Chair

Dr Jacqui Dyer MBE

Jacqui chairs the Black Thrive Lambeth Partnership Board.

She is a Director at Black Thrive Global, as well as being an independent health and social care consultant, with lived experience, and a background in adult mental health commissioning, and community and family social work. Jacqui was vice chair of England’s Mental Health Taskforce, which collaboratively developed the 5 Year Forward View for Mental Health (NHSE) and its transformation of mental health service policy and provision. Its focus on reducing mental health inequalities was further strengthened in the NHS Long Term Plan for Mental Health. Jacqui has co-led the Mayoral ‘Thrive London’ since inception.

Jacqui is an elected Councillor where she is cabinet member for jobs, skills and community safety having previously jointly held the health and adult social care cabinet portfolio.

Alison May

Alison May is the Assistant Director, Skills and Employment at Lambeth Council.

Alison has joined us from London Southbank University, where she led on the development of apprenticeship strategy and policy for the group. LSBU is one of the largest providers of Higher and Degree Apprenticeships in the UK with around 2000 apprentices on the programme. She has considerable experience in the skills and employment arena, working in a variety of roles in both the public and private sector. She also represents the Higher Education Sector on a number of boards, including the London Mayor’s Apprenticeship advisory board and the Department for Education’s Apprenticeship Ginger Group. 

Annmarie Cowley

Annmarie Cowley is the Chief Inspector in Southwark and Lambeth.

Annmarie joined the Met in 1994, serving in a variety of uniform and detective roles in Croydon, Southwark, Lambeth, Headquarters and Specialist Crime.  

She led on implementing Integrated Domestic Violence Courts in Croydon and delivered an education, prevention, diversion package to reduce first time entrants into the CJS. On promotion to Chief Inspector, Annmarie led on family liaison, disaster victim identification, casualty bureau, coronial service and partnership for Specialist Crime.  

Annmarie is currently Chief Inspector for Neighbourhoods and Partnership for Central South BCU.

Bimpe Oki

Bimpe Ok is a Public Health Consultant in Lambeth and leads on Health Improvement and the wider determinants of health for the borough.

Her career and experience in Public Health spans over twenty years She has significant expertise in behaviour change, health inequalities, social determinants of health and community development. She has also been involved in organisational and workforce development. Bimpe has provided Public Health leadership on specific topics such as obesity, physical activity, nutrition, tobacco control, mental wellbeing and workplace health, contributing to regional and national policy and practice on these topics. 

Addressing health inequalities is central to the work she does and working together with different sectors and communities is pivotal in challenging and tackling unfair and avoidable poor health outcomes seen in certain population groups. She also supports in a voluntary capacity, international work to improve life chances of children and young people in developing countries.

Chris Clements

Chris Clements is a Director at Social Finance, a Lambeth-based not-for-profit, where he leads a collaboration with charitable foundations that seeks to develop better ways of tackling social problems.

He has a particular focus on supporting refugee integration, including co-founding Reset, the national charity supporting communities to resettle refugees, and now chairs their board. He has supported the development of Black Thrive since 2015, and also oversees work on care leavers, access to legal justice and domestic abuse. Prior to joining Social Finance, he was the Group Operations Director for the education and community development charity Oasis Charitable Trust, and he has previously held senior roles in two homelessness charities. He retains his involvement in that sector today through being a trustee of London charity Single Homeless Project.

Christopher Dayson

Chris Dayson is a Principal Research Fellow in the Centre for Regional Economic and Social Research at Sheffield Hallam University.

Chris’s research focuses on the voluntary and community sector at a local level, including its involvement in public service delivery and as a provider of socially innovative solutions to the causes and consequences of social and economic disadvantage. He is currently involved in a senior capacity in a number of research and evaluation projects for local and national public sector bodies, voluntary sector organisations and charitable funders.

Cordwell Thomas

Cordwell brings an array of knowledge, skills and experience from working across various fields of health, social care and within the community. He has substantial experience in the area of advocacy and teaching in the community and academic institutions. 

Cordwell is an experienced Independent Mental Health Advocate with over 20 years experience. His approach to advocacy is enshrined within the Care Act 2014, which asserts that the role of the Independent Mental Health Advocate is to support an individual or carer to understand information, express their needs, and wishes, secure their rights, represent their interest and support them to obtain the care and support they need.   

Cordwell’s outward facing efforts to improve mental health services were illuminated when he served as a Lambeth Black Health and Well-Being Commissioner. The Commission produced the “From Surviving to Thriving” Report, 2014.

He is a Black Thrive Lambeth community change agent, which enables him to co-produce improved mental health services alongside stakeholders to deliver improved access, experience and outcomes for people of African and African-Caribbean descent.

Daniel Ivey

Chief Inspector Daniel is a Superintendent in the Metropolitan Police.

He is lead for Neighbourhood & Partnership Policing for the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Southwark. He is also co-chair of the Metropolitan Police LGBT+ Network within which he is responsible for driving LGBT+ issues onto the police agenda.

Fiona Connolly

Fiona is the Statutory Director for Adult Social Care at Lambeth Council.

Fiona has been working in Social Care since 1987 and in Local Government since 1994. Fiona is a qualified Social Worker and holds an MBA in Local Government Leadership. Fiona is dedicated to ensuring that vulnerable residents and families in Lambeth with adult social care needs are supported to access the care and support they require so they can continue to have choice and control over their lives.  Fiona is a  key leader in the Lambeth Together Integrated Care System which strives to ensure that services are as joined up as possible to meet holistic health and care needs and there is equal access to all.

Jane Bowie

Jane joined Lambeth Council as Director of Integrated Commissioning (adults) in March 2020 – it is her first job in London, but she has led on strategic commissioning for over 15 years, the first 12 of those in the North East.

Jane is a social worker by profession and started her career working in mental health services. She is committed to working in partnership as she believes that this is the best way to improve quality and make positive changes to services. 

John Lavelle

John is the Lambeth Service Director and is responsible for the adult mental health services in Lambeth provided by South London & Maudsley NHS Trust (SLaM).  A registered nurse for people with a learning disability, with over 25 years’ experience of working in both learning disability and adult mental health services.

John has held senior operational roles covering adult acute inpatient, inpatient rehabilitation, community mental health, learning disability and mother & baby services, joining SLaM in 2019. John is committed to working in partnership with colleagues across the Lambeth Alliance, and beyond, to ensure that mental health services for the people of Lambeth are high quality, responsive, culturally diverse and person-centered.

John can be contacted via email on John.lavelle@slam.nhs.uk

Juliet Amoa

Juliet is the Associate Director Community Health and Engagement at Lambeth Council. 

Juliet is an experienced leader in adult social care and has a long history working in Lambeth, particularly in the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic community. She has lived and worked in Lambeth for over 30 years and has first-hand experience of the borough from both perspectives. Juliet is an advocate for equality, influencing whole system change. 

Juliet works within the Lambeth Together partnership which includes the council, health, Black Thrive and other voluntary agencies. Her current role is primarily to engage within Black, Asian, and Minority Ethnic communities, working collaboratively to tackle health inequalities in a meaningful way. 

Lela Kogbara​

Lela is a Director at Black Thrive Global.

She was a senior leader in the public sector for 25 years, 16 of which were in Islington where she was Assistant Chief Executive for the Council. She also worked with NHS England and Department for Education to improve employment prospects and access to apprenticeships for people with learning and other disabilities. She is a qualified accountant and her responsibilities have included policy, equalities, performance, arts and culture, employment, and community safety. Lela also follows her passion for social justice as a board member of a number of organisations.

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Marianna Masters

Marianna has held several senior positions within global financial and corporate companies for over 25 years. A long-standing advocate of Black rights she was Co-Chair of the Black Employees Network whilst at Thomson Reuters.

Elected councillor in the London Borough of Lambeth in 2018. She was Chair of the Lambeth Labour Group of 57 Councillors from 2018-2020 and is currently the Vice-Chair of the Overview & Scrutiny Committee. Marianna Chairs the Joint Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee on Lambeth Hospital Redevelopment tasked with scrutinising the proposal from Lambeth Clinical Commissioning Group and their provider South London and Maudsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust (SLaM), to reconfigure mental health inpatient services for Lambeth, by transferring in-patient services currently located in Lambeth Hospital to a new facility on the Maudsley Hospital site.

Marianna additionally is Vice-Chair on Our Healthier Overview & Scrutiny Committee covering 6 boroughs in South London (Bexley, Bromley, Greenwich, Lambeth, Lewisham and Southwark)

She holds a BA Hons degree in Law and Anthropology from Oxford Brookes University

Paulene Samuels

Paulene’s work has involved establishing networks across London within local authorities, probation services, police stations, mental health services, GP’s, and community projects.

Paulene ensures the race equality lens is always applied so that the risk of discrimination is minimised. Paulene has long standing working knowledge and expertise of Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended 2007), Equality Act 2010, Care Act 2014 and the Children Act 2004. Paulene is able to inform carers of their rights, under the Mental Health Act, and to support loved ones who have been detained.

Paulene was a member of the African and Caribbean working group of the Independent Review of the Mental Health Act in 2018. Two of the recommendations of the MHARAC were accepted by the Government and are currently in development, namely the Patient Carers Race Equalities Framework (PCREF) and culturally appropriate advocacy. 

She is a Black Thrive Lambeth community change agent, which enables her to co-produce improved mental health services alongside stakeholders to deliver improved access, experience and outcomes for people of African and African-Caribbean descent.

Ruth Hutt

Ruth started her career as a nurse training in Southampton but moved to London to study Tropical Diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine in the mid-1990s.

She completed her public health training in London and has been a Consultant in Public Health since 2005. She has had a varied public health career, working in Public Health policy research at the Kings Fund, for state government in Australia on health reform, and in the NHS and local government in London. She is committed to using public health leadership, skills and practice to address inequalities in health as well as wider social inequalities by working with statutory sector partners, voluntary and community sector organisations and local communities. She has been a member of the Black Thrive Partnership since 2017.

Ruth has been the Director of Public Health at Lambeth Council since February 2017.

Sabrina Phillips

Sabrina Phillips is the Interim Alliance Director. A mental health nurse, with over 15 years’ experience as a nurse working in Acute setting, including National & Specialist Children and Adolescent Mental Health in Slam.

Sabrina has held senior roles Operational, Quality Improvement and Quality roles in SlaM which has led on programmes that aimed to increase the experience of staff and patients onwards, as well as reduce the length of time service users have to wait for a service or be on a ward. Sabrina is passionate about improving services for people with mental health problems through the provision of equitable high quality care delivered by a compassionate, skilled workforce working in partnership with colleagues from statutory organisations, VCSE, service users and carers and the people living in the community we serve.

Sabrina can be contacted via email on Sabrina.phillips@slam.nhs.uk

Sonia Winifred

Cllr Sonia Winifred is a Psychodynamic Psychotherapist, and Clinical Supervisor. She manages her Private Practice and is employed by Fegans Charity, managing a team of Counsellors providing Counselling support for children and young people in Primary and Secondary Schools in Lambeth.

Cllr Winifred is the Cabinet Member for Equalities and Culture in the London Borough of Lambeth with responsibility for the strategic approach to Lambeth’s rich and diverse cultural and tourism sectors. Cllr Winifred works with community groups to support the thriving arts and cultural communities. She is responsible for Lambeth’s library services and for maintaining our fantastic parks and open spaces.

Lambeth is an open and welcoming borough where people care about one another and we celebrate our diversity. Cllr Winifred is responsible for working with partners across the borough to make Lambeth more equal, embedding equalities into all the council’s work and delivering the recommendations of the Equalities Commission and overseeing Equalities Impact Assessments.

Zoë K. Reed

In 2016 Zoë completed 40 years in public service and continued her Director work at the Trust on a part time basis. She is now the joint strategic lead, with Dr Jacqui Dyer MBE, for the Trust’s PCREF [Patient and Carer Race Equality Framework] Programme.

A pilot site in this national programme aiming to eliminate racial disparity in mental health services. Zoë is also the Trust’s Freedom to Speak Up Guardian. Her career started in committee administration in local government – working through a range of management posts culminating as a director. She joined the NHS and the Trust’s Board in 2000. Her NHS responsibilities have included strategy, business development, participation, equalities and other allied areas. 

Zoë is also the Society for Anglo-Chinese Understanding (SACU)’s Chair. SACU has been promoting friendship and understanding between the peoples of the UK and China for over 55 years.

Chris French

Chris is the founder of Chair of Lambeth Links, the LGBTQ+ forum for Lambeth. Lambeth has the highest LGBTQ+ resident population in the country and Lambeth Links ensures that their voices and needs are placed on the agendas of Lambeth’s service providers.

Chris established Lambeth Links during the pandemic and has taken the forum from a group of likeminded individuals to a widely recognised and respected registered charity. Still run entirely by volunteers, Lambeth Links is making itself known across the borough and working for all intersections of our vibrant LGBTQ+ Lambeth community.

 A volunteer himself, Chris runs Lambeth Links in his spare time. His full-time role is as manager working in project management for a professional services firm.

Chris can be contacted at christopher@lambethlinks.org.uk