Associates
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Rob Angell is Director of R K Partnership, a consultancy specialising in stakeholder engagement, facilitation and mediation. He has 20 years experience in the environment and public sector field ranging from facilitation & conflict resolution, training and process consultancy to environmental & sustainable development management, freelance writing, photography and campaigning.
Rob has been the lead facilitator and process consultant for a range of clients to deliberately involve stakeholders in formulating environmental decisions or resolving conflicts. Examples include policy & strategy development for national government and the private sector on waste management, the decommissioning of nuclear power stations and precautionary measures for electromagnetic radiation; for regional public sector on flood alleviation schemes. He has also designed and run European wide e-consultations for WWF and run training courses for the public, private and community sectors on participation, facilitation and sustainable development.
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Helen is an independent project manager and support facilitator, specialising in stakeholder engagement on environmental issues. Having studied sciences at A-level and gained a degree in Ecology, Helen came to the field of stakeholder engagement over eight years ago through her work at The Environment Council.
Since then Helen has worked on a large variety of projects ranging in size, complexity and contention, all the while honing her organisational skills in project management and stakeholder liaison. She has worked with large companies, (such as British Nuclear Fuels, Veolia and BP), national government departments, (BERR, DEFRA, SDC, EA and NDA), local government (London Borough of Ealing, Essex County Council), and local community groups and charities (Sizewell Site Stakeholder Group, Bat Conservation Trust). Helen has worked independently for the past one and a half years. She is also an Associate of 3KQ.
As well as her strong science background, her particular strengths are; establishing and developing good communications with stakeholders; rigorous financial and project management discipline; production of high quality analysis and reports; and providing facilitation support during engagement processes.
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Rhuari is a Director of 3KQ and operates across the roles of project manager, facilitator and trainer. For 8 years he has specialised in stakeholder engagement within technical environmental decision-making in fields such as nuclear waste management, construction, energy efficiency and production, recycling and incineration of waste, and forestry and land management.
Rhuari’s interest in environmental decision-making stems from his professional training in Zoology (BSc) and Agricultural Economics (MSc), in particular the understanding that the quality of decisions often depends as much on socio-political factors as ‘technical’ factors. This led to him developing an interest in how people get engaged in the decisions that affect them. He spent 3 years working in international development in UK and Africa, focusing on how local communities improve their lives by influencing environmental decisions through active participation.
Recent projects include:
- Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: UK-wide stakeholder engagement, in collaboration with Dialogue by Design
- Committee On Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM)
- Ashdown Forest management – scoping study of stakeholder views
- Waste and Resources Action Programme (WRAP)
- Broads Authority National Park – Sedimentation Workshop
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Ian Christie is an independent researcher, consultant, writer and teacher working mainly on environmental issues and sustainable development.
He is an associate of the Green Alliance, an environmentalist think-tank, and is a visiting professor at the Centre for Environmental Strategy , Surrey University. He has worked in central and local government, business consulting and social research. Previous roles include joint head of environment and waste management at Surrey County Council; deputy/acting director of the think-tank Demos; associate director of the Henley Centre for Forecasting; and research fellow at the Policy Studies Institute.
His project clients range from Government Departments and agencies to NGOs. Ian is a trustee or advisory committee member for a number of charities, including Involve, The Environment Foundation and WWF. Publications include Managing Sustainable Development (Earthscan, 2000, with Michael Carley) and From Here to Sustainability: politics in the real world (Earthscan, 2001, with Diane Warburton).
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Lindsey has been working as one of the UK’s leading facilitators for more than 16 years.
She is widely recognised as a pioneer in both the practical application and the thinking underpinning stakeholder dialogue and the use of interactive and participatory processes within decision making in three key roles:
As a professional facilitator:
Since 1992, Lindsey has worked extensively with the public, private and voluntary sectors in the UK and world-wide, specialising in cross-sectoral dialogue and partnership working on complex issues: at 24, she built a voluntary network of more than 1,500 people working for sustainable development; she has run a national charity; she has worked in situations of extreme conflict; she has turned around a number of ‘failing’ processes to enable them to reach conclusion. Much of her work has involved working in bilingual and multi-cultural contexts, including work in the UK, Pakistan, Brussels, France, and Thailand.
As a pioneer and capacity builder:
Lindsey is founder of Lindsey Colbourne Associates, InterAct, InterAct Networks and Involve. These organisations are dedicated to building capacity for effective participation across the UK. She runs approximately 20 training and action learning events a year, as well as providing coaching and mentoring.
As a policy advisor:
Lindsey is working to promote participatory practice at a policy level, including as a member of a NICE Programme Development Group on the value of community engagement in delivering health outcomes and as Lead Commissioner for engagement and communications on the UK Sustainable Development Commission. Lindsey is also a Dialogue and Engagement Specialist for the Sciencewise Expert Resource Centre.
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Helen has worked in the field of stakeholder engagement and corporate responsibility for several years. Her main focus is helping organisations to communicate better with their stakeholders on sustainability and corporate responsibility strategy.
She has undertaken a range of work with several multinational companies, including strategy drafting, peer reviews on performance and communication, sustainability report analysis, and coordination of an external stakeholder panel. She also has experience as a report writer, coordinator and support facilitator at large and small-scale stakeholder engagement projects across the public and private sectors. Her experience ranges from conducting one-on-one stakeholder interviews through to working closely with business directors on high-level strategy, from single workshop reports or articles through to large-scale analytical research projects.
Originally a zoologist by trade, Helen’s focus on communications and stakeholder engagement stems from an interest in group dynamics and human interaction. As a musician, she believes in approaching all of her work with a sense of innovation and creativity, whilst at the same time delivering outputs that are both robust and useful.
Helen is an associate of 3KQ and also works regularly with Dialogue by Design, Shared Practice and Involve.
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Rebecca Gwynn-Jones is an independent facilitator with more than 10 years experience designing and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogues and the development of multi-sectoral partnerships within the field of sustainable development. She works for local and national government and their agencies, NGOs and the corporate sector. Rebecca is also an Associate InterAct, a UK collaboration between practitioners, researchers and policy advisors dedicated to furthering participative and deliberative processes at all levels.
Rebecca has particular experience in conflict resolution, consensus building and stakeholder dialogue, waste and recycling Energy efficiency (including more than four years intensively assisting the Energy Saving Trust develop and run the multi sectoral Energy Efficiency Partnership for Homes.
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Richard Harris is a Director of 3KQ and a leading independent process consultant, facilitator and trainer. For more than 15 years Richard has focussed his work on stakeholder engagement, environmental conflict management and sustainable development.
Richard’s experience is “rooted” in the natural environment, in his early career he trained as an Arboriculturalist and worked in the UK and Australia as a contractor, consultant and local government officer.
During his time as Principal Environmental Development Officer for Bedford Borough Council in the early 1990’s issues such as conflict management and processes of stakeholder engagement in decision-making, became a key focus and a developing professional interest. As a result, Richard left local government in 1997 to establish his own process design and facilitation practice and has since worked with a variety of clients across sectors and in a range of subject areas and levels of conflict. Richard has managed a number of strategic planning and development projects involving visioning, scenario working, strategic action planning and including both bespoke processes and also using Future Search, Search Conference and Open Space Technology methods, amongst others.
Recent projects include:
- Nuclear Decommissioning Authority: UK-wide stakeholder engagement, in collaboration with Dialogue by Design
- Committee On Radioactive Waste Management (CORWM)
- Vision for Kent, in collaboration with Dialogue by Design
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Rowena’s work is primarily informed by a personal belief that people have the potential capacity and right to understand and participate in making the decisions that impact upon their lives. This conviction is based on her accumulated experience of working with community groups, national Government Agencies, local authorities and in the voluntary and commercial sectors.
Rowena has a background in education in schools and in community development. She spent many years developing partnership projects in Bristol involving health workers, librarians, schools, colleges, community workers and local parents to encourage Family Learning Projects – precursors of Sure Start Initiatives. During this time she became interested in the challenge of working towards sustainable solutions with groups of people from very different backgrounds and interests. Having been trained by Neighbourhood Initiatives Foundation in Planning for Real she realised that facilitation and mediation were the skills she needed to develop. The training and experience provided by The Environment Council in Stakeholder Dialogue provided a spur to becoming an independent consultant in 1999.
With 3KQ and Dialogue by Design, Rowena has been the lead facilitator for stakeholder workshops for the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority. She has also led 2 community liaison groups looking at proposed Energy from Waste Facilities.
Rowena has worked regularly over the last 8 years with Bristol City Council, facilitating stakeholder workshops to help shape major developments in the city. This included working with local communities who will be affected by the proposals as well as advising on the overall consultation processes. Rowena regularly runs training courses in the city sponsored by the Council’s Sustainable City team.
When working on behalf of the Countryside Agency’s Vital Villages programme Rowena developed a highly successful series of capacity building training sessions for community groups working on Town and Parish Plans. These continue to be rolled out across the region by officers trained by Rowena. She has written case studies on Community – led Plans for the DEFRA website and is regularly called back to run training or facilitate workshops in the South West, the latest being a planning day for a Local Strategic Partnership.
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Aisling is an award-winning journalist. A former science and medical correspondent for The Daily Telegraph and science reporter and feature writer for the Times Higher Education Supplement, she currently works as a freelance science writer and journalist.
Aisling has worked on major projects assessing social, environmental and other impacts of future technologies, some of which have involved public engagement. Examples include:
- Writer and analyst, WIST Programme (Wider Implications of Science and Technology): Assessing the social, environmental and ethical implications of future technologies
- Researcher, Delta Scan: A database of future trends in science and technology
- Writer, Sigma Scan: A synthesis of future trends across the public policy spectrum
- Writer, Meeting of Minds: A European deliberation on the implications of brain science
Aisling’s other specialities are the environment and the developing world. She has lived and worked as a freelance journalist in both Africa and Southeast Asia, and has written two books as the result of her travels. She also worked as a writer and web-editor for Reuters Alertnet, a news, features and information service about international humanitarian issues.
She has a degree in Chemistry and a masters degree in History and Philosophy of Science.
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Since the early 90s Suzannah has been advising on, designing, managing and facilitating high-level stakeholder engagement projects. She spent over 15 years at The Environment Council leading and developing the Council’s pioneering stakeholder dialogue work as well as working with companies helping them understand the commercial implications of environment and sustainability issues. From 1999 she held roles as Deputy Chief Executive and Development Director at the charity. Since May 2007 she has been a freelance facilitator and stakeholder engagement advisor.
Suzannah has facilitated at numerous workshops ranging from one to one conversations between stakeholders in conflict to workshops with over 100 participants. She has been involved in projects covering the spectrum from those with a high degree of contention or conflict through to visioning and strategy development work with business, government and NGOs. Issues covered have included, amongst others, genetic modification; nuclear decommissioning; sustainable mobility; oil field decommissioning; electro-magnetic fields; recycled aggregates; water directive implementation; and landscape strategy.
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James Martin-Jones is an experienced facilitator with a successful track record of meetings and engagement processes for organisations & networks, particularly in the environment & sustainable development field.
After working as a lawyer in commercial litigation for a number of years, he took a Masters in international environmental law and joined WWF – the international network NGO focussing on conservation and environmental sustainability – where he worked for over 15 years on strategy, policy, and advocacy in a range of international fora.
During this period at WWF he became increasingly interested in the process as well as the content of negotiation and policy work. An important element of his experience at WWF was participating in, and increasingly running, dialogue processes both within the WWF Network and with other governmental and non-governmental partners.
This led to the facilitation of large group discussions in both national and international settings on a range of policy issues. Since 2005 he has been working full time as a facilitator.
Recent clients include the BioRegional Development Group, DEFRA, DFID, the Environment Agency, the European Commission, the Health and Safety Executive, Knowsley Borough Council, Schumacher College and WWF.
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Helena Poldervaart has been working in consensus building, participation and partnership development for 14 years. She works with a wide range of clients, mostly in the public and voluntary sectors. She has extensive experience in planning and facilitating meetings, workshops, awaydays and conferences. She is a mediator with Age Concern and a volunteer community mediator with Hackney Mediation Service.
Helena does a lot of work in energy efficiency and also with Local Strategic Partnerships and is increasingly working in health.
Past and current clients include:
- The Energy Saving Trust
- Government Departments – Defra, DTI/BERR
- Greater London Authority; Transport for London
- Government Offices (East and South West) and various Local Authorities
- City & Hackney PCT
- Family Welfare Association
- Capacity Global
- Oxford Environmental Change Institute
- Carbon Smart
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The main focus of Carl's work is the design and facilitation
of multi-party dialogue processes. He works with Government (local
and national), NGOs, campaigners, business, academics, community
based organisations and others to resolve issues of environmental
and social consequence. As well as working independently, he often
works with other facilitators drawn from a network skilled in
facilitation, participation, conflict resolution, process design
and public engagement.
His current projects include:
- One Planet Mobility. With The Environment Council. A project with the World Wildlife Fund working with a variety of European stakeholders on personal mobility in a carbon constrained future.
- Gypsies and Travellers. For Department of Communities and Local Government (DCLG). Working with Brighton and
Hove City Council and others to design and deliver an engagement
project to identify a permanent site for Gypsies and Travellers.
The learning from this project will inform future DCLG practice
guidance.
- Ashdown Forest. With 3KQ. Guidance to the Forest management team on a public consultation process.
- Hen Harriers. With The Environment Council. Working with various stakeholders to identify solutions to the need to increase hen harrier numbers in England and maintain the economic viability of grouse moors.
- Community cohesion scoping. For DCLG. Working with two local authority areas to scope out support for building community cohesion in the context of Local Area Agreements.
Carl also trains people to mediate and facilitate.
Carl has associate arrangements with The Environment Council,
3KQ, Dialogue by Design and People Resolutions Group Ltd. He also
has a contract as a Neighbourhood Renewal Advisor for DCLG.
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Nicky is a freelance multimedia producer and has worked on a number of broadcast, online and exhibition projects for a range of clients including: The BBC, The Science Museum, Channel 4, 4 Talent, The Lightbox, Discovery, and ITV.
She has experience in managing projects from inception to completion including events, exhibitions, website features, and broadcast video programmes. She has worked on a diversity of topics but specialises in science communication - liaising with internal and external stakeholders at all levels.
Nicky is one of our associates and assisted us with the online public engagement project for BERR on ‘The Future of Nuclear Energy in the UK’. She conducted qualitative analysis and helped prepare sections of the report. She also assisted in report preparation for the public engagement project ‘Science Horizons’. She has a BSc Honours Degree in Zoology from Bristol University.
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Penny Walker is an independent facilitator, specialising in helping people talk and listen to each other around sustainable development topics. She also trains facilitators, with particular emphasis on stakeholder engagement and organisational change.
Projects include facilitating and informing the development of sustainability strategies, tailor-made training to build skills and understanding, structured workshops where effective action plans can be created and agreed, consultation processes and dialogue with stakeholders, and one-to-one coaching to develop excellence in facilitative approaches and organisational change.
Clients include multi-national companies, world class educational institutions, environment and development NGOs, local national and international governmental and public service bodies, and other facilitators and sustainable development consultants.
She is an Chartered Environmentalist, a Full Member of the Institute of Environmental Management and Assessment (IEMA), and a Fellow of the Institute of Business Consultancy (formerly the Institute of Management Consultancy). She writes regularly on conversations, listening really well and behaviour change in the cause of sustainable development, including the ‘engaging people’ column in The Environmentalist. Her book, Change Management for Sustainable Development, was published by the IEMA in 2006, and she edited the sustainable development special edition of Organisations and People in November 2007.
She works regularly with a variety of specialist teams, including Dialogue by Design, 3KQ, Forum for the Future and the Cambridge Programme for Industry.
Penny Walker lives in North London with her family, where she is also the Chair of Growing Communities, a literally ground-breaking social enterprise creating an under-the-radar sustainable local food system in Hackney.
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Diane is a writer, researcher and consultant on public and community participation; and specialist in evaluating community, public and stakeholder engagement. She is a Founding Partner of Shared Practice, established in July 2002 and an Honorary Fellow of University of Brighton.
Examples of her recent work include:
- Evaluator for the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's major consultation on the future of civil nuclear power in the UK (2007 to date)
- Evaluator for Defra's public consultation on climate change (2007 to date)
- Evaluator for the Research Councils UK programme of public consultation on priorities for future energy research (2007 to date)
- Evaluator for the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority's programme of public consultation on the potential research use of hybrid and chimera embryos (2007 to date)
- Evaluator for the Academy of Medical Sciences programme of public dialogue and engagement on brain science, addiction and drugs (2006 to date)
- Consultant to WWF UK education team on community participation and local sustainable development programmes (1993 to date); currently including work on evaluating a community-led approach to sustainable consumption / lifestyles
- Lead consultant to the Environment Agency on several projects to develop and support a social policy framework for the Agency, and to produce guidance on working with communities and stakeholders (2001-2007)
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Lynn is a well known consultant in the field of stakeholder engagement. In addition to being a highly experienced facilitator, she has expertise in the fields of partnership and collaborative working and cross-organisational strategic planning. She is a leading consultant in the field of Sustainable Community Planning and Local Area Agreements.
As well as her consultancy work, Lynn is also a professional trainer, using varying forms of learning, from ‘classroom’ training, through to mentoring and action learning approaches.
Coming from a background in sustainable development and having worked extensively with public, private, voluntary sectors, Lynn’s key motivator is helping organisations talk to each other and work together better.
