Meet the Team
Kellie Ziemba
Chief Executive Officer
Kellie leads the organisation and oversees our strategic direction, fundraising, partnerships, finance and operations. She holds a BA (Hons) in Community and Criminal Justice and has a professional background in frontline practice, team and service management, and leadership across youth work, probation, prison, and children and family services. Prior to joining Kairos in 2021, Kellie provided strategic leadership at a large rape crisis centre.
Kellie says “As someone with lived experience of many issues that disproportionately impact women, including poverty, domestic and sexual violence, and sexual exploitation (both outside and inside the sex industry), I am passionate about women’s rights and have a strong commitment to the women we support to ensure our services are women-centred and trauma-informed. “.
In her spare time, Kellie is involved in feminist activism, enjoys history, and loves being in nature.
Hannah Coban
Head of Service Delivery
Hannah is responsible for the operational management and development of all our services, ensuring that that our organisational strategy is operationalised, services meet the needs of the women we support and our impact can be demonstrated to our funders. With a BA(Hons) in Economics, Social Sciences and Social Policy, and having taught in higher education settings, she has been working in the third sector for over 9 years, initially as an advocate for young people with multiple and complex unmet needs across Birmingham and Solihull. Prior to joining Kairos in 2020, Hannah managed the St. Basils Youth Hub in Birmingham.
Hannah says “I am excited about the future of Kairos. I believe that with our clear strategic vision, shared values, and outstanding team, we will continue to deliver life changing outcomes for women”.
Emma Mitchell
Team Manager
Emma is responsible for managing, supporting, and contributing to the professional development of our front line practitioners, ensuring that, on a day to day basis, they are delivering high quality provision within their relevant service areas. For example; supporting, coaching, developing, leading and managing staff to ensure their practice is women-centred, trauma-informed and evidence based. Emma is passionate about staff wellbeing and is a strong advocate for resilience building amongst the team.
Emma started her journey with Kairos as our Specialist Housing Practitioner in 2020, before being promoted to the Team Manager role in 2023. She holds a BA (Hons) in Professional Practice and is currently writing her thesis, with a focus on women’s experiences of homelessness, for a research Masters. Outside of work, she likes to walk, swim, and do yoga.
Volunteer Manager
The Volunteer Manager oversees the development and delivery of an outstanding Kairos volunteer programme- including promotion, recruitment, induction, training, support and supervision, and recognition of our volunteers. They reach out to the community to promote the work of Kairos and grow our team of volunteers, and ensure that all volunteers are equipped with the skills and confidence to play a key role in the delivery of our outreach and drop-in provision, group facilitation, and direct support work. Reporting to the Head of Service Delivery, the Volunteer Coordinator works independently to develop and coordinate all aspects of our volunteer programme, supporting effective practice across our volunteer team, whilst ensuring volunteers’ experience of the charity is meaningful and rewarding.
Vacancy- Now Recruiting!
Specialist Housing Practitioner
Our Specialist Housing Practitioner supports and advocates for women with ‘complex’ multiple needs, who are subject to or at risk of sexual exploitation, to navigate housing services, and secure and sustain safe and suitable accommodation. She supports across our services, providing specialist knowledge and advice to the wider team and acting as the organisational housing lead and single point of contact internally and externally. She is instrumental in developing and maintaining key operational partnerships with local agencies to better meet the needs of homeless women, and contributes to working groups and forums to represent Kairos WWT and the needs of our service users. She is passionate about advocating for positive systemic change on a local, regional, and national level to ensure that women have access to women-centred, trauma informed housing support and safe and suitable accommodation.
Rebecca Brade
Specialist Justice Practitioner
Rebecca supports women with multiple ‘complex’ needs, who are subject to or at risk of sexual exploitation and involved with the criminal justice system to navigate engagement with police, court, prison, probation, and other women’s justice service providers. She provides prison in-reach, release day support and reintegration back into the community, and works holistically to address the factors that lead to offending. Rebecca provides specialist knowledge and advice to the wider team and acts as the criminal justice lead and single point of contact for the organisation. Her role involves developing and maintaining strong partnerships with prisons, probation and women’s justice providers, including the development of clear referral pathways and agreements for shared/joint working.
Rebecca started with Kairos as an Outreach and Drop-in Volunteer, prior to gaining employment with us as a Support and Advocacy Practitioner, before she was promoted to her current role. She holds two degrees; Psychology BSc (Hons) and MSc Forensic Psychology and Mental Health.
She is a cat lover and owns two of her own little minions – Mia and Mya, who love food just as much as she does! Her favourite place to be is in front of the TV with a toffee-nut latte.
Holly Foster
Support and Advocacy Practitioner
Holly provides one to one practical and emotional support and advocacy for young women aged 18 – 25 who are part of our Feeling Safe service. She also leads on the delivery of Queen Bees, our Feeling Safe peer support group. She is passionate, committed and driven in supporting young women throughout Coventry to live a life free from violence, abuse, and exploitation through non-judgemental, approachable, realistic , connective practices.
Holly started with Kairos as a Volunteer before progressing to current role. Her professional background includes Youth Justice secure estates, community frontline projects including sexual health, substance misuse, and programmes specifically focused on young women, youth homeless and training of frontline staff.
Holly says “My hope is for every woman that steps through our doors, to feel loved, worthy, appreciated and empowered to bring the changes into their lives that they so rightly deserve”.
Sammy Dyer
Support and Advocacy Practitioner
Sammy offers one to one practical and emotional support and advocacy to women aged 18-25 who are part of our Feeling Safe service. She started with Kairos as a Volunteer, wanting a change of professional direction after working in finance related roles, and very quickly demonstrated that she was a valuable member of the team, able to form empowering relationships with women.
Sammy says “I feel incredibly lucky to have joined the team at Kairos. Everyone is welcoming and supportive. I’m enjoying my induction period and can’t wait to take on my own caseload of women to support towards their goals”.
Lisa Miller
Support and Advocacy Practitioner
Lisa offers one to one practical and emotional support and advocacy to women over 25 who are part of our Aspire service. She delivers our Blossoms group, which is a women led, safe space for pregnant women and new mums. The group is co-facilitated alongside the local Specialist Substance Misuse Midwife and aims to empower women to become nurturing and protective mums. Passionate about the benefits of being outdoors and the impact that gardening and growing your own fruit and vegetables can have on physical health and mental wellbeing, Lisa leads on our garden project. She also coordinates our annual Christmas celebration for the women we support.
Lisa has a background of working in a voluntary capacity with the homeless.
Flori McGill
Support and Advocacy Practitioner
Flori supports, advocates for, and empowers women as part of our Aspire service. She manages a busy caseload, where no two days are the same. As with all of our front-line practitioners, she supports our weekly street-based outreach and drop-in provision, which often provides an opportunity for to connect with women for the first time or reconnect with women we’ve not managed to reach for a while.
Flori holds a degree in English Language and Literature, having originally planned to complete teacher training and become an English teacher. However, she realised her passion for supporting marginalised people and prior to joining us at Kairos, worked for the local authority as a Rough Sleeper Outreach Worker. During the national lockdown, she supported extremely vulnerable people into suitable and appropriate accommodation and supported them to maintain their tenancies.
She enjoys spending weekends with family, going for meals, or staying in and getting cosy watching a Disney film.
TRUSTEES
Abbee McLatchie (Chair)
Abbee is the Director of Youth Work for the National Youth Agency (NYA) for England. She is a JNC-qualified youth and community development worker and has worked in the sector for over 20 years. Abbee has led and developed charities as a board member, trustee and advisor. Alongside her work at NYA and Kairos WWT, she is supporting the Refugee Youth Service as Policy Advisor. Outside of work Abbee enjoys cooking and trying to learn how to box. bbee believes in the power of women supporting women as a mechanism for transforming lives, communities and society.
Shinal Mathur (Treasurer)
Shinal is the Head of Financial Management at ABRSM. She is a CIMA qualified Accountant with 15 years of financial experience across several industries and sectors. Her most recent experience is in the Music Education sector. Shinal also has experience working in the Healthcare, Charity, Media and Shipping industries.
Donia Alwan (Secretary)
Donia is a dual qualified lawyer, admitted in the state of New York as well in England & Wales. She is an alumna of New York University, school of law and the University of Westminster. Her expertise covers a range of legal specialities, including international trade, intellectual property, corporate law, human rights, international humanitarian law and financial services investigations. She is a keen golfer, an avid reader and an opera enthusiast. Donia is passionate about promoting greater women’s equality and social justice.
Eden Bailey
Eden is the Head of Housing Services at Hft, a national charity providing residential care, supported living services and day opportunities for people with learning disabilities. She brings a breadth of experience in strategic and operational management of diverse range of services within the housing and charity sector with over 16 years’ experience. She is a Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). She is also the Vice-lead of the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) West Midlands regional group and Board member for Birmingham Civic Housing Association. Eden is passionate about Equality and Diversity and supporting the career development of people from the BAME background.
Lucy Rackliff
Lucy is a Senior Lecturer & Head of Department at Aston University in Birmingham, with qualifications in Economics, Engineering and Education. She has been a trustee of Kairos since summer 2022, but her experience as a charity trustee goes back much further. Lucy is a passionate believer in the potential of the charity sector to make a tangible difference to people whose needs are not met elsewhere.
Michelle McHugh
Michelle has significant experience leading and embedding transformational change within public and third sector organisations. Michelle worked in Local Government for 18 years before becoming a freelance management consultant in 2016. She joined Kairos WWT in 2019 as Interim CEO and her commitment to improving outcomes for vulnerable women led her to joining the Board. Michelle holds a Masters of Public Administration (MPA) from the University of Warwick.
Miriam Peck
Miriam works as a course administrator and peer trainer for Central and North-West London NHS Foundation Trust’s Recovery & Wellbeing College. She has a law degree from Oxford University, an MSc in Politics and Administration from Birkbeck College, University of London and was a specialist researcher on crime, the criminal justice system, crime prevention and related public policy and legal issues for the House of Commons Library Research Service for almost two decades. She has worked in support services for vulnerable adults and has many years’ experience as a volunteer and trustee for organisations working with young people and families experiencing multiple challenges and disadvantages.
Anna Lockhart
Anna has had a twenty year career in HR, organisation development and change, spanning public and not for profit sectors including the NHS and the arts & culture. She has developed specialist interests in staff wellbeing and engagement, and the psychology of organisational change. She has championed diversity and inclusivity within the workplace, and delivered coaching and management development programmes. Anna is passionate about safe spaces for women and by women, for women services.