Trustees

Carole has 18 years’ experience as a Chief Executive in two social care charities. She retired as Chief Executive of The Brendoncare Foundation in June 2020. Prior to joining Brendoncare Carole worked for The Fremantle Trust. She joined the Trust as Director of Finance in 1992 and was appointed Chief Executive in 2002. Carole was a Board member of The National Care Forum and Honorary Treasurer. Her professional background is as a Chartered Accountant and she was a Senior Manager in the audit department of Ernst & Young prior to joining The Fremantle Trust. Carole enjoys walking, playing tennis, theatre, reading and sudoku puzzles.

Cathy is an Honorary Professor in the School of Health at Robert Gordon University, Aberdeen and is the Director of Research for Real an action research consultancy based in Edinburgh.  In her professional life, Cathy has played an active and varied part in the evolution of My Home Life in Scotland, England, and Australia. With interests in appreciative action research, she is recognised in the UK and internationally for work that challenges thinking and practice about social research, leadership, participation, learning, and evaluation.  Reflective and always learning, a current focus is how to sustain caring conversations where lived experience and other perspectives are disputed, downplayed, or discounted by others.  Cathy is a regular and keen musician, allotment holder and beach walker. 

Julienne is Professor Emerita of Nursing: Care for Older People at City St Georges,
University of London. She co-founded My Home Life Charity in 2006 and worked as Co-
Director for My Home Life Charity in England. Internationally, Julienne is a recognised expert
in aged care, being former Vice Chair of the Global Ageing Network and holding several
visiting professorships in Australia and USA. Since retirement in 2019, Julienne helped set
up My Home Life Charity and has been working in a variety of national roles that promote
research and development across the housing, health and social care sector. A place of
importance for Julienne is an island in the Atlantic (Bermuda), where her son lives with his
wife and their two grandchildren.

Sarah is Associate Director for My Home Life Northern Ireland & Lecturer in Nursing at Ulster University.

Sarah has a background in surgical nursing before managing several Health & Social care projects. She worked as a care home manager and a Dementia Lead for a Belfast charity. She is the chair of the regional frailty education working group who recently developed the regional frailty training programme. 

Specific interests are exploring leadership in long term care and how this impacts care delivery, developing knowledge & awareness around frailty, supporting staff to develop practice in dementia care and dementia design and quality care for older people. She sat on the Northern Ireland expert panel to assist with the development of the national dementia learning & development framework in 2014 and has contributed to the current review.   She won the RCN Nurse of the Year Learning in Practice award in 2017 for her work with NI care homes in the My home Life programme.

Sarah is an avid reader of all types of fiction, enjoys DIY, travel and chilling in her hammock.

Sylvie was a founder member of the My Home Life Charity movement and was Co-Chair of the Care Home FaNs: Intergenerational Linking Project. Until her retirement in 2019 she was the Executive Director of the National Activity Providers Association for 15 years. She now serves as an Ambassador for NAPA . Sylvie has worked in a range of health, education and social care settings all with a focus on wellbeing and engagement. Sylvie is a Winston Churchill Travelling Fellow and Trustee for 3 Air Cadet establishments. Sylvie enjoys gardening, reading, tap dancing and family time.

I still work once a week as a trainer in Wellbeing and Dementia care. This group of students
are using the My Home Life image cards at the beginning of a session- a very versatile and
popular resource.