Who we are

Our Chair and Board of Trustees

Anthony Douglas, CBE - Chair

Anthony Douglas was Vice Chair of BAAF for three years before succeeding Sir edward Cazalet as Chair in 2003. He brings to the role a considerable personal and professional experience. As an adoptee, he understands the issues for children and families in family placements.

Anthony Douglas has been Chief Executive of Cafcass, the specialist national agency representing children and families in family courts throughout England, since 2004. Cafcass supports over 100,000 children in public and private law cases every year.  Prior to this he was Director of Social Services in the London Borough of Havering, where he was also Director of Housing, Leisure, Libraries and Neighbourhood Services, and in Suffolk, where he was Director of Social Care and Health Services.  He was an economist and then a journalist prior to becoming a social worker. He has written three books on UK social care and is now writing a fourth on social care partnerships.  He has been a school governor and a government adviser on specific programmes. He is a Visiting Fellow of the University of East Anglia and Chair of the British Association for Adoption and Fostering (BAAF). Anthony was awarded a CBE in 2008, for services to family justice and adoption.

Anthony is married with two grown-up daughters, and lives in Suffolk and London.

Dr. Eugenia Ngwane - Vice Chair (co-opted)
Eugenia was a Consultant Community Paediatrician and Medical Adviser to a Local Authority Adoption Panel and to a Fostering Panel prior to her retirement from the NHS. She has been an active member and friend of BAAF since 1981. Eugenia was a founder member of the Black & Ethnic Minority Placements Advisory Group and was an active member of the Health Group for many years.

Ron Cooke - Treasurer
Ron's career was spent entirely in local government finance, having qualified as an accountant in 1970. He retired from the post of Chief Finance Officer at the London Borough of Waltham Forest in 2002. Ron has been involved with Social Services finance and was Hon. Treasurer of the London Childrens Regional Planning Committee, and the Inner and North London GALRO Panel for many years. He was co-opted to the BAAF Board in October 2003 and has acted as BAAF's Honorary Treasurer.

Andrew Christie (nominated by ADCS England)

Andrew Christie began his career in children’s services as a residential social worker, after completing a degree in social administration at Manchester University. In the early 1980s, he was a social worker for children and young people in East Sussex and Australia. He began his management career at a multi-disciplinary family centre in the London Borough of Lewisham in 1984, before gaining his first senior management post as an area manager in West Surrey in 1989.

In 1998, Andrew joined Hammersmith and Fulham as Assistant Director of Community Services and became Assistant Director of Children’s Services in the Social Services Department in 2000. Andrew was appointed Director of the Children’s Trust in 2004, and then as the Borough Director of Children’s Services  in January 2006.

He leads for the ADCS on issues relating to Children in Care. He is a member of the Boards of BAAF and Research in Practice; and chairs the National Centre for Excellence in Residential Care Steering Group.

Hugh Connor (nominated by ADSS Northern Ireland)
Hugh is the Director of Social Services in the Eastern Health and Social Services Board (which comissions health and social services). Prior to this, he had worked as Director of Social Services and the Director of Adult Services in a trust providing services. He is a former Chair of the Association of Directors of Social Services in Northern Ireland, served on the Secretary of State's Community Care Task Force in England in 1993 and is a board member of a number of voluntary organisations. He was born in Northern Ireland, lives in Belfast and has three grown-up children.

Norman Goodwin (nominated by CVAA – Consortium of Voluntary Adoption Agencies)Norman is Chief Executive of Adoption Matters Northwest, a voluntary adoption agency, with its main headquarters in Chester, but covering the North West of England.  He has worked there since 1985 having previously worked in social work in Scotland, Wales and England.   He is an executive member and treasurer of CVAA and was until recently a Trustee of NCVCCO. Norman is married with two adult children and enjoys playing cricket and regularly watching Liverpool FC.

Carole Sykes (UKSWPAC)

Maswood Ahmed (nominated by BMEPAC)

Colin Moodie (nominated by the Scottish Legal Group)

Carolyn Sampeys (HGAC)
Dr Carolyn Sampeys is a Community Paediatrician and Named Doctor for Adoption and Looked After Children for Cardiff and Vale NHS Trust. She acts as Medical Adviser in Adoption to Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan Local Authorities. Carolyn is Chair of the BAAF Welsh Medical Group and an active member of the BAAF Health Group Advisory Committee. Carolyn lives in South Wales and is married with 3 teenage children – 2 sons and a daughter

Dr Peter Selman (nominated by the Research Group)
Peter is Reader in Social Policy at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. He has researched and written on many aspects of adoption policy, with a special interest in intercountry adoption and teaches an honours course on Adoption: a worldwide perspective. He is chair of the Network for Intercountry Adoption and the editor of Intercountry Adoption; developments trends and perspectives. He is currently a research consultant for the Intercountry Adoption Centre (renamed from Overseas Adoption Helpline) and the Scottish Executive’s Adoption Law Review and has been invited to act as consultant to the United Nations Population Division in a review of adoption trends worldwide.

Tony Sharp (nominated by UKSWPAC)
Tony qualified as a social worker in 1974, since which time he has worked for Essex County Council in Children and Young Peoples Services. Since 1997 he has held the post of County Adoption Manager. He is currently Co-opted to the UKSWPAC and is Chair of that advisory group.

Robert Swift (ADSW Scotland Trustee)
Robert is employed as a service manager in East Lothian Council, with responsibility for resources for children and families. He has been involved in fostering and adoption as a practitioner and manager for about thirty years. He has been a member and chair of fostering and adoption panels in the statutory and voluntary sector, and is an agency decision maker. He chairs the ADSW sub committee on Fostering and Adoption. He is a birth parent and an adoptive parent.

Ellis Williams (nominated by ADSS Wales)
Ellis has been a Director of Social Services in Wales since February 2001, firstly at Newport City Council and currently at Rhondda Cynon Taf Borough Council having been appointed to the post of Group Director (Community & Children Services) in January 2007. After returning to the UK from working with Voluntary Services Overseas in Papua New Guinea, he's worked in a number of English and Welsh Local Authorities and first came into contact with BAAF when Northamptonshire took part in a BAAF Research Project on Placement Outcomes in the early 1980's. He's Lead Director for Children’ Services at Rhondda Cynon Taf, armchair Evertonian and proud father of 2 wonderful daughters.

Kevin Williams (nominated by Independent Fostering Providers)
Kevin was appointed Chief Executive of TACT in 2001. He has a strong background in teaching and social work having commenced his career with the Inner London Education Authority. Kevin has a Master of Arts in Social Work and a Bachelor of Arts in Education.

Observers

Department For Children, Schools and Families

Shireen Ritchie, Local Government Association

Shireen Ritchie has been a Kensington and Chelsea Councillor since 1998 and represents the Brompton ward on the Council which houses the three major London Museums, The V & A, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum.  Following the Children Act 2004, she holds the demanding portfolio of Cabinet Member for Family and Children’s Services.

She is Vice Chairman of the London Councils ‘Children and Young People’s Forum’ and sits as a Local Government Association observer on the British Association for Adoption and Fostering Board.  She is Vice President of the national charity, UK Youth and is a member of the London Youth Crime Prevention Board.

She is the Conservative Party’s Chairman of the Committee on Candidates and is in the vanguard of David Cameron’s drive to get more women and ethnic minorities into Westminster as Conservative MPs.  She is a Founder member of Women2Win.

Robert Tapsfield - Executive Director of The Fostering Network
Dr Aggrey Burke - BMEPAC observer

Chief Executive & Company Secretary - David Holmes

Board Secretary - Karen Wilkins