The Team

Simonetta Agnello Hornby

Patron

Simonetta Agnello Hornby studied law at the University of Palermo, the city where she was born in 1945. In 1965 she was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Kansas. Since 1967 she has lived abroad, having married an Englishman. She lived and worked in Boston, Lusaka (the capital of Zambia), and since 1970, in England, where she studied and worked as a solicitor, initially in the City of London, but later in Brixton, specialising in family law with a focus on juvenile law and domestic violence. She went on to become a part-time judge and President of the Special Educational Needs and Disability Tribunal. Her law firm in the London Borough of Brixton was the first in England to devote a department to family violence cases. Simonetta Agnello Hornby has also taught Children's Law at the University of Leicester.

Her debut novel, The Almond Picker, published in 2002 in Italian, became an international bestseller translated into 19 languages. It was followed by several other successful novels.

In 2016 Simonetta Agnello Hornby was awarded the title of Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy by the President of the Italian Republic.

The Rt Hon. the Lord McNally

Patron

Tom McNally has worked in and around Westminster & Whitehall for over fifty years for both the public and private sector, including spells in Government as a Special Adviser 1974-79 , as Minister of State for Justice 2010-13 and as Chair of the Youth Justice Board 2014-2017. He was Member of Parliament for Stockport South 1979- 83 and has been a Member of the House of Lords since 1995.

The Rt Hon. the Baroness Prashar CBE

Patron

The Right Honourable the Baroness Usha Prashar of Runnymede, CBE, an independent member of the House of Lords, has led and chaired a number of public and voluntary organisations with distinction.She has also served as a non executive director of some private sector organisations.

She initially started her career working in race- related organisations. Through this work she realised that to make diversity and inclusion an integral part of organisations she needed to work within mainstream organisations to change policies and practices.

She successfully transitioned to mainstream organisations but never lost sight of the objective of making diversity and inclusion a reality. This experience has given her unique insights into effective approaches to bring about relevant organisational change to achieve diversity and inclusion and has vast experience of how develop constructive strategies and actions to promote diversity.

In the House of Lords she had served on several Select Committees.

The organisations she has led or chaired include: Runnymede Trust, National Council for Voluntary Organisations, Parole Board, Civil Service Commission, Judicial Appointments Commission, National Literacy Trust among others. She was member of the Royal Commission on Criminal Justice and the Iraq Inquiry.
Currently she is chair of Cumberland Lodge, an educational charity, trustee of Beacon Collaborative and Nationwide Foundation.

Ria Hebden

Ambassador

As the official Entertainment presenter on ITV's Lorraine, Ria Hebden's infectious energy and iconic smile make her a TV regular and favourite among viewers.

Passionate about telling stories that celebrate diversity, champion women and inspire the next generation Ria founded Wonder Women TV a women's network that elevates diverse women who work in Television and the Creative Industries in 2017, and has achieved several National Diversity Award nominations for her work.

Ria also hosts film premieres, live events and industry awards for Disney, ScreenSkills, the Royal Television Society, MIPCOM, PromaxUK and the Media Production Show and she is an ambassador for the MAMA Youth Project, Peer Power Youth and a member of BAFTA.

Anne-Marie Douglas

CEO & Founder

Anne-Marie's belief in the transformational power of empathy and personal experience led her to found the charity Peer Power Youth, launched in 2016 at the House of Lords. She is a champion for lived and learned experience, and the role of participation, love and empathy in the transformation of support services for those most excluded. Her dual role at the charity includes leading on income generation and shared CEO duties, alongside Co-CEO Nic Kidston.

Proud to lead with ADHD, Anne-Marie has worked in youth voice and engagement locally and nationally across statutory and voluntary youth sectors for twenty five years and is a Churchill Fellow, researching empathy internationally. With published work on love and empathy, youth voice, inclusion and lived experience ethics, speaking engagements include Parliament, conferences, podcasts and radio, such as the Radio 4 Four Thought episode ‘The Empathy Equation’. Outside work, Anne-Marie loves travelling in her beloved campervan, going to festivals and enjoys live music and the arts.

Kloé

Senior Manager Youth Programmes & Training

Kloé leads the strategic development and delivery of Peer Power Youth's youth programmes, training, and partnerships. She oversees the organisation's empathy-led practice, ensuring that young people's lived experiences remain at the heart of programme design, workforce development, and system change. Kloé works closely with partners across health, justice, education, and the voluntary sector to embed meaningful youth participation and co-production into practice.

Kloé's passion for young people and activism is what brought her to Peer Power Youth. She is driven by the belief that lasting change happens when organisations genuinely share power with young people and create spaces where lived experience is valued as expertise. Working alongside passionate colleagues, partners, and young people inspires her to challenge the status quo and help build systems that are more empathetic, equitable, and responsive.

In her spare time, Kloé enjoys travelling and immersing herself in new cultures. She also loves watching live music, discovering new places, and spending time outdoors with her dog, Miko.

In her spare time, Kloé enjoys travelling and immersing herself in new cultures. She also loves watching live music and going to festivals.

Jordan Edwards

Head of Income, Communications and Engagement

Jordan brings a wealth of experience from the charity sector, with a strong background in communications, marketing and digital inclusion programmes. He leads on delivering strategic direction around income generation, communications and influencing.

Most recently, he worked at Fulfilling Lives Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham, where he embedded co-production into communications to help drive meaningful system change.

He is passionate about working alongside young people and ensuring youth voices are prioritised.

Outside of work, Jordan enjoys football, kickboxing and all things music.

Jack

Youth Engagement & Partnerships Manager

As Youth Engagement & Partnerships Manager, Jack provides leadership across youth voice contracts and strategic partnerships, ensuring high-quality delivery, strong governance and meaningful outcomes for young people.

After working in organisations such as UK Youth and The British Youth Council, Jack came to Peer Power Youth due to a shared passion for making meaningful transformative change for young people.

When Jack isn't working, he enjoys reading and creative writing, has a love for all things horror, and can often be found playing gigs with bands or relaxing with his three cats.

Ben Di Meo

Head of Programmes and Operations

Ben is responsible for all aspects of the charities programmes and operations. He has over 15 years experience of working with young people across multiple sectors, including the Arts and Culture sector for 8 years. He came to Peer Power Youth having been a Producer working at national touring youth theatre company Theatre Centre and before that as a Participatory Producer at arts spaces such as Jacksons Lane, The Albany and Battersea Arts Centre (BAC). Notable projects include Producer at BAC's UK & Brazilian youth changemakers project The Agency / Agência de Redes para a Juventude.

His work focuses on co-creating community projects, with a focus on children, teenagers and young adults, to support people to engage with participatory projects in an empowered way.

Outside of Peer Power Ben enjoys travelling, Italian language lessons and the occasional dip in the sea in Brighton!

Lived Experience Contractors

Peer Power Youth's Training and Coaching Facilitators and Lived Experience Contractors are a skilled team of facilitators, trainers, coaches, and leaders who bring a wealth of professional expertise alongside, for many, lived experience of systems such as mental health, youth justice, and social care. Together, they play a vital role in designing and delivering the Empathy-Led Model (ELM), working alongside young people to co-create engaging, trauma-informed training, workshops, and coaching that centre youth voice, participation, and empathy. They combine professional practice with lived expertise, helping organisations build more meaningful relationships with young people and lasting change.

Justina

Senior Finance & Operations Manager

Justina is Senior Finance & Operations Manager at Peer Power Youth, specialising in operations within the not-for-profit sector. Her experience includes supporting organisations through change and transition, strengthening systems, and building sustainable, people-centred practices. She is passionate about operational leadership that enables organisations and people to thrive.

Talitha

Lead Youth Engagement Practitioner

Talitha specialises in creative facilitation and working on our Secure Settings projects. She’s passionate about diversity, inclusion and mental health. Her background is in therapeutic arts facilitation and youth work with a focus on supporting those with experiences of trauma.

Dame Lorna Boreland-Kelly

Chair of Trustees

Dame Lorna brings over 30 years’ experience of leading and developing services for children, young people and families in social care and education services. She brings a wealth of experience as a senior manager, having worked in a number of councils including the London Borough of Croydon, where, in 2010, she received national recognition for setting up one of the first ever Social Work Academies. While unique in each authority, all of these academies developed by Dame Lorna have the hallmark of using best practice and knowledge to establish a shared language, model and culture that supports work with children, young people and their families.

Dame Lorna has also been the Chair of Lambeth College, served as the Vice-Chair of Governors in a Catholic Secondary School, remaining an active Governor of a Primary school. At the Judicial appointments commission, Dame Lorna was one of the five lay members. She has spoken and chaired national conferences, carried out commissioned work with the Home Office and led Reviews for Local Safeguarding Boards.

Annie Morris

Trustee

Annie currently works in the communications team in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport with a specific focus on charity sector policy. Prior to this she spent several years working in charity communications roles, working at charities such as Redthread Youth and The Foundation for Social Improvement.

In these roles, Annie has spent significant time working alongside young people to tell their stories in the media in a safe way, empowering them to have a voice. She feels passionately that all young people are experts in their own lives and deserve to have their voices heard on the issues that matter to them.

Elena Laguna

Vice Chair / Trustee

Elena is a Volunteering, HR and Learning & Development specialist and she believes in social action as a powerful tool for civic engagement within society. She has been a Trustee at Peer Power Youth since 2018 and became Vice Chair in 2023.

For the past decade, Elena has been on a mission to empower people to achieve ambitious goals. Whether it was at the British Red Cross, transforming volunteering at Oxfam, or Director of People at UK Youth. Plus, she is a huge advocate for learning, building inclusive workplaces, and creating environments where volunteers and staff can truly shine, be themselves and be celebrated for the diversity of skills, knowledge and experiences they bring to organisations.

Her current role as Director of Volunteer Experience at St John Ambulance is an incredible opportunity for her to lead community first aid volunteering in the UK. Elena firmly believes volunteers are the lifeblood of any charity, and creating a rewarding and meaningful experience for them has been her primary mission since I started being part of the voluntary sector.

Paul Sylston Chambers

I am an impact driven, person-centred and solution focused professional, with a career spanning over twenty years’ experience in education. I have worked in further education and youth offending.

I am currently the principal of an alternative provision for young people, who have been excluded or who are on the verge of exclusion, where we actively acknowledge with compassion, the individual needs, and attributes of our youth.

A collaborative change agent, I have a proven track record of designing comprehensive systems that provide opportunities for transforming lives. I have always seen the building of strong relationships as a key to success, whether with young people, parents, or the wider community.

I have a background in music, so when not working I enjoy spending time song writing as a hobby.

Dom Cotton

Trustee

Dom currently runs Newlane, a startup he founded in 2018 to create innovative products that make sustainable simple and safe. You can find out about their launch product at wearenewlane.com).

He began his career as a broadcast journalist at the BBC working across news and sport in the Devon, Cornwall and then London. After 12 years he moved into the voluntary sector, specialising in communications and fundraising.

The organisations Dom worked with include The Media Trust, The Change Foundation, UK Youth and Step Up To Serve (who ran the #iwillcampaign). He was successful in generating regular mainstream media coverage for these charities as well as raising significant sums for all of them.

Kirsty Osei-Bempong

Trustee

Kirsty is a business-to-business and culture journalist with over 25 years of experience covering news in the meat and agriculture industries, oil and gas markets, and more recently the social work sector. Since her teens, Kirsty has always supported or worked in the charity sector. These roles have included volunteering a few hours a week visiting elders through Help Age’s befrienders scheme.

Kirsty has worked internationally in the third sector, firstly as a communications officer for the charity organisation, United Way Ghana, in Accra. There, she collaborated with communities to amplify their stories to the public. This initiative helped to bolster the charity’s media coverage and drive up engagement with potential corporate donors. It was not only personally rewarding but also contributed to her Master’s degree research in International Communications and Development back in the UK.

Her current role writing editorial for award-winning social work publication Community Care allows her to highlight the vital and collaborative work that social workers do in positively transforming the lives of children, young people and adults in the UK.

David Peace

Treasurer Trustee

David Peace is Treasurer Trustee at Peer Power Youth. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, qualifying as a chartered accountant with a medium sized firm before undertaking a number of roles in Finance/Accounting functions within the financial services industry. These roles have provided him with an extensive knowledge of Financial and Regulatory reporting, technical accounting and stakeholder management. In addition, he has significant experience of leading teams and developing people. He has served as a director on a number of corporate boards in addition to being responsible for the presentation of financial information to senior business management.

Ali Wigzell

Ali Wigzell is a Research Fellow at the Institute for Criminal Policy Research (ICPR) at Birkbeck, University of London. Prior to joining the ICPR in 2012, she spent four years as a senior researcher at the think tank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), leading their work on youth justice.

Youth justice is Ali’s area of research specialism. Her work in the field includes a major review of youth justice at the CSJ, and the report of the Parliamentarians’ Inquiry into the Operation and Effectiveness of the Youth Court, which was chaired by Lord Carlile.

Gareth Jones

Gareth started his career in the Voluntary sector in the early eighties before qualifying as a Probation Officer in 1990. He developed a passion for crime prevention work with young people and this led to him joining Manchester YOT in 2000. He has worked in Lancashire YOT also before becoming Head of Service in Cheshire West, Halton and Warrington in 2005. He has been active in the Association of YOT Managers since 2006 becoming Vice Chair in 2009 and has been Chair since 2012. The AYM is the definitive voice for Managers within YOTs and actively promotes sector led improvements to practice.

Kenny Imafidon

Kenny Imafidon is a political commentator, social entrepreneur and activist.

Kenny is the co-founder & Managing Director of ClearView Research Ltd, which is a leading-edge youth-led research company. He is a trustee of the S.W.I.M Foundation (a charity that works with girls and women on domestic violence). Kenny also leads on research and advocacy at Bite The Ballot. In 2014, Kenny was awarded the number one position of Rare Rising Stars 2014 and acknowledged for being the most outstanding black student in the UK. His debut book “That Peckham Boy” was published by Penguin Random House (Torva Imprint) on July 13th 2023.

Marc Radley

I have been involved in youth justice as a social work practitioner and information systems designer for over 30 years. I believe learning from authentic human experience generates powerful feedback to services and social policy makers for service improvement and innovation. I can see new opportunities for this change in the UK and globally at this time.

The team work on the peer power board offers me an opportunity to help build an important new charity and movement in the UK. I am using my knowledge, skills and experience to contribute to innovative and challenging project work which sustains my creativity and is good fun.

Noel Williams

Noel is a 26-year-old youth and justice consultant, who’s had first hand experience with the criminal justice system. He sees the value and power of personal experiences, and believes that when heard they can inspire others from all walks of life, via personal experience help shape policy at the highest level and through local politics.

Where he believes that Peer Power shines, and what brought him towards being a Board member was being inspired by the young people and stories that he was able to hear and witness at an event thy held at the House of Commons. That’s when he knew he was among something he truly believed in.

Sean Creaney

Dr Sean Creaney is a Senior Lecturer in Criminology at Edge Hill University. His areas of knowledge and expertise include the theory and practice of co-production and Child First participation in youth justice. He has researched and published in this area.

Samantha Burns

Samantha Burns is currently a Research Associate at Newcastle University working on a project to explore the complexities of children and young people’s adverse life experiences and effectiveness of health and social care interventions. She has recently completed her PhD, studying the role and impact of co-production practices with young people in Hong Kong youth services. Prior to this, Samantha was involved in a range of projects in England which focused on increasing young people’s voice and participation in the criminal justice system. From these experiences, Samantha understands the importance of working in genuine, reciprocal partnerships for deepening engagement, building trust and viewing young people as capable, intelligent co-producers.

Sarah Rockett

Sarah is passionate about working alongside young people to help drive change in policy and practice - particularly in youth justice and social care. She has over 10 years’ experience doing this in engagement, policy, and design roles across the charity sector; leading projects at Barnardos, Catch22 and Nacro.

She is currently working as a Policy Designer at Camden Council, using participatory approaches to ensure policy and strategy are based on the needs of residents and partners.

Sarah has worked in partnership with Peer Power for many years, including covering a maternity contract as Youth Engagement and Co-production Manager in 2020, advancing work with secure settings in the South East. She’s an advocate for relational approaches that shake things up and loves all that Peer Power does!

Julie Fox

Former Chair of Trustees (remains as an Advisory Forum Member)

Starting her professional life as a teacher and youth worker, Julie trained to be a probation officer and worked in South Yorkshire for over 20 years. She moved to the inspectorate where she initiated greater contact with young people as part of youth offending team inspections. She is the deputy chair of a large mental health and community NHS trust, and has recently been working for the Youth Justice Board. 

Her belief is that services are more effective when those using them have considerable influence on how they are run. In particular, she is committed to young people, especially those who may not have had a voice, being heard.

Areas of expertise: probation and youth justice strategy and policy development, mental and community health oversight, constructive challenge and scrutiny, recruitment and development of staff, communication, presentations, project management.

Jeffrey Wotherspoon

Jeffrey is a certified executive coach, facilitator and high-risk conflict resolution specialist with a degree in Psychology. He is also a member of the advisory board for Coaching Culture at work – a global coaching organisation that delivers coaching training to senior executives within the corporate world. Currently, Jeffrey works across the private, public and voluntary sectors with a broad range of clients, from corporate executives to young people in custody.

Jeffrey’s background is in youth work, where he has vast experience working on the frontline with young people affected by youth offending and serious youth violence. In 2018 Jeffrey worked on the Home Office’s County Lines Pilot Project as a young engagement specialist.

Alex Lloyd

Alex is a research psychologist at Royal Holloway, University of London. He examines why teenagers are more likely than adults to explore new and potentially risky scenarios.

This involves examining why some young people engage in negative risk-taking, such as antisocial or criminal behaviour. Alex has 10 years of youth work experience in a range of settings, from sports centres to youth offending services.

Through his work, Alex advocates for a psychologically-informed approach to youth justice and has given a TEDx talk arguing for a public health approach to youth crime.

Annalisa Mensah

Annalisa is a Trainee Solicitor at a global law firm. Previous roles include junior organiser and co-chair of the Youth Leadership Team at Citizens UK, and she was in charge of the national jobs campaign tackling youth unemployment. The campaign culminated in a First Time Voters Assembly covered by The Guardian, BBC News and The Economist with over 200 young people in attendance.

Annalisa has also fundraised for charitable organisations such as UNICEF, Green Peace and Oxfam and for for two years ran her own social enterprise focusing on increasing social mobility in her local area.

Rebecca Olokun

Rebecca is currently working as a Paralegal at Cancer Research UK and supports the leadership team with the charity’s diversity and inclusion objectives. She believes that a thriving and enjoyable work environment is one where everyone is included.

Having had lived experience, Rebecca understands the need for children and youth services to be rooted in empathy. Based on this, she is committed to utilising her legal and fundraising skills, in the capacity of a trustee, to help Peer Power achieve its vision.

Kristin Barker

Advisory Forum

Kristin has dedicated her career to improving young lives through direct service and broader system change. She recently moved to London from the United States where she provided trauma-focused mental health treatment to young people. She has extensive experience training professionals and community organisations on a variety of trauma-focused topics in order to increase empathy and improve skills among the child-serving workforce and improve systemic approaches to child welfare and mental health. In leadership roles, Kristin enjoys the challenge of cultivating resources and relationships, while removing barriers, to support the implementation of effective interventions to those most in need.

Winston Allamby

Winston currently works in the commissioning team at Lewisham Council. Winston has experience in restorative, strength-based and informed approaches and is passionate about the principles of co-production. Winston enjoys travelling, running and anything that challenges him.