Investing in your future: introducing Shine’s team of health specialists

As part of Shine’s continued investment in our services to members, we are delighted to announce the appointment of Lindsey Reid as Deputy Health Manager.

The role is newly created and will support the current team both in dayto-day health enquiries, and to develop new and more responsive services for our members.

Lindsey is an OT with many years’ experience working with disabled children and adults, including rehabilitation. Lindsey has a particular interest in mental well-being and pain management and will work with our staff in all three nations to identify the best way of meeting the needs of our members and support the SDW service.

Lindsey’s appointment is in addition to that of Alex Preston, who joined us in March as our Health Support Officer.

Alex is a Registered Children’s Nurse, with experience of disabled adults from the Care Sector. She also has a master's in psychology and has a special interest in sensory processing and mental wellbeing.

Alex has started joining some of our online groups, to add a health perspective, so do look out for Alex popping into your group! Alex will work with Lindsey to help identify new opportunities to support our members with health issues and create new resources.

Lindsey and Alex join Kathy Allen, our OT, and Bronwen Warner, our physio, and Brenda Cheer, our children’s continence specialist nurse, who many of you will know from Little Stars Touch Points and some of our groups.

We are starting to plan some new online resources to support parents, adults and professionals with practical advice on sensory processing, housing adaptations and many more.

The Health Team would like to thank Shine's Board of Trustees for their support in increasing the Health Team’s capacity, at a time when the need for our service has never been greater.

Meet Helen: Our National Programmes and Member Engagement Manager

Many of you will have met or had contact with Helen, as she has worked for Shine in Wales for 7 years.

Helen has recently been appointed as our National Programmes and Membership Engagement Manager. Continually striving to improve our services for you, this is a new role created primarily to support the delivery of our strategic goal 4: Connecting Communities, which drives our ambitions for:

• Greater engagement with our members to inform and shape the services we offer

• Increased opportunities for our members to connect with one another and make lasting friendships

• Recruitment and support for volunteers

• A national programme of events and social gettogethers, including our annual awareness weeks

Building links with members of all ages, who are keen to get involved in shaping our services or wanting to volunteer, is central to Helen’s work as the greater the input and engagement we can have with you, the better the work we do can reflect what you want and need us to do.

You can contact Helen on 01733 555988 or helen.allen@shinecharity.org.uk for further information on how to get involved.