Facilitator and provides support for the SFSC Parenting Programme, part of this work is to monitor programmes nationally and to deliver peer support group sessions. Together with Helen Atanda (a parent with learning disabilities) Beverley organises and facilitates SFSC courses in the Yorkshire area. Together with the other Programme Officers Beverley develops and delivers skills development training around the country.
Norean Yasin
Norean Yasin is the Regional Parent Programme Officer for the Strengthening Families, Strengthening Communities Programme in the East Midlands covering Nottingham, Derby and Leicester. Norean is based in the Nottingham Black Partnership Office. She will oversee training, delivery and provide suppoNorean Yasinrt for the SFSC Parent Programme. Her recent background revolves around organising and running educational programmes for parents in an inner city school as well as support parents and their family's with issues/problems affecting their children's development/progression in education.