Janet joined the North West Training and Development Team in October 1999. Janet has a nursing background and has a particular interest in health care in relation to both adults and children with disabilities.
She currently works part time for the North West Training and Development Team and part time managing the UK Health & Learning Disability Network for the Foundation for People with Learning Disabilities in London (www.fpld.org.uk) as well as freelance work nationally.  

Dene Donalds
Associate Consultant
Email: dene.donalds@nwtdt.com
Mobile: 07816 073334

Dene Donalds is an associate consultant who leads on Workforce Development and Organisational Change.

I worked as a photographer until having my children. When Nicola, the second of my five children became disabled at the age of eight months, I made the decision to stay at home to support her, it was through Nicola that I became aware of the traditional response to disabled people from society and services.
For the past 20 years I have taken part in and led training. Designing and developing work on Community Building, Working with Families, Circles of Support and Advocacy. I have also renewed my interest in photography, working with disabled people to produce positive images of disabled people.

In the past eight years I have co-ordinated seven Partners in Policymaking courses in the north west of England, and have supported course graduates to run courses in the south east, the north east and in the north west, Merseyside, Wigan, Wirral. I have been instrumental in ‘spreading the word’ about the Partners. The course has been run several times in Scotland, two courses in Ireland. I have designed courses based on the successful Partners in Policymaking course, Sharing the Challenge, this course is aimed at parents of disabled adults and self advocates, Kindred Spirits, which is designed for people working with disabled children and their families (kindred meaning people who are related to each other in some way, and who have a common bond or goal), and Tomorrow’s Leaders, a course designed for the national self advocacy forum.

Following two international academies plans are being made for more courses to run.

I currently work part-time for NWTDT and in September 2005 I took on the part-time role as a Family Leadership Development Co-ordinators for the Valuing People Support Team. In this role I will work in the North West to find areas where family leadership is starting to develop and give people help to build on this, this will include developing the kind of education, training and supports they want to build a network of families who can continue to affect governmental policies.

Lynne Elwell, 2005

Lynn James-Jenkinson
Team Director
Email: lynn.james-jenkinson@nwtdt.com
Mobile: 07970 900 226

Lynn joined the team as director in April 2005.
Lynn initially qualified as a Nursery Nurse and worked with primary school aged children experiencing speech and language difficulties within a mainstream school. Lynn then worked predominantly within the Single LD Service in Tameside leading the Resettlement programme locally and in relation to NW hospitals and out-of–borough placements, supported employment, day service modernisation etc. before moving to manage more generic adult provider services in Tameside. Lynn moved to Liverpool in 2001 where she co-chaired the Partnership Board and managed generic day services, supported employment and the social work team covering one PCT area as well as residential services to older people. Lynn led on the development of day services, supported employment and person centred planning.
Lynn is a qualified Social Worker and has worked as lead officer in both Tameside and Liverpool for over 23 years.
For the majority of her working life Lynn has been involved in supporting people (as individuals and in groups, people who access support services, their families and staff) and organisations through periods of great change.
Lynn’s main work interest at present involves looking at ways of supporting real community connections and developing real local partnerships with all providers – social care, health, leisure, libraries, housing, employment etc… based on a shared understanding of each others agendas and the priorities of local people and the potential links this has to personalised budgets and the National In Control project.

Phil Palmer
Associate Consultant
Email: phil.palmer@nwtdt.com
Mobile: 07971 176 240

Phil joined the team in January 2004 and works part-time as the Office Manager.

He initially trained to work in the IT industry and spent 15 years working within a number of large organisations developing computer systems.

Prior to joining NWTDT he worked part-time for People First Tameside as the Partnership Board Co-ordinator for Tameside and developed and supported websites for a number of not-for-profit organisations.

Nabela was instrumental in setting up Aap Ka Haq in Oldham.
The aim of Aap Ka Haq is to inform and work in partnership with families and individuals who come from different ethnic backgrounds in order for them to receive support individually tailored to their needs.

She is passionate about person centred planning. And has developed graphic facilitation in order to record peoples dreams and aspirations using all the person centred planning approaches particularly MAP (making action plans) and PATH (planning alternative tomorrows with hope).
Nabela runs graphic facilitation workshops and presents on Partners in Policymaking and other leadership development courses.

To promote the rights of inclusion, particularly with people from other communities Nabela is an active member of the Ethnicity Task Group as part of the Valuing People Regional Agenda she has designed and run the 'Valuing All People' leadership courses. She has also been involved in various research projects, consulting individuals and family members looking at issues from their perspective.