Our Associates
George Dewar
George is an Edinburgh based Freelance Theatre Practitioner with over 30 years experience working with all ages including young people and community groups. He has worked extensively across Scotland and beyond as a teacher, facilitator and director. With a particular interest in Forum Theatre (Augusto Boal) George’s workshops and projects use a diverse variety of theatre based techniques to help participants find their voice and use it to communicate their ideas to their chosen audience. Workshops are individually designed to promote and nurture inclusion, equality, community, self-confidence, autonomy, and thus to inspire change.
Colin Finlayson
Colin is a freelance educational consultant, currently working as Programme Coordinator and Consultant to the Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration at the University of Edinburgh.He was Head Teacher at James Gillespie's Hiogh School Edinburgh between 1991 and 2005, and has widepsread knowledge and understanding of issues related to secondary education. From 2003 - 06 he was Leadership Development Officer for the City of Edinburgh Council Children's & Families Department, working with senior educational leaders in nursery, primary, secondary, and special schools. this included the development of innovative training programmes in leadership, emotional literacy, and coaching skills, as well as a conference series aimed at widening the educational vision of head teachers.
Ali Grant
Ali has 23 years experience of working in the community sector, primarily with young people. For 15 years, she has held management positions while continuing to engage in face to face work. Her experience includes the development of drop-in health education centres, alternative curriculum projects, and crisis intervention initiatives. She has extensive experience of street based work with young people, including young runaways. As well as continuing involvement in fieldwork practice with both young people and adults, she tutors an Open University course, which feeds directly into the Degree in Social Work and the BA in Youth and Childhood Studies. She is also an Associate Inspector for HMIE.
David Heavenor
David is an experienced Arts Administrator and Fund Raiser, currently working as Development Manager for The Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh’s mid scale concert hall. He has developed corporate and individual giving schemes for The Queen’s Hall and Perth Theatre, and has a successful track record raising funds for both capital and revenue projects from public and private sources. He successfully raised funds for The Queen’s Hall’s vibrant Education programme over a five year period. As a freelance he has raised funds for The Dunedin Consort, Moorfire Productions, and a music and film project on Scottish Scientist James Clerk Maxwell featuring music by PJ Moore of the Blue Nile. His interests in music include song writing, recording and concert promotion.
Cathy Maclean
Originally qualified as a biologist and teacher, Cathy returned to Scotland to work in educational research and consultancy before joining the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) as Head of Training in 1991. Promoted to Assistant Director she founded Workwithus.org, and launched the portal in 2002. For the past five years, she has worked independently and undertaken repeat assignments for the Scottish Government, Local Authorities, Scottish Arts Council, Crown Agents, African Development Bank and many of Scotland’s national voluntary Organisations. A chartered member of CIPD, she brings training and organisational development skills, IT and e/procurement expertise as well as overseas development experience gained in Sri Lanka, Nigeria and North Africa.
Maureen O’Neill
Maureen has been involved in the voluntary sector in Scotland for over 30 years. She is currently the Director of Faith in Older People and a UK appointee to the European Economic and Social Committee. Previously she was Director of Age Concern Scotland and has held posts in organisations within the fields of mental health, community development and homelessness. She has experience and expertise in governance training for charity trustees; organisational review and mentoring for senior staff in the sector. In addition Maureen has served on a range of management boards including SCVO and EVOC.
Alan Small
Alan is an independent educational consultant. Between 1972 and 1995, he worked in the Scottish Office as one of Her Majesty's Inspectors of Schools, specialising in youth work, youth issues, and community learning and development. Since 1995, he has worked as a consultant in the field of education and training on a wide range of contracts with different clients including the Scottish Executive, local authorities and charitable bodies. He was Chair of Fast Forward Positive Lifestyles from 1995 to 2004. He has been Vice Chair of YouthLink Scotland’s Policy Forum since 2004, and Vice Chair of the Schools and Youth Work national working group.
Jennifer Stoddart
Jennifer is a film producer, running her own film production company Lichen Films based in Edinburgh. She began her professional life working in the field of education as a music/drama specialist in primary schools, and moved into the broadcast world as a producer/director for Pathway Productions owned by the Church of Scotland. She specialises in high quality documentaries and has made films for BBC, C4 and more recently HBO. Her recent documentary ‘One Thousand Pictures - RFK's Last Journey’ was shown at the Edinburgh International Film Festival in 2010 and won the short documentary prize at the 2010 Rhode Island Film Festival.
Jennifer Waterton
Jennifer has 25 years experience within research, research management, policy development and policy evaluation, mainly within the fields of public health, health care, housing, education and the arts. From 1999-2007, she worked at the Chief Scientist Office within the Scottish Executive Health Department where she had responsibility for commissioning, managing, and developing health services research across Scotland. Since 2007, Jennifer has worked freelance, undertaking policy development, research and analysis predominantly for public sector clients, in the fields of public health, health care, and education, with clients including the Scottish Government, Royal College of Nurses Scotland, the Scottish Collaboration for Public Health Research and Policy, NHS Grampian, NHS Lothian and the University of Edinburgh.