Who We Are

Put a face to a name

 

Who is who at Head Office? Just so you know the people you are contacting are not just an email address or a phone number.

Victoria Neish

Chief Executive Officer
Victoria is passionate about providing high quality support to enable people to meet their chosen outcomes and lead a meaningful life.  Throughout her career, Victoria has worked in partnership with people and their carers to provide services that truly reflect what people want.

She has a wide and varied experience in health, housing and social care both strategically and operationally. This has afforded her opportunity to gain extensive knowledge and skills within adult services and latterly Children’s services. Victoria has been actively involved in change programmes and strategic planning to enhance service provision. During her career, she has worked across several different Local Authorities in social work, commissioning and management roles and latterly worked for the voluntary sector. She has a track record of establishing positive working relationships and developing collaborative working across agencies to find solutions so that personalised services can be delivered, piloting innovative initiatives and creating a culture of continuous improvement across organisations.

Susan Scott

Operations Manager

Susan joined Coquet Trust in 1997. She has extensive experience of working with people with learning difficulties. Susan is very keen to be involved in health and social care initiatives and is actively involved in working within our community to bring people together and ensure that the people we support are truly engaged in meaningful activities.

She is driven to ensure that the people we support have a full and active lives. Susan believes people should all have the same opportunities as each other; choosing how to live their own lives.

Susan represents Coquet Trust within the Safeguarding Practice Delivery Group for Gateshead Local Authority as she is keen to inform practice.

Alison Branch

Positive Behavioural Support Lead

Alison joined the Coquet Trust in Sept 2021. Her role is to develop the use of Positive Behavioural Support (PBS) as an approach to support people who are vulnerable to using behaviours of concern. Alison believes that understanding why people use such behaviour can transform their support, and enable people to live their best life. Alison understands that this can only be achieved when we all work together – the person, their family, professionals and support staff.

 

Alison is a qualified PBS Specialist, registered Occupational Therapist and certified trainer. She has over 30 years’ experience working with people with learning disabilities/autism/mental health needs and behaviours of concern in the NHS and social care sector. Alison works regionally and nationally to raise the standards of PBS in the UK and is a member of the PBS Academy, a CQC Specialist Advisor for PBS and a co-trainer with The Challenging Behaviour Foundation.

Michelle Burrows

Head of Quality

Michelle has 30 years’ experience in social care and joined Coquet Trust in 1997.   In this time, she has gained valuable experience from the ground up and has been an operational manager for 15 years.

Michelle has a wealth of experience in supporting people with very complex needs She is passionate about ensuring people have choice and control over their lives and in delivering high quality support. She has extensive experience of working across disciplines to enable people to leave long stay hospitals to live within their own community and has enabled many teenagers to transition from children’s to adults services.

Michelle has many examples of how she has enabled people to enhance their quality of life and maximise their independence by ensuring consistent quality support was provided.

Amin Mazloom

Operations Manager

Amin is responsible for coordinating different services and teams in Newcastle and North Tyneside areas, and brings with him a valuable management background. His previous roles involved working in and managing services for people with learning disabilities and mental health needs. He was drawn to Coquet Trust because of the organisations’ strong commitment to the principle of ensuring that the people we support have choice and control in their lives.

Amin believes Coquet Trust should further develop its reputation as a creative, people-focussed organisation with a very strong practice-based support ethos. Amin has a particular interest in promoting personalised care, Positive Behaviour and Active support. He is also passionate about supporting and working alongside families and local communities to ensure that people who need support have strong connections.

Cat Miller

Operations Manager

Cat is an Occupational Therapist with over 15 years’ experience in developing and managing services in Health and Social Care as well as work at a strategic level embedding system wide models. Cat is also currently studying for her MSc in Public Health and Health Promotion.

Cat is passionate about delivering high quality support that goes above and beyond what is expected and has a vast range of experience in both residential and community based services across different disciplines. She has been involved in developing and implementing models which keep the voice of people who use services at the heart of everything. She is passionate about delivering services that are about empowering and enabling people to be as independent as possible and to support people to be part of their local communities in a way that is meaningful to them.

Paul Joules

Head of Finance

Paul joined Coquet Trust in March 2023.

Paul leads up the finance team, including payroll, and brings a wealth of finance experience.

Sharon Maddison

Innovation and Development Manager

Sharon has worked for Coquet Trust since September 2009 and has over 30 years experience working within social care.

She has gained knowledge and skills in a multitude of roles including employment, supported living and day opportunities which have given her a solid understanding of different models of service delivery and best practice in those areas.

Sharon is extremely committed and passionate about enabling the people that we support to live the lives that they choose. Her key focus is to lead on the development and implementation of new services, promoting the highest standards of support that enables the people we support and staff to grow to maximise skills and experience.

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