Trustees

Stephen joined Child Brain Injury Trust as a trustee in 2017. He currently works with a wide range of businesses on leadership, culture, business development and providing advisory and professional services. His career has involved working for large corporates, small start-up organisations and as an adviser to the UK government. It has also included extensive travel and adjustment to many cultures – an interest that he has continued outside of work. Stephen has joined to support the development of the services that Child Brain Injury Trust does and could provide in the future.

Chris joined CBIT as a Trustee in November 2017. He Chairs the Trading Group Sub Committee. Chris was in the legal profession for over 50 years and retired in February 2020 to concentrate on his many charity interests. His various jobs saw him managing the higher courts department of a law firm; becoming CEO of another firm; to becoming a senior barristers clerk in Leicester and London. There then followed CEO appointments in some of the leading barristers chambers in England. He was a member of many Bar Council committees over the years and Vice Chairman of the Bar Pro Bono Unit from its inception in 1995 until 2001. After leaving the Bar he set up a legal consultancy to law firms and chambers, which included head hunting, mergers and acquisitions and general advisory work. He is the former Chairman of the Board of Directors, the recipient of a lifetime achievement award and lifetime honorary membership all from Birmingham Law Society. A former careers counsellor at the Law Society Gazette. Former Chairman of Governors at a large primary school in Birmingham. Former Chairman of the Tercentenary Committee at Birmingham Cathedral. In more recent times he has been a hospice lay chaplain and was deeply involved with 22 charities for his Livery Company, the Fan Makers

Chris has spent over 35 years fundraising in the charity sector. He initially spent 10 years at Help the Aged, starting as a community fundraiser and before leaving he was leading all the trusts and foundations, special events, corporate partnerships and employee and relationship fundraising teams. He spent time at a special school for children with very severe cerebral palsy and joined a large London NHS Trust and developed the fundraising strategy and recruited the team to deliver it. Chris spent two periods at hospices and counts them as perhaps the most rewarding times of his career. He had a couple of periods of fundraising and charity consultancy. For his last role he joined a charity in the legal sphere and worked at The Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand, London. His remit was to develop relationships with solicitors, barristers and the judiciary in order to showcase what the charity was doing. Chris finished full time work in December 2019 and enjoys golf, travel and socialising with family and friends. He lives in Bromley with his partner Lyn. He is also a Trustee of a national charity providing assistance dogs to armed services and blue light service personal who have suffered life changing injuries or illnesses.

Dr. Kaplan is a Paediatrician, Professor, and Consultant in the care of children with complex special health care needs and neurodisabilities. Born and educated in the US, he completed medical school at the University of Vermont and his residency and three fellowships at Harvard University’s Boston Children Hospital. He led in the development of three centres of excellence at Harvard, Yale, and Dartmouth (US), and is considered one of the world’s leading specialists and educators in the field. Dr. Kaplan led in the development of family centred community based and culturally responsive coordinated care programs in the care of children with central nervous system abnormalities including those with brain injury, and now, after 48 years of academic hospital based practice, he is proud to be able to devote his time and talents to the work of CBIT.

Célia is a Clinical Psychologist working in Paediatric Neurorehabilitation at the Evelina London Children’s Hospital NHS. She obtained her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Oxford, is a Chartered Member (CPsychol) of the British Psychological Society and is registered with the HCPC. In addition to her clinical work, Célia holds an honorary clinical research fellowship at Imperial College London where she has been running the lab's first paediatric project, looking at head injuries in adolescents. She has publications in peer-reviewed journals and is passionate about fostering greater awareness of ABI. She has worked closely with CBIT since 2017 and shares many of the same visions and values, having seen first-hand the positive impact that CBIT ABI coordinators have on children and families.

I am an experienced Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator with post-graduate diplomas in teaching students with specific learning difficulties and in assessing and diagnosing dyslexia and related specific learning difficulties. Whilst focussed primarily on dyslexia and dyspraxia, I have supported children with a wide range of needs, including autism, ADHD, hearing and visual impairments, specific language difficulties and physical disabilities. I was invited to join my final school in order to create a SEND department and team from scratch. This provided the opportunity to implement several initiatives which were, at the time, highly unusual: all new students in both the senior and junior departments were screened for dyslexia and other specific learning difficulties such a slow processing speeds and weaknesses in short term or working memory. Students with suspected weaknesses were offered full diagnostic assessments. Where appropriate, these formed the basis for 1:1 teaching plans which reflected individual strengths as well as weaknesses. Students’ results were either in line with or exceeded their underlying ability and the school became a centre of excellence within the association of schools of which we were a member. I first encountered CBIT when I was invited to attend one of their workshops in Bicester. Whilst I had little direct experience of children with brain injury, what I learned about the scale and impact of acquired brain injury in children made me re-examine some of the students I had worked with in the past and convinced me of the need for greater awareness. When I retired the following year, I contacted Lisa, the CEO, and was delighted when she asked if I would be interested in becoming a Trustee.

I have been a Trustee of CBIT since May 2014. However, prior to becoming a Trustee I worked with CBIT due to their ethos to help any child or young person with an acquired brain injury. I assist the Charity by providing legal advice in relation to brain injury claims and special educational needs. I also endeavour to raise the profile of the Charity at every available opportunity. Lisa Turan, the Chief Executive has manages a team of committed staff who will go above and beyond for children, young people and adults who have been affected by brain injury. She has manage to place family liaison officers in all of the major trauma units in the UK to ensure that families are assisted at the point of need. It can be a distressing time for families/individuals affected by brain injury and it is such a relief that they can be assured that professionals are there to navigate them through the difficulties and to signpost them to appropriate organisations that can assist. My work with CBIT is both rewarding and satisfying and it is a pleasure to work with this Charity.