Trustees Week: an interview with Satwat Rehman

10 Nov 2022

In the last of our series of Q&As marking Trustees Week, we hear from Satwat Rehman, CEO of One Parent Families Scotland, about her experience of being a member of Children in Scotland's Board

Name: Satwat Rehman

Current ‘day’ job: Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland

Charity that you’re a trustee of: Children in Scotland (amongst others!).

Role: Trustee

Why did you become a trustee?

For many reasons! Whilst my day job is also in the charity sector, I think it important to be involved in other organisations that are working to support children and young people. I want to be able to do as much as I can to tackle inequalities and injustices and being a trustee allows me to do that using the skills, experience and expertise I have developed over the years.

What’s the best thing about it?

Every day is a school day! Each meeting and conversation with fellow trustees and staff at Children in Scotland provide insights and perspectives that I would never have thought of. It is the coming together of people with different experiences and expertise, all with a single mission – to support the organisation and staff – that makes being on a Board so fulfilling.

What kind of challenges has the charity faced that you’ve been able to help with?

I would like to think I have provided some useful advice and support at times of transition, change and in an ever-more challenging funding situation. The past few years have been challenging because of austerity, the pandemic and now the deepening cost of living crisis. At such times, it is important for trustees to be there in the background providing reassurance, advice and support when needed.

How does being a trustee support your own personal or professional development?

I get to meet some fantastic people, and I would never have had the opportunity to do so otherwise! I learn so much from those around me – staff and fellow trustees. I find it motivating and energising!

About the interviewee

Satwat is the Chief Executive of One Parent Families Scotland (OPFS)

Click here to find out more

One Parent Families Scotland

One Parent Families Scotland is the leading charity working with single parent families in Scotland.

Click here to find out more

Trustees Week

Celebrating achievements and opportunities to connect, train, learn and develop

Click here to find out more

Trustees Week: an interview with Elaine Kerridge

8 November 2022

In the second Q&A marking Trustees Week, we hear from our Policy, Projects & Participation Manager Elaine Kerridge about being a board member of Fast Forward, the national youthwork organisation specialising in risk-taking behaviours, prevention and early intervention

Name: Elaine Kerridge

Current ‘day’ job: Policy, Projects and Participation Manager, Children in Scotland

Charity that you’re a trustee of: Fast Forward

Role: Chair of the Board

Length of time on the board: Six years

Why did you become a trustee?

I was drawn to Fast Forward as I was aware of the excellent harm reduction work Fast Forward does to support young people’s health and wellbeing. I was interested in being part of shaping the strategic direction of a national charity, to help reach as many young people across Scotland as possible.

What’s the best thing about it?

The staff! Fast Forward staff are creative, committed, knowledgeable, highly skilled and warm, friendly folk. They are what makes Fast Forward such a success and have such a positive impact on young people’s lives.

What kind of challenges has the charity faced that you’ve been able to help with?

Obviously the delivery of the work changed due to the pandemic. It was great to see how quickly Fast Forward staff were able to adapt to being online and carry out quality, impactful work.

How does being a trustee support your own personal or professional development?

I have learned a great deal around policy development and funding through being on the Board. As Chair, I have also developed my own staff management and decision-making skills. It gives me a lot of satisfaction and pride to be part of Fast Forward’s history and development.

About the interviewee

Elaine Kerridge is Children in Scotland's Policy, Projects & Participation Manager

Click here for more

Fast Forward

The national youthwork organisation specialising in risk-taking behaviours, prevention and early intervention

Click here for more

Trustees Week

Celebrating achievements and opportunities to connect, train, learn and develop

Click here for more

Trustees Week: an interview with Jude Turbyne

7 November 2022

As part of a series of Q&As to mark Trustees Week, we hear from Children in Scotland’s Chief Executive about being a board member of the Corra Foundation – and what she’s learnt from the experience

Name: Jude Turbyne

Current ‘day’ job: CEO of Children in Scotland

Charity that you’re a trustee of: Corra Foundation

Role: Deputy Chair and Chair of the Audit Committee

Length of time on the board: Since 2018 – coming up for four years.

Why did you become a trustee?

I am very passionate about trying to have a positive impact in the world. Since I was a child, I couldn’t understand how we could allow our world to be so unequal and to have such distressing levels of poverty. Since leaving university, I have volunteered for, worked for and studied the charity sector and have seen the difference committed individuals and organisations can make. I very much believe in what the Corra Foundation is doing and wanted to play my part by putting myself forward as a trustee.

What’s the best thing about it?

I love the Corra Foundation – what it stands for and how it does what it does. It is also a very reflective and learning organisation. The board is a space where there is the opportunity for healthy and interesting discussions on a whole range of topics. But perhaps my very favourite thing is the people I get to work with.

The trustees come from a variety of different professional and personal backgrounds and bring different perspectives to our discussions. It has been a happy, intellectually challenging and constructive place to be. I like the feeling of that collective responsibility – finding ways of coming to a shared conclusion even if we don’t all agree 100%.

What kind of challenges has the charity faced that you’ve been able to help with?

The charity has been going through a period of change. During my time a new strategic plan has been developed, and I feel I have been able to contribute in a small way to the direction of the organisation.

How does being a trustee support your own personal or professional development?

I suppose, for me, I feel that being a trustee is something that I now have a moral duty to do. The charity sector has supported me as a volunteer and as a worker. I have had an amazing and interesting life, and I have felt part of a movement that is much bigger than me. So I want to give back.

But I have also experienced a lot of development through being a trustee. It has helped me develop a really good understanding of what good governance looks like in action and has contributed to my learning around some of the key issues that the Corra Foundation works on. In fact, I feel as if I learn something every time I sit around the board table. It is properly fulfilling.

About the interviewee

Jude Turbyne joined Children in Scotland as Chief Executive in August 2021

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Corra Foundation

Corra works to strengthen and amplify people’s voices and their power to make change

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Podcast: equal partners

Listen to our recent discussion of the strategic importance of young trustees

Click here for more

Trustees Week

Celebrating achievements and opportunities to connect, train, learn and develop

Click here for more

Measurement and mission statement: what our new values mean to us

5 May 2022

Chris Small on why we decided to refresh our values and the thinking behind the updated wording

What’s the point of values? In our view, as an organisation with a remit to improve children’s lives, they are vital.

Here are a few quotes from a survey of our staff, explaining why:

“Values provide a set of core beliefs and principles that act as a guide to how we should approach our work, external and internal relationships and communications”

“They help define our personality and inspire staff to a greater sense of purpose and engagement.”

“Values give everyone a shared sense of belonging to a larger mission in order to motivate us and drive our work”

“They act as a benchmark for how the organisation should behave.”

Values have been important to us as an organisation since we were founded 29 years ago. But over the past decade we’ve been more assertive about them, threading them through internal work and public-facing activities.

In interviews recruiting for new staff, we ask candidates to talk about their experience in the context of our values. In one to one supervision, line managers ask staff they support to use our values as a reference point for discussing their work.

Our 2017 rebrand was about bringing our values to the fore, telling people what we believed in and how we wanted to achieve a more equal society for children.

Many contributors to our 25 Calls campaign (2018-20) referenced the power of values – our own and those of the organisations and young people we work with.

Our 2021-26 Manifesto picks up on that concern. Call 32 says the children’s sector must achieve ‘a fully values-driven workforce through refreshing its commitment to the Common Core of Skills, Knowledge and Understanding and Values for the Children’s Workforce in Scotland’.

But we’re also aware that values can evolve alongside organisational and societal change. We’ve learnt a lot since our previous values wording was created in 2014: about how best to take a stand on issues young people care about, how to absorb learning from projects, how to be more accessible, and how to ensure staff, young people and members can participate in our decision-making.

We want our values to be built on that learning and to correspond to the sector and society we’re part of now. So last year we decided to refresh the values, initiating a six-month project that included consultation with our staff, our children and young people’s advisory group Changing our World, our members and our Board.

The update balances the voices of those core groups, and makes our values feel more human, relevant and in tune with 2022. So, what’s different?

Changing our World members were rightly insistent that a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusion was of overarching importance. That’s why it’s included in a new introduction which explains the purpose and meaning of our values.

The first of the four values is Brave, illustrating our determination to champion children’s rights and advocate for young people, even on issues that might attract hostility.

But we’re conscious that ‘bravery’ has wider meanings. It doesn’t have to be a synonym for ‘strong’. As our Head of Services Billy Anderson argues in the new edition of our members’ publication Insight, being vulnerable is often the foundation for courage.

Collaborative speaks to Children in Scotland’s character as a partnership organisation with democratic instincts. We felt our ability to bring voices together to achieve shared aims needed to be stated more explicitly in our values.

We now describe ourselves as Open and Fair, reflecting our aspiration to always be as transparent and accessible as possible and to share our learning and ideas.

Finally, we are Kind, a word that came up repeatedly in responses from our staff and Changing our World. I view it as reflecting a quality of the organisation that’s been evidenced forcefully over the past two difficult years, and which we will continue to live by.

There’s also some deliberate continuity with the values wording introduced eight years ago; our commitment to accountability, trust and respect isn’t something that’s going to go away.

Through the work of our designer Angus Doyle we’re able to bring this language together with energy, colour and visual impact, as you’ll see from the graphic on our new Vision, Priorities and Values page.

Thank you to our staff, young people’s advisory group, members and board for taking part in the project.

I hope that, on reading the new values, you recognise something of your experience of Children in Scotland. We believe they give us a description of who we are, a way of measuring how well we’re doing, and a mission statement for what we want to achieve.

Click here to read our refreshed values in full

Chris Small is Children in Scotland's Communications Manager