Board of Directors
See also:
The Role of NADP Board Member (director and company secretary)
Election to the Board of Directors
The NADP Executive Board and Administrative Office will maintain a range of activities designed to increase potential members' knowledge of NADP and its conferences and other activities. The Board and Office will also actively seek new staff groups who might benefit from our activities.
In undertaking those activities NADP will seek to collaborate with other appropriate organisations (eg those with aims similar to NADP) and engage proactively with other professionals across the sector.
Nicola Martin (Chair)
Nicola Martin is currently the Director of Wellbeing and Disability Services at The LSE and an Honorary Visiting Fellow at The University of Cambridge working on a project with Professor Simon Baron-Cohen. Prior to the recent LSE appointment she was a Principal Lecture at Sheffield Hallam University leading the Centre for Disability and Diversity Studies and The Autism Centre.
Nicola has a very strong commitment to disability equality as a human rights issue and important aspect of social justice. She has worked in education with disabled people across the age range continually since 1976, has 4 relevant degrees, a range of specialist qualifications and a string of publications which articulate a social model perspective on disability.
Research interests include inclusive practice in further and higher education, emancipatory work with students who have Asperger syndrome, and disablism in performing arts. She has lectured in Australia, New Zealand, USA and many UK universities.
Catherine Badminton
Catherine Badminton is Principal Disability Adviser and Access Centre Manager at the University of Central Lancashire. She joined Preston Polytechnic in 1989, when it made a commitment to disabled students, to develop provision for a small but growing number of disabled students. There are now almost 2000 students known to the Disability Service.
Within UCLan she is a member of Student Services Heads' Group and serves on a number of committees, including the Diversity Committee.
In 1995 she became manager of the (NFAC, now NNAC affiliated) Access Centre and is on the NNA Executive, as North West Regional Co-ordinator.
She has managed disability related HEFCE funded projects and has contributed to a number of other HEFCE funded initiatives as a member of the steering group. She is a member of the Teaching Academy.
John Conway
John Conway has been Disability Officer at the Royal Agricultural College since 1999, managing the support provision for students, mainly with dyslexia, and also responsible for developing inclusive teaching, learning and assessment strategies.
As a full time academic he also has a direct impact on teaching and assessment methods through membership of our Teaching, Learning and Assessment committee, the Learning and Information Resources committee as well as contributing to a project team working to develop holistic student support services.
He believes very strongly in the rights of every student to access education according to their abilities and not to be restricted in their education by irrelevant dis-abilities. He joined the NADP board in 2006 to try and drive this agenda forward.
Adele Hoskinson-Clark
Adele Hoskinson-Clark is a disabled woman with a degree in Applied Social Studies and a post graduate diploma in Disability Studies.
She has many years experience working with both disabled and non-disabled young people in the education and community field. For three years she was the young disabled person's development officer for AimHigher Greater Merseyside, working to ensure that schools, colleges and universities develop inclusive practices and that disabled people are adequately represented in HE.
Adele is now co-director of Difference Matters Ltd, which is a training and consultancy company specialising in addressing disability equality issues.
Bryan Jones
Bryan Jones is currently head of Disability Support Services at Middlesex University, which includes the duties and responsibilities of Manager of the North London Regional Access Centre.
He has worked in the disability support field for over 20 years and in HE disability support since 1983, joining London Guildhall University (now city campus of London Metropolitan University) to take up the post of Equal Opportunities Adviser.
Amanda Kent
Amanda Kent has been a DSA Needs Assessor since 2001. She started working life as a nurse, specialising initially in high-care nursing and later in trauma orthopaedics and rehabilitation. Amanda has a degree in English. She is a qualified teacher and has been an administrator and course tutor in Adult Continuing Education. Amanda has also held posts in medical research and in university archives. She has recent experience of postgraduate study and contributed to the Student Juries which informed the National Student Forum.
Val Morgan
Val Morgan worked for 23 years in the Adult, Further and Higher Education sector, setting up disability services as both a case worker and Service Manager. Val is now a freelance Assessor and Disability Consultant.
Val has been a member of NADO/NADP since its inception.
Karen Robson
Disability Service Manager at UWIC, established the Disability Department at UWIC 10 years ago to respond to the needs of disabled students and has responsibility for the development of policy and provision for currently approx 1000 disabled students.
She also provides lecturing input on education courses delivered at UWIC and undertakes staff training both at UWIC and on behalf of other institutions/organisations within a wider consultancy remit, presenting at UK and international conferences.
Along with Carol Doyle she published 'Accessible Curricula: Good Practice for All' and has developed a range of good practice resources, including research on behalf of the DRC.
She was Chair of Skill Wales between 2001 and 2006 and sits on both the Skill HE Working Group and Skill Council. She joined the NADP Board in 2005.
Martin Smith
Martin Smith is the Disability and Dyslexia Service Manager (Policy and Planning)and West London Assessment Centre manager at Brunel University in Uxbridge.
Martin has worked with disabled people for 34 years, originally working in Mental Health services he then qualified as an Occupational Therapist and worked for over 20 years in Social Services departments as a Senior OT, Team Manager, Commissioning Manager, Head of Adults Services and Director of Disability Services (including, briefly, working as Acting Director of Social Services).
Martin joined Brunel University 8 years ago to set up the service for disabled students. Now Brunel has one of the largest teams in the country and also has a large group of Support Workers, a new Assistive Technology Centre and an Assessment Centre so that the full range of Services can now be offered to students on site. This holistic range of support services was always the aim and has been very well received by its users.
Martin is a staunch advocate of the Social Model of disability. He is a Trustee of the local association for disabled people (DASH) in Hillingdon, is a member of Skill's Council and their HE working party and joined NADP at the starting of NADO in 2000. He is an external examiner and has worked on two HEFCE funded projects on inclusive teaching. Martin led on the production of the first DES and has spoken at several conferences on the DDA/SENDA, Access and other disability related matters.
Paddy Turner
Paddy Turner has worked at Sheffield Hallam University in disability support since 1998 and is now Head of Inclusive Practice within the Disabled Student Support Portfolio. Paddy trained as a Sign Language Interpreter and successfully completed a degree in the subject from Wolverhampton University although increasing management responsibilities has now put a stop to his interpreting career.
He has worked in just about every facet of disabled student support from support working as an interpreter or note-taker, through co-ordinating support, DSA needs assessment, advising, teaching, writing, training and researching. He believes firmly in keeping the aim of creating an inclusive student experience as the guiding principle in all that he does and is having a ball tackling the cultural and practical change agenda within learning, teaching and assessment.
Having been part of the initial working party that gave birth to NADO in 1999, he has enjoyed returning to the Board of the more mature and well established NADP.
Deb Viney
Deb Viney is the Diversity Advisor for the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) which is an independent college within the federal University of London. The School is one of the most diverse institutions in the UK in terms of both staff and student ethnicity with more than 200 nations represented.
Deb's SOAS role includes addressing issues relating to age, disability, ethnicity / race, gender, religion, sexual orientation and sexual identity, especially the activity which results from current and forthcoming legislation for both staff and students.
After graduating from Portsmouth as a mature student in Psychology (1989) Deb gained a wide range of experience including working in neuropsychology and later in Psychiatry - primarily on a haemophilia and HIV project considering the cognitive and emotional effects of infection which formed the basis of her M.Phil. thesis (which was finally published in 2007!).
Deb also taught part time in psychology at all levels from GCSE to post-graduate. From 1997 - February 2006 Deb was the Disability Co-ordinator and later Head of the Disability Service at the University of Southampton, where she drew on all of her psychology skills and academic experience to develop a service with a national reputation for excellence.
Mike Wray
Mike Wray is the disability coordinator for Action on Access. He has many years experience working with disabled people across a variety of public sector organisations. He has worked as an assistant clinical psychologist within the health service, for a learning support team in further education, managed a disability resource centre at the University of the West of England and co-ordinated a HEFCE-funded disability project which developed online staff development materials. In his last post with the National Disability Team he oversaw twenty three HEFCE-funded disability projects in the south west, south east, east midlands and London.
Since working in higher education Mike has developed a reputation as a key player in disability support. He has attended numerous national and international conferences as workshop leader and keynote presenter. He is a member of the General Teaching Council for England's taskforce on disabled teachers and has been involved in several national consultations groups such as the Quality Assurance Agency's review of the code of practice chapter on students with disabilities and the Disability Rights Council's fitness to practice formal investigation into social work, teaching and nursing.
In his current role for Action on Access he coordinates all aspects of the team's work on disability. A key part of this work is his role within the Disability Equality Partnership (DEP). Mike coordinates the maintenance of the DEP national gateway to resources including the resource directory and the Helpdesk as well as playing a key role within collaborative activities such as the national disability Think Tank and the Higher Education Academy's Significant Interest Group on inclusion. He is currently studying for a PhD at the University of Lancaster on the role of teaching staff in the implementation of disability policy.