Staff
George is an economist, accountant, psychologist and clinical criminologist. He is also a traumatic stress counsellor.
Before focusing on social issues, George had a successful career in business, first as a senior line manager working in the field of international strategy, then as a strategy consultant and corporate turnaround specialist.
He graduated from Glasgow University in 1966 with an Honours Degree in Economics with Economic History. From university he joined Unilever and qualified as an accountant. His 17-year career with Unilever, took him to more than 35 countries, where the juxtaposition of extreme poverty and extreme privilege stimulated a fascination with the schism between compassion without effectiveness, and effectiveness without compassion. He became deeply interested in exploring how to integrate the two. This led him to study Western and Eastern philosophy and psychology. Eventually he combined his full time job with studying Psychology at London University, graduating in 1983 with a First. Also in 1983 he set up his own consulting business, Cameron Consultants, specialising in advising corporate companies on international strategies, senior management development and profit improvement.
In the early 1990s George was deeply moved by a number of horrendous child cruelty cases widely reported in the UK. He took a fundamental decision (or as he sees it, the decision took him) that he could not just accept such things and do nothing about it. In looking at what he personally could do to alleviate this cruelty, he began to explore the issues of child abuse and its causes. He studied Criminology at Birmingham University, counselling victims and offenders, and in 1996, he initiated the creation and growth of WAVE.
While his main employment continues to be as a business strategy consultant, George devotes much of his time to WAVE, building up our membership, communicating our message through presentations and writing, and managing our research programme. He also works with victims and perpetrators of violence, in prisons and in the community, delivering WAVE's very successful "An End to Violence" programme.
While at CiS, Jonathan was in charge of all policy analysis and governmental influencing work; a variety of services (including Scotland's national information resource on additional support for learning); and, special projects (e.g. on fathers and kinship carers). Research work was conducted on: fetal alcohol harm; pupil councils throughout Scotland (with the University of Edinburgh); child safety (injury prevention); preconception health; parental and pupil views/experiences of education and health services; out of school care in disadvantaged areas of Europe (coordinating a six nation team of researchers); the education of homeless students; and, young men in residential care, who are troubled and in trouble.
Jonathan was the Chief Executive (President) of the North Carolina Child Advocacy Institute between 1995 and 2004. Sher also served for several years as a founder of a public policy coalition of 150 organizations across NC that focused on helping disadvantaged children and families, e.g. by successfully advocating for the state’s child health insurance program. For several years, Jonathan was a faculty member at universities in North Carolina (including as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies at NCSU’s College of Education and Psychology). He also served on the Ethics Committee for the University of North Carolina’s Hospitals – and as an officer of the NC Child Fatality Task Force.
Earlier in his career, Dr. Sher was the founder of REAL Enterprises; helping low-income rural students create their own jobs by creating their own businesses. Sher also was the Education Director at the Center for Community Change and the National Rural Center (both in Washington, DC). He also spent a few years as the head of international projects on rural education and community development for the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) based in Paris.
Sher received his master's degree and doctorate from Harvard University's Graduate School of Education. He is the author/editor of two books, numerous published reports and dozens of articles/chapters in professional, academic and popular publications. He has been the keynote/closing speaker at more than fifty national or international conferences. On the personal side, Jonathan is a husband, father and grandfather residing in Edinburgh.
Anthoulla was a Solicitor in private legal practice for 27 years until 2010, specialising in commercial property transactions and non-contentious legal work.
Prior to 2010, Anthoulla provided pro bono and financial support to WAVE while pursuing her career as a Solicitor.
WAVE’s ever growing sphere of influence and achievements led to expansion of opportunities for WAVE to achieve social transformation. The possibilities excited Anthoulla such that she could no longer remain in the law. She left the legal profession in 2010 to join the management team, and to present WAVE's preventive message and strategic solutions to audiences throughout the UK.
Anthoulla fills two key roles within WAVE:
(i) Company Secretary and in-house lawyer -handling all internal and third party contracts, governance, dealing with Companies House & Charity Commission requirements, and liaising with and supporting the Board of Trustees.
(ii) Director of external relations and major donor fundraiser - engaging with major supporters and ambassadors.
Following a successful career running her own business, Ita moved into management consulting where she became first a Director, and later owner, of an international consultancy. Much of her work was in international strategy, where her assignments for airlines, breweries and chemicals companies took her around the world.
Ita is passionate about ending the maltreatment of young children. She also believes WAVE's work, in uncovering and tackling the root causes of violence and abuse, may do more to reduce cruelty to animals than all the good work of all the symptom-oriented animal charities put together.
Ita is co-author of The WAVE Report 2005: Violence and what to do about it and the co-author of the WAVE Report International experience of early intervention for children, young people and their families 2010and wrote Working Together to Reduce Serious Youth Violence. She also produced the first drafts of Graham Allen and Iain Duncan Smith’s booklet Early Intervention: Good Parents, Great Kids, Better Citizens.
After careers in teaching, recruitment consulting and administration, Sally joined WAVE in 2007, where her many and varied skills plus her phenomenal ability to multi-task are highly valued.
Because of her strong belief in making the world a more pleasant place, in addition to her commitment to WAVE, she is involved with other third sector organisations with a wide range of charitable objectives.
Cat joined WAVE in 2011 after a period spent working as a carer for elderly people with Parkinsons and Dementia. She studied Geography at Loughborough University. She joined WAVE as an assistant researcher, moving up to researcher in May 2012 and was promoted to Parliamentary Liaison Officer in December 2012. Her role is work closely with parliamentarians to bring home the message of primary prevention, she is currently working on the '1001 Critical Days' campaign and provides the Secretariat for the new APPG on Early Years. She enjoys learning languages and singing in her spare time.
Sean joined WAVE in 2012 after a period spent working as a freelance writer and proofreader. He studied at both Trinity College Dublin and Queen Mary, University of London. His role at WAVE entails researching and helping to write the forthcoming 70/30 report, as well as associated work upon domestic violence. His leisure pursuits include supporting a rubbish football team, swimming, and writing his first novel.
Rachel joined WAVE in 2013 and works part time as a researcher. She has previously worked as a researcher in social policy in various academic settings, attaining the position of Research Fellow in the School of Social Policy at the University of Manchester. She has written or co-authored several publications concerned with various aspects of social housing policy and public sector complaints procedures. More recently, she has been employed as an administrative coordinator by two charities working with children with disabilities and their parents. Rachel continues to be involved on a voluntary basis with organisations working with families in her local community.
Her role with WAVE involves researching and writing for the forthcoming 70/30 report and also carrying out smaller scale research projects and evaluations of programmes aimed at providing support to parents.
Chailey joined WAVE in December 2012 and is a valuable addition to the fundraising team.
