Our Team

Martin Stephenson – Executive Director

Martin is the Executive Director of Unitas. With extensive experience in education, youth justice and social care, and having been involved in policy, management and practice, Martin has spent his career working with socially excluded groups. A founder member of the Youth Justice Board from 1998 to 2002, he was formerly Chief Executive of the charity Include. He was also the Senior Policy Adviser involved with the design of the Connexions Strategy for the Department for Education and Skills and was previously a Trustee at Nacro and a Non-Executive Director of Norfolk Primary Care Trust. As Director of Social Inclusion Strategy at Nottingham Trent University, he was responsible for a series of influential reports on youth justice and education for the Youth Justice Board and Arts Council. Publications include Young People and Offending (the first generic text examining all the evidence on the relationship between education and offending) and Effective Practice in Youth Justice, which is the main textbook for all Open University courses on youth justice.

Jo Jamieson – Operations Director

Jo is Operations Director at Unitas. She began her career as a lecturer in higher education, but moved into prison education as a result of her interest in the criminal justice system. Following a number of years spent in a range of secure environments, including roles as Education Manager at an adult prison and also a young offender institution, she moved out of custody into the community, where she continued to work within the broad field of education with socially excluded groups. These included young people and adults who had offended. More recently, she has been using her experience of the criminal justice system, the education system and the challenges faced by those at risk of social exclusion to contribute to a range of research and evaluation projects.

Paul Martin – Finance Director

Paul is Finance Director at Unitas and has over ten years’ experience of large- and small-scale budgetary management. Paul has been working on projects with children and young people in both England and the USA for over 20 years. He has worked with local authorities overseeing both the devolution of county-wide budgets to local teams and the development of an information tracking system to monitor the careers of young people who have offended.

Pip Labithiotis – Programme Manager

Pip is a Programme Manager at Unitas. Pip’s career started in 1996 at Nacro, where she worked with unemployed adults. As a Training Organiser, she was responsible for the delivery of E2E (entry to employment) programmes as well as the basic skills strand in Greater London, which involved the roll-out of arts enrichment programmes and the delivery of the Arts Award. In 2006, Pip began working as a Programme Manager for Summer Arts Colleges, and has since worked on a variety of Unitas projects including TextNow and the Short Intensive Basic Skills courses in Wales. Pip is currently working towards a Foundation Degree in Youth Justice through the Open University.

Jane Dixon – National Development Programme Manager (Wales)

Jane is the Manager of the National Development Programme (NDP) for Young People in Wales. Her role involves supporting practitioners in establishing learning programmes to motivate and engage young people. Before joining Unitas, Jane worked in Monmouthshire teaching literacy and numeracy to adults and took on a further role as a development worker, organising family learning programmes. Jane also coordinated a basic skills project, providing one-to-one support for young people who were not attending school.

Find out more about the National Development Programme in Wales.

Nikki Kendrick – Programme Manager

Nikki is a Programme Manager at Unitas. She is responsible for the development of online continuing professional development resources for youth justice staff. She has over 25 years’ experience in the field of community justice and social care. After starting her career as a Probation Officer in London, Nikki gained management experience in the voluntary sector, in a multi-agency drug service in Sefton, Merseyside and with the Employee Development Unit for Coventry City Council. Nikki spent five years working with the Central Council for Education and Training in Social Work (CCETSW) as an Adviser before starting out as a freelance Trainer and Consultant in 2000. She has worked with a range of organisations on workforce development issues. Nikki’s work with Unitas centres on workforce development, managing the development and quality assurance of e-learning training materials in youth justice.

Ashley Durban – Development Manager

Ashley is Development Manager at Unitas. She started her career in publishing in 1995, working for national magazines at the UK’s second biggest publisher, IPC Media. Later she moved to regional newspapers working for Trinity Mirror Group, where she became Group Commercial Editor, working across 13 newspapers. Whilst working for Trinity Mirror, Ashley launched several magazines, one of which quickly became the regional’s biggest-selling wedding title. Her last role prior to working with Unitas was within an editorial communications agency, Haymarket, where she worked for government and private sector clients. Here, Ashley gained marketing training to combine with her print and online publishing experience.

Donna Powell – Marketing & Publications Manager

Donna is Marketing & Publications Manager at Unitas. Prior to joining Unitas, she worked as Editorial and Production Manager at Pearson Publishing, where she was responsible for a wide range of digital, print and online educational resources and projects, plus the company’s marketing materials and websites. She also produced a number of workforce development programmes for NAPTA (the National Association of Professional Teaching Assistants) and INTEC (the Cambridge Institute of Technology). In 2010, Donna became Editorial Manager for Anspear, where she helped to create interactive literacy and ESOL learning resources for mobile phones. Donna is also an experienced Company Secretary, having fulfilled this role for a number of companies.

Ella Bourne – TextNow Programme Manager

Ella is TextNow Programme Manager at Unitas. In particular, she is responsible for developing the use of the TextNow programme in secondary schools across the UK. Ella’s career started as a classroom teacher in 1981 and she has over 20 years’ teaching experience at both primary and secondary level. With a keen interest in harnessing new technologies to support teaching and learning, she joined RM Education in 2002. She worked at RM for ten years, initially providing professional development for teachers in the use of computers and online teaching resources, and then managing educational support for large-scale local authority ICT (information and communication technology) projects.

Janet Beverley – TextNow Schools Manager

Janet is TextNow Schools Manager at Unitas. After working as a teacher in a mainstream high school, she went on to teach pupils with a range of additional needs. In 2000, she was seconded to work for Norfolk Children’s Services statementing children with special educational needs. She continued to establish and monitor provision for vulnerable young people in her next post as Inclusion Coordinator for an Education Action Zone. In 2004, she was appointed Deputy Director for the children’s charity Catch Up, where she took the lead in initiating and developing literacy research pilots in schools and other settings. Since 2006, Janet has worked as an independent Educational Consultant. She has continued to initiate, develop and evaluate literacy research pilots for Travellers, prisoners and looked-after children, and has trained adults to use literacy programmes to raise attainment amongst vulnerable youngsters.

Kim Labithiotis – Programme Support Manager

Kim joined Unitas in August 2009 as a Research Assistant and, from March 2010, she has taken on the role of Programme Support Manager. Prior to joining Unitas, she worked as a successful freelance photographer for 14 years. She is studying for a Foundation Degree in Youth Justice through the Open University.

Barbara Vedanayagam – Programme Support Manager

Barbara is a Programme Support Manager at Unitas. After completing her Postgraduate Degree in Forensic Psychology, her interest in the criminal justice system led her to work with youth offending teams. Barbara has spent most of her career working with high-risk young offenders sentenced to Intensive Supervision and Surveillance (ISS). She has project managed a number of Summer Arts Colleges for Unitas.

Jo Abel – Programme Support Manager

Jo joined Unitas in September 2008 as a Finance Assistant and, from January 2012, she has taken on the role of Programme Support Manager, with a focus on finance and resource management. Prior to joining Unitas, she had an extensive career in healthcare.

Simon Ruding – Quality Auditor

Simon has spent over 20 years developing arts-based projects with a wide range of marginalised and excluded community groups throughout the British Isles. Internationally, he has worked on projects in Romania, Ireland, the United States and South Africa. As Director of TiPP (the Theatre in Prisons and Probation Centre), he coordinates undergraduate and postgraduate courses in applied theatre at the University of Manchester and the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Simon also sits on the boards of three arts organisations: The Blue Room, Aqueous Humour and Bury Met. He was previously Executive Director of the Midlands-based Geese Theatre Company. Simon collaborated with the University of Manchester’s Jenny Hughes on the chapter ‘Made to Measure?’ in The Applied Theatre Reader.

Nikki Crane – Quality Auditor

Nikki has over 20 years’ experience working in the arts and cultural sectors, particularly in the field of the arts and social inclusion. Nikki spent seven years at Arts Council England, where she established partnerships and programmes across the arts and non-arts sectors and produced the first Arts and Youth Justice Strategy in 2005. In a freelance capacity, Nikki has worked on projects involving the Metropolitan Police, youth offending teams and custodial institutions and has undertaken consultancy for local authorities on creating cultural strategies. Her current portfolio includes working with the British Council on developing arts projects for young people at risk internationally, and as an Arts Consultant for Unitas and Dance United. Nikki is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.

Phil Clapp

Phil joined the Cinema Exhibitors’ Association in October 2007 from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), where he had been Deputy Director responsible for government policy on the creative industries, including film, music, computer games, fashion and design. Prior to this, Phil had led on arts policy within the DCMS, before which he had worked at the Cabinet Office Social Exclusion Unit, reporting to the Prime Minister on social policy issues such as reoffending, young people at risk and deprived neighbourhoods.

Nicola Lowit

Nicola started her career working with offenders and people at risk of offending, and has a background in education and training. She worked in the third, public and academic sectors before joining the Prison Service in 1999 as an Education Adviser. Since then, she has held various senior roles in the Home Office and Ministry of Justice, including working with the Youth Justice Board on juveniles in custody, setting up a commissioning system for the National Offender Management Service, and leading on the strategy for vulnerable women in the criminal justice system. Nicola currently leads on national strategy for the prison and probation estates.

Gillian Beasley, OBE

Gillian has been Chief Executive of Peterborough City Council since September 2002. Beginning her career in local government in 1983 as a Trainee Solicitor for Leeds City Council, she worked as a lawyer in a number of local authorities before becoming Director of Law and Administration for Peterborough City Council in 1997. Recognised as a national expert in children’s law, Gillian previously worked for a number of government departments in bringing forth guidance for the Children Act 1989. She also worked for a number of national bodies in the health, social care and children arenas, and lectured nationally for The Law Society on children’s law. Gillian received an OBE for services to local government in 2008.

Erica Crump – Advisor to the Trustees

Erica is a solicitor at Bates Wells & Braithwaite in the charity/social enterprise department. She advises and works with a range of charities and social enterprises around the UK, including arts, education and environmental organisations. She enjoys being involved in a variety of pro bono activities and projects, including sitting on and working with trustee boards and boards of directors.