Meet the SCHWL National Team

about-schwl

Our team is dedicated to helping you create safer, healthier working lives. The National Team is based at three sites: Hamilton, Aberdeen and Rosyth.

On this page, you can find out a little about some of the key staff at the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives.

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Steve Bell - Strategic Director

Appointed as the Centre’s first Strategic Director in April 2005, Steve’s immediate background was six years as Health Promotion Manager with NHS Highland, a role which included responsibility for workplace health improvement. Experience prior to this included a number of roles within the Highland Health Promotion Department, as well as two years managing a multi-agency health improvement project in Lochaber.

Before arriving in the Highlands in 1993, Steve had a varied working life which included spending four years as an elected member of Cleveland County Council where he sat on the Consumer Protection (as vice chair) and Social Services Committees.

A graduate of the University of Teesside, he holds an M.Phil. in Social Policy and an MBA from the University of Glasgow and is a Member of the Chartered Management Institute.

An active kayaker and mountaineer, Steve is a “compleat” Munroist and is now gradually ticking off the Corbetts.

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Aileen Simpson - Assistant Director and Head of Delivery

Aileen is responsible for delivering the Centre’s programmes and services including the National Award Programme, Adviceline and workplace advisory services.

Her career began in leisure centre management, before working in event and sport management for the Sports Council in London.

Aileen’s career in sport continued, culminating in her establishing and running sportscotland’s Commercial Development Team. She created the Business in Sport Sponsorship Awards, and on behalf of the Commonwealth Games Council for Scotland, secured significant sponsorship and business support for the Scottish Team in the ’94, ’98 and ’02 Commonwealth Games.

In 2002, she was seconded as Deputy Director to Scotland Against Drugs (now incorporated into Healthy Working Lives), taking up her current post in April 2006.

Aileen is a Member of the Institute of Directors, holds their Diploma in Company Direction, a Bachelor of Commerce from the University of Edinburgh and a Postgraduate Diploma in Recreation and Leisure Practice.

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Yvonne Powell - Marketing and Communications Manager

Yvonne is responsible for the development, delivery and monitoring of the Centre's marketing and communications strategy. Leading a team of 3 marketing and communications officers, she works closely with colleagues in the Centre, teams in Health Scotland and external agencies to articulate the Centre’s role and contribution in delivering health improvement strategies to all partners and stakeholders.

With a background in social marketing and healthcare communications, she holds a BSc.(hons) in Applied Human Nutrition, an MSc. in Health Promotion and Education and a Postgraduate Diploma in Public Relations.

As a health promotion officer, she has worked as a topic specialist in the fields of HIV, sexual health and alcohol. More recently, she was the Communications Manager for Healthy Respect – the Scottish Executive’s National Health Demonstration Project on Sexual Health. She is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations.

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Robert Atkinson - Development Manager for Occupational Health and Safety

Robert's role involves the development of Occupational Health and Safety advice to small- and medium-sized businesses in Scotland.

Previously National Co-ordinator for the Safe and Healthy Working service (now incorporated into Healthy Working Lives), his focus today is on developing projects and partnership activities that will become mainstream functions and services for HWL in the future.

A Chartered Member of The Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, he has over fourteen years’ experience in Occupational Health and Safety with organisations including British Aerospace, the National Health Service, The National Trust for Scotland and SALUS Occupational Health and Safety. He jointly developed the Lanarkshire Workplace Assessment Service – a forerunner to Healthy Working Lives.

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Linda Shanahan - Project Manager, Protecting Workers Serving the Public

Linda is a member of the Institute of Conflict Management and the HSE Partnership on Work Related Violence. She began her career as a serving member of Fife Fire and Rescue Service becoming a trade union official with the FBU. This led to membership of the General Council of the STUC and the Partnership for Health and Safety in Scotland.

Through the medium of the STUC, she became involved in the consultation process surrounding the formulation of the Emergency Workers (Scotland) Act 2005 and was instrumental in demonstrating the need to promote greater awareness of ways to protect staff. This led to her being seconded to the Scottish Government to lead a project to assess the level of violence to staff across all sectors.

She is now responsible for integrating this work into the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives and developing materials to help protect staff from verbal and physical abuse.

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Hilary Fleming - Marketing and Communication Officer

Hilary's role is to organise, co-ordinate and support internal and external marketing initiatives and to identify and implement regional advertising and promotional opportunities.

Hilary spent twelve years in the tourism Industry as a Tourism Information Assistant, Marketing Officer, Assistant Tourism Manager and finally as Tourism Manager for the Banff and Buchan Region, before she left to raise her "cubs".

She spent two terms as a graduate trainee primary teacher before deciding on another career change when she applied for the post of Regional Administrator with Healthy Working Lives. She was appointed to her current post within Healthy Working Lives in September 2007.

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Hania Proudfoot - Award Programme Delivery Manager for the HWL Award

The main remit of my post is to ensure the fully effective organisation and delivery of operational services and programmes throughout Scotland. To develop and sustain a range of effective partnerships with NHS Boards in a defined geographical area and to ensure effective liaison throughout the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives to influence and enable development of services.

Also, effectively manage the organisation and delivery of the Healthy Working Lives Award Programme by coordinating and motivating a group of staff to ensure that they work together effectively to deliver the required outcomes.

I have worked for the NHS since 1997 where I was part of a smoking cessation team, carrying out one-to-one and group support within Dumfries & Galloway region. During that time, I was also involved with workplace health improvement through the Scotland’s Health at Work (SHAW) scheme. Being self-employed at one point in my life made me aware of some of the challenges and issues which small companies may face making viability more difficult. This experience has helped me break down barriers and build relationships with both employers and employees of small to medium sized enterprises.

I hold a degree in Business Administration and a Post Graduate Diploma in Community Sciences.

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Maree Drury - Employability Manager

Maree works in a joint role with Scottish Business in the Community (SBC) and Healthy Working Lives (HWL) as manager of the Employability programme.

She works to promote a greater understanding and awareness among employers of the link between work and health, and of the business benefits of engaging with individuals who are currently at a distance from the labour market.

Maree holds a Psychology degree from Victoria University, New Zealand, and is currently studying for a masters in Occupational Psychology at The University of London.

She has over five years’ experience in the private sector (financial services consultancy), and prior to joining SCHWL and SBC, worked at a 'back to work' initiative for clients with depression, anxiety and stress-related problems.

She moved to her present role when she realised that one of the crucial elements in helping people back to work is employer engagement.

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Vivienne Wilson - Marketing and Communication Officer

Vivienne's role is to provide marketing support for West Region and to link national marketing strategies to what is happening locally in health board areas within the West Region.

She has worked in marketing and public relations throughout her career, mostly in the public sector in local authorities and in economic development agencies.

Professional highlights for Vivienne include designing a float for Edinburgh Festival Cavalcade, having a radio show dedicated to her work and her interest in indie music and organising a day-long arts festival.

She also volunteers in her local community, finding the young people she works with to be "very inspiring".

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Nina Torbett - Development Manager for Health Promotion

Nina has been working in the field of workplace health promotion for over 13 years, having started her career with Greater Glasgow Health Board. She then moved to Forth Valley to head up the workplace team, with additional responsibilities as lead officer on Falkirk Council’s Health Improvement Planning Group and the Falkirk Community Health Partnership Committee.

Nina studied at Strathclyde University and gained an MSc. in Health Promotion and Health Education. As a generic health promotion specialist, she works across all health topics which impact on health and well-being. Her challenge continues to be to support the workplace health improvement agenda on a national scale.

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Kathleen Houston - Development Manager, Vocational Rehabilitation

Kathleen leads on Vocational Rehabilitation, influencing government policy and ensuring the delivery of a range of integrated services to enhance the health of the working population.

At Greater Glasgow Health Board Health Promotion Department, she had responsibility for staff health promotion in West Glasgow Hospitals University Trust. This experience of Workplace Health Promotion led her to NHS Lanarkshire Health Promotion Department and SALUS, where she and a Health and Safety Officer established a unique workplace visit service for small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Lanarkshire Workplace Assessment Service later became the foundation of the ‘Safe and Healthy Working’ service, now subsumed into the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives.

The focus on workplace health was extended to the workforce, and Kathleen established and managed the Lanarkshire Health, Occupational and Primary, for Employees (HOPE) Project. The results of this work informed the vocational rehabilitation model adopted by Healthy Working Lives.

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Yvonne Abson - National Administrator

Yvonne provides administrative support to Healthy Working Lives at a national level and to the Centre Development Managers.

Before joining the NHS in 2007 Yvonne worked at as an IT System Administrator for 13 years and was involved in the Project Management of several large scale projects.

Her hobbies are climbing big mountains and trying not to fall off and her health motto is "why have five portions of fruit when you can have six?!"

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Linda Connolly - National Administrator

Linda provides administrative support to Healthy Working Lives at the national level and to Centre staff.

She came to HWL from an NHS background, having worked in such diverse areas as Surgical Directorate, Maternity Directorate and an Alcohol and Drug Action Team. She has also held various posts in the public sector, including with a catering company and a coal mining equipment manufacturer.

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Alison Newman - Project Co-ordinator

Alison's role is to plan and deliver development and improvement projects to the required specification throughout the centre.

Alison started working within the NHS in 1994, in 2000 she left to work in the finance industry and within this time qualified as a hypno-psychotherapist (always something she had been interested in). She then returned to the NHS and worked in such diverse areas as oncology, surgical, Haemato-oncology and PA to the Director of Occupational Health within Greater Glasgow and Clyde. It was from there that Alison moved to SCHWL, initially as Executive Assistant to the Director.

In March 2007 Alison went on maternity leave and had her pride and joy - a beautiful baby boy. She returned to work on a part-time basis in April 2008 as Project Co-ordinator for the centre.

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Julie McGahan - Physical Activity Programme Co-ordinator

Julie's role involves managing a national programme of work which promotes physical activity amongst Scotland’s working population. This involves co-ordinating projects in each of the 14 Health Board areas and linking with key stakeholders with the aim of facilitating greater opportunities for staff across Scotland to be physically active both within and outside of the workplace.

Previously a Health Improvement Programme Officer with a remit for Mental Health and Physical Activity, Julie has worked with NHS Health Scotland for over 3 years and is currently undertaking a Masters in Public Health at the University of Glasgow.

Julie enjoys travelling and previously worked in Towson University in Shanghai before joining NHS Health Scotland.

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Chris Thomas - Workplace Services Manager

Chris is responsible for managing the delivery of Workplace Services through our network of advisers based within NHS area boards. He also manages the relationship with delivery partners in the north of Scotland.

With over 18 years experience in economic and partnership development as well as operations management, Chris brings both public and private sector experience to the role. Whilst working for Scottish Enterprise, Chris helped to establish a programme of effective partnership working, helped to establish 3 Community Planning Partnerships, and led the development of a range of local and international business development support services.

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Anita Hastie - Executive Assistant

Anita's role is to provide a comprehensive range of administrative and secretariat support services to the Strategic Director and Assistant Director in order to contribute to their overall effectiveness.

Anita joined the NHS in 1992 as a Personal Secretary in the Department of Communicable Diseases & Environmental Health, at Lanarkshire Health Board. In 2000, she then moved to the Public Health Institute of Scotland, which soon merged with the Health Education Board for Scotland, to become NHS Health Scotland. Since then, Anita has held a variety of roles and worked within several directorates of NHS Health Scotland. She joined the Centre in April 2007 as the Executive Assistant on a secondment basis to cover maternity leave and was successful in her application to secure the post on a permanent basis in April 2008.

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Mark McVerry - Workplace Services Project Co-ordinator

Mark’s role involves supporting the delivery of workplace services through linking with fellow colleagues at the Centre, our network of front line advisers and other areas of NHS Health Scotland. He is also responsible for co-ordinating the organisation and delivery of projects that are required to support the area of workplace services.

With a strong sales background, Mark joined the Scottish Centre for Healthy Working Lives having worked in both the retail and leisure industries. He also holds an Honours Degree in Exercise Science.

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Diane Ryan - Delivery Manager (Occupational Health)

Diane’s role is to oversee and lead on the development of occupational health services/advice for the Centre. This will involve working on existing and new government initiatives for OH and raising the profile of a wide range of occupational health (OH) issues including OH related ill-health, sickness absence management and specific service targets such as developing toolkits on key OH topics for frontline staff and employers.

Diane qualified as a general nurse in 1993 from the Lanarkshire School of Nursing and Midwifery and has worked in various locations including trauma and acute orthopaedics, medical and dermatology before undertaking specilaised OH practice. She holds a BSc Degree in Community Nursing/Specialist Practitioner Nurse from Glasgow Caledonian University and the NEBOSH Certificate in Occupational Health & Safety. She is also a qualified practitioner in classical reflexology.

Diane has worked in a variety of OH settings as an OH Advisor including engineering and drinks manufacture and distillation. Her most recent position before joining NHS HS was with Salus Occupational Health & Safety in NHS Lanarkshire.

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