Our Training Team

Our training is designed and delivered by a team of staff and associates with a high level of human rights expertise and a diverse range of experience across the third and public sectors in the UK.

Training and Consultancy Manager: Hannah Clayton

Hannah joined BIHR in January 2007. She is responsible for developing and managing BIHR's training and consultancy services to the public and third sectors. She has designed and delivered a wide range of human rights training courses and products for a diverse range of clients in both sectors, including health and social care inspectorates, the legacy equality commissions, government departments, local authorities and third sector infrastructure bodies. She has particular expertise in human rights based approaches and healthcare and leads BIHR's involvement in the national 'Human Rights in Healthcare Project', an initiative led by the Department of Health in partnership with BIHR and five NHS organisations. She also leads on our human rights and local government project.

Prior to joining BIHR she worked in the Education Unit at Save the Children UK and for Voluntary Services Overseas in China. She has a MSc in Human Rights from the London School of Economics. 

Training and Consultancy Officer: Ellie Keen

Poverty and Human Rights Officer: Roisin Cavanagh 
 

Roisin joined BIHR in February 2007. She initially led BIHR's work on building the capacity of civil society organisations to understand and use human rights in their work. She currently manages the Poverty and Human Rights project, a 2 year project which aims to help people and communities in London experiencing poverty to use human rights to challenge their situation.

Prior to coming to BIHR, she managed the UK-wide Refugee Week education project Global Communities at the Refugee Council, which aimed to provide educational resources and training to teachers, educational professionals and young people around the UK on global migration issues, with the aim of reducing discrimination towards those seeking sanctuary in the UK. Before moving to London, Roisin lived and worked in Brighton where she undertook a range of roles providing practical and emotional support and advocacy to young people experiencing poverty and other forms of social exclusion. Before embarking on these roles, she studied an MA in Gender and Development at the Institute of Development Studies - gaining a wide knowledge base of social and economic development, the gender implications of poverty and participatory methodology within a community development context. The two years preceding this, Roisin lived in Japan and worked as an English teacher on the JET Programme.

Third Sector Development Officer: Sonia Omar

Sonia joined BIHR in September 2008 as Third Sector Development Officer. She is responsible for leading the Principles to Practice work with a focus on capacity building with the voluntary and community sector across the UK.

Before joining BIHR she worked as an International Campaigner and Human Rights Education Officer, and delivered training for Amnesty International in parts of Europe, Asia and Africa on identity based discrimination and violence against women. More recently she ran a human rights advocacy training programme for UK-based refugees and asylum seekers with Education Action International.

Prior to human rights work, Sonia worked in Middle East broadcasting as a researcher and productions assistant for Abu Dhabi TV and Arab News Network. She also led educational trips around Morocco and taught English as a Foreign language. She is fluent in French and also speaks Arabic.

BIHR Associate: Rosemarie McIlwhan

Rosemarie joined BIHR in October 2008 as an associate. She delivers training and awareness raising on behalf of BIHR across the UK, including recently for the Healthcare Commission and Health Scotland.

Aside from her work for BIHR, Rosemarie runs McIlwhan Consulting, a company set up to promote and protect human rights and equality through a range of services including design and delivery of training, lectures and courses; development and auditing of policy and practice; research; strategy, policy, campaign and lobbying support; and organisational development support. She works with a wide range of clients including the Scottish and UK Governments, NHS Scotland, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, the University of Edinburgh, the WS Society and the European Commission. One of her most recent pieces of work was establishing the Equality and Human Rights Commission in Scotland. Rosemarie is also a member of the Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal.

Rosemarie was previously the Director of the Scottish Human Rights Centre, where she lead the successful campaign to establish a Scottish Human Rights Commission.

BIHR Associate: Heather Barclay

As well as being an associate trainer for BIHR, Heather works at the Equality and Human Rights Commission, where she currently leads the Commission's work on violence against women and transsexual/transgender issues, and contributes to the work of the Public Sector Duties team. Prior to the formation of the Equality and Human Rights Commission in 2007, Heather worked for the Equal Opportunities Commission, where she worked on the development of the Gender Equality Duty.

Heather has also worked for a range of organisations in Canada and internationally, including the National Organisation for Women (Washington DC), the Public Policy Forum (Ottawa, Canada) and the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament of Uganda (Uganda). She studied at Brasenose College, University of Oxford (BA Jurisprudence) and Carleton University (BA Honours), where she specialised in the economic politics of sub-Saharan Africa.

BIHR Associate: Rosa Sanz

Rosa works for Age Concern England as a Human Rights Officer, developing a project in partnership with BIHR to raise awareness on human rights amongst older people. She holds a Masters in Human Rights from the University of Kent (UK) with an emphasis on refugees and conflict resolution. She has particular expertise in the international human rights system, and has also worked with the refugees of the Western Sahara for over 10 years. She has worked at the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR) in Geneva, monitoring the international human rights bodies. She has also worked with other international and regional human rights organisations, including the Child Rights Information Network (CRIN), and the Office of the Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe in Strasbourg.

BIHR Associate: Shameem Malik

Shameem has been an equality and human rights consultant since 2002.  She has extensive training and consultancy experience dealing with human rights, race, gender, disability, religion and belief and sexual orientation. Shameem also provides guest speaker services on a range of equality and human rights issues and the provision of mentoring services.

Formerly, Shameem was Head of Equal Opportunities for Connexions Service National Unit, at the former Department for Education and Skills. She has also worked as an equalities officer for local government.  Shameem initially trained as a lawyer and as a teacher.  Her Master of Law was in ‘Civil Liberties and Human Rights' and her PhD focussed on gender equality.  

BIHR Associate: Tabitha Collingbourne

Tabitha has substantial experience as a front-line adviser in the both private and voluntary sectors, in the course of which she has designed, planned and delivered training to voluntary sector staff and private practice solicitors in social welfare law and human rights. Subsequent work as Assistant Director of a national disability advice network brought responsibility for second-tier advice services, rights training, organisational development support and social policy. 

Alongside her role as Associate Trainer for BIHR, Tabitha currently works as a part-time lecturer at University Centre Doncaster, teaching human rights and social welfare law.  Building on an LLM in public law and human rights, Tabitha's interest in the implementation of human rights in the context of disability is currently being pursued through work for a doctorate at Sheffield University.

BIHR Associate: Gwendolen Morgan

Gwendolen Morgan is a solicitor in the human rights and public law department at Bindmans LLP. Her areas of expertise include human rights, public law, education, health & social care and discrimination law.  Gwendolen also advises on Liberty's human rights advice line. She is a founding committee member of Young Legal Aid Lawyers and coordinator for the Solicitors International Human Rights Group central american division. She has published articles on EU law and disability rights in the New Law Journal, special educational needs in the Independent Lawyer and community care law in Progress. She has written about access to justice in Legal Aid Review, The Observer, Prospects and Chambers. She was a finalist in the 2008 Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards. 

BIHR Associate: Rebecca Howard

Rebecca is a lawyer with particular expertise in human rights, equalities and discrimination. She sits as an Employment Judge in the Manchester Employment Tribunal and was formerly Head of Legal Services at the Disability Rights Commission, now part of the Equality and Human Rights Commission. Throughout her career, Rebecca has worked with Trades Unions, public and third sector organisations; delivering training and transferring expertise to enable those organisations to use human rights and equalities based approaches, in their work, with confidence and maximum impact.

BIHR Associate: Adele Baumgardt

Adele is an independent consultant with 7 years experience as a senior manager at Director level with the Equal Opportunities Commission. She is now a self-employed consultant on all aspects of human rights, equality and diversity. Adele is particularly experienced in delivering equality strategies in public, private and voluntary sectors with particular expertise in the new ‘positive' equality duties in respect of race, gender and disability. Adele is particularly interested in helping organisations achieve meaningful change with a focus on hard outcomes and delivery.

Adele has a Masters Degree in Equality and Diversity from Cardiff University 2006 and holds a public appointment to the Sports Council for. She has Co-chaired the Women's Budget Group UK for 3 years acting as the primary advisory group on gender issues to HM Treasury. Adele is a member of the Sports Council for Wales and Commissioner for the Women's National Commission.

BIHR Associate: Lynne Henderson

Lynne is a self employed consultant specialising in equality, diversity and human rights.  In addition to running her own business she is a part time Equality and Diversity Tutor at City of Sunderland College and an Associate Manager (Equality and Diversity) with Northern Care Training Ltd. 

Having completed her Post Graduate Certificate in Equal Opportunities and Society, specialising in social inequality and human rights, Lynne has developed an accredited Human Rights programme for use across all sectors, as well as a post-16 citizenship programme with a specific focus on equality, diversity and human rights.  Most recently Lynne has been researching the impact of international and domestic human rights law on the Every Child Matters agenda and has developed a training programme for practitioners working with children and young people.

BIHR Associate: Carey Haslam

Carey Haslam is an Associate Trainer with BIHR. She has been working as a trainer and consultant across the third and public sectors nationally for the past 17 years, specialising in the field of mediation, conflict resolution, and equalities & diversity. 

Since studying the Theory and Practice of Human Rights at London School of Economics in July 2006, she has developed her interest in this field.  She is particularly concerned with encouraging the use of human rights as a framework for understanding equalities issues and as a tool for change and conflict resolution.

She has designed and delivered awareness-raising seminars, training programmes and conference sessions for adults and young people. She is a Senior Trainer with Leap Confronting Conflict. She has worked internationally in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

BIHR Associate: Dr. Marion Reichart

Marion joined BIHR in June 2009. Her in-depth understanding of human rights issues is framed by direct experience of disability and informed by her PhD in Citizenship Education, which includes case explorations on Dignity and Family life of parents with learning difficulties, whose children were taken into care.

Marion has worked for the former Disability Rights Commission, advised on rights matters, and since 1998 works on freelance consultancy projects including implementing human-rights-based interventions. She has delivered for many clients, including Primary Care Trusts, Law Centre Federation, the Greater London Authority and the Cabinet Office. She has been appointed to ACAS Disability Forum, elected to the Trade Union Disability Alliance executive, advises on LGBT School's Out, has addressed the Intergroup at the European Parliament and speaks or facilitates at Conferences.

Marion has lectured in Law and Social Sciences at University College London, the University of Greenwich, and the Open University. She has written teaching material for Health and Social Care staff, including Social Work and the Law. Originally qualified as an Ergotherapist with Health Management, she has long-standing special interests in disadvantages experienced by people with mental health issues and younger people.