Trustees
John Grieves joined WAVE as Chair of Trustees in March 2013. John is strongly motivated by his desire to contribute to changing the lives of often deeply disadvantaged people. He was until recently Chair of Emmaus, a leading homelessness charity. This followed other Chairmanships, including that of the Athenaeum, and Trusteeships of a range of arts and social care charities. Previously he was Chairman of New Look and First Leisure and a Non-Executive Director of Enterprise Oil. This ten year corporate non-executive career followed his years at ‘magic circle’ law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, including six years as its Senior Partner.
With Degrees in both Mathematics and History, Caroline has recently completed her Masters in Medieval History at London University and is now embarking on her PhD.
Deeply committed to the elimination of child abuse in both the UK and the rest of the world Caroline finds her participation with WAVE to be a natural expression of this commitment. Another expression lies in her current almost full-time role as home-maker and mother to her 5-year-old daughter Eleanor.
Since 2003 she has served WAVE in various roles: as Fundraising Officer, Council member, proof reader, editor, Trustee and, from December 2009, as unanimously elected Acting Chair. Caroline made a hugely significant contribution in 2005 by not only conducting the final edit but also by paying the full cost of the production of Violence and what to do about it, without which it is unlikely the report would have been published.
Hilary trained as a social worker, and worked in the north east of England. She moved into community work, then taught on the Community and Youth Work course at Sunderland Polytechnic. She became the Member of Parliament for North West Durham in 1987, and became Minister for Local Government and Housing in 1997. Hilary was instrumental in the early programme of the Social Exclusion Unit, and in the cross departmental Sure-Start ministerial committee. She was the Minister responsible for reducing rough sleeping in England by more than two thirds in two years.
After 5 years as Government Chief Whip, Hilary returned to her commitment to tackling social exclusion when she was appointed as the first Cabinet Minister to have responsibility for Social Exclusion in 2006. She persuaded colleagues to support effective early intervention Programmes, and was instrumental in bringing the Nurse-Family Partnership to England, where a pilot covering 10 areas was established.
She resigned from government in 2007, and from Parliament in 2010. She was appointed to the House of Lords in July 2010, and has continued her interest in early intervention.
Sir Paul Ennals joined WAVE Trust as a trustee in March 2013. He was previously the chief executive of the National Children's Bureau, having previously been director of education and employment for the RNIB. He was vice-chairman of the government's National Advisory Group on Special Educational Needs from 1997 to 2001, chairman of the Council for Disabled Children from 1993–1998, and founder chairman of the Special Educational Consortium. He was knighted in the 2009 Birthday Honours.
Edward Melhuish is Professor of Human Development at Birkbeck, University of London and Visiting Professorial Fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London. Professor Melhuish is an internationally recognised expert in the study of child development and childcare and has extensive experience with longitudinal studies. He was a Principal Investigator of studies of day care and family life in the 1980s, which had considerable influence on sections of the 1989 Children Act. He has also conducted research on child development, parenting and childcare in several European countries, on behalf of the European Commission.
Professor Melhuish has acted as a consultant for design for children, children's organizations (e.g. UNESCO), government departments (e.g. DfES, DoH, EU Commission, European Parliament) and film, television and radio companies. In addition he has frequently contributed to the media on children's issues, including newspaper, radio and television programmes.
