Dan
Dan, a Doctoral Student of Criminology, has a proud commitment to challenging and enabling others to achieve great things. He is remarkable in his ability to inspire and motivate people with his enthusiasm and drive and by sharing stories of his own academic success.
Ruth
Ruth is a Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, with a Masters degree in Online and Distance Education. She is all about supporting meaningful education in prison and on release. Considering herself a student as well as a teacher, she is passionate about inclusion. “Education can be liberating”.
Julie
Julie is a master’s student of Applied Anthropology and Community Development with an interest in seeing prisons as communities. Having studied as a mature student, she believes it's never too late to start on a learning journey and that there is no knowing where it might lead you. She will be coordinating our work within the prisons.
Gill
Gill is a retired academic, clinician, mentor and restorative justice practitioner and when she is not bee keeping, is leading on our evaluations and ensuring ethical practice of our delivery and research.
Candide
Candide is an undergraduate of Law with Criminology at the University of Law. She joins the team as an allrounder but will be mainly concentrating on keeping our students informed and supported.
In her own words, “I decided to reach out and be a part of DWRM, not only for the experience, but mainly because I believe we all deserve an equal chance of achieving greatness”
Jo
Jo's academic background in Criminology and Forensic Mental Health combined with her work with one of DWRM's partner universities in HMP Pentonville, inspires her work with students to realise their potential through education. She strongly believes that we have more in common than we have differences and this is key to her work with DWRM.
Board of Non-Executive Directors
We are delighted to introduce our board of non-exec directors who are working with us to provide strategic direction, financial oversight and general support. Board meetings are held quarterly, with each member taking on a different area of responsibility and keeping in contact with the DWRM team.
Zahid Bashir
Zahid is an ex prisoner who is a great advocate for continous learning. After being excluded from school he became discouraged from pursuing educational qualifications. However, during his custodial period he completed his degree in Criminology at Westminster University and worked within the Prison Reform Trust for the Prisoner Policy Network Team. He now consults on the advisory panel at the Prison Reform Trust and is also enrolled on a PhD course researching the processes of institutionalization.
Femi Laryea - Adekimi
Femi is a former prisoner, who is now the Network Co-ordinator at the Prison Reform Trust, where he engages a network of over 600 serving prisoners. He strongly believes in the power of education to make a difference to prisoners' lives as he himself benefited from throwing himself into education while in prison.
Claire Silverstone
Claire is Head of Department at Renovare Housing, which was expanded and repurposed during 2020 to meet the needs of the most vulnerable in society. She works on local government bid processes to secure contracts to house the local homeless and vulnerable and run those contracts once successfully awarded.
Derrick Mason
Derrick is a well-being practitioner and a Director at Beyond Recovery where he promotes the Three Principles programme supporting people to access their own resilience and innate resources.
Ian McFarlane
Ian is a retired businessman and academic, who successfully established and led his own company for many years. He is an economist with a strong sense of social responsibility, having first engaged with a prison university partnership during his own student days in the late 1950s. He has served as treasurer on many charity boards and has been involved with DWRM since we started.
Steve Newton
Steve is a commercially focused senior executive leader commanding over 30 years’ international sales & marketing experience, building board-level strategies that fuel business development both nationally and across the global arena. Working as a consultant and business coach, drawing on his extensive corporate experience primarily within the automotive industry, he is committed to help guide and support companies across a wide spectrum of industries and services.
An inclusive leader / teacher, who believes we can always learn from one another, Steve is passionate about developing and implementing appropriate processes and technology to enhance customer experience. He is looking to draw on his experience and energy to help implement the company’s shared vision.
