Who Are We?

Board of Trustees

ThePromise has 5 Trustees.

We have professional fundraisers, event organisers and a commercial consultant.

Mrs Sarah Settelen     Chair

Ms Clare McKeown      Vice-Chair

Mrs Clare Nash           Secretary

Ms Anne Warner         Treasurer

Mrs Vicki Brown

Advisory Board

We also have an Advisory Board

who willingly offers advice as and when necessary and we are enormously grateful to them for this:

Mr Martin Bax, Consultant Paediatrician,  D.M.(Oxon)FRCP  FRCPCH:

 “As a Paediatrician I have had some contact with Eastern European Services for disabled children. I paid a visit 10 years ago to Russia leading a group of paediatricians and obstetricians looking at obstetric services, outcomes and the care of children with disabilities. More recently and on-going I have been carrying out a study of services for disabled children throughout Eastern Europe and know something therefore of the conditions in Russian residential institutions and orphanages. I am quite certain from what I have heard of the Ryazan Baby Home that Portage is an excellent early intervention programme to introduce.”   

Alexis Chapman, Accountant BSc ACA

Lesley Carroll-Few, Speech and Language Therapist,  MRCSLT

Mrs Diane Williams - Senior Portage Teacher

Elizabeth Hindmarch - PR Consultant, EHPR

Mrs Mollie White, Educationalist and Portage Specialist,  Dip.Ed, M.A.:

“I first came across this method of working with children with special needs in 1976. I count myself fortunate enough to have been invited to participate in a very successful pilot project examining the Portage model in action, set up by the Wessex Health Care Evaluation Research Team. As a result of our confidence in the results achieved by the project, we worked together as a team, over a number of years, to disseminate the approach across the UK where it is now a recognised part of established practice, benefiting many thousands of children with special needs each year.  More recently I have worked on projects to establish the service in other countries, and I am excited to be involved in its introduction to the Ryazan Baby Home. I truly believe that it will make a huge difference to the lives of these Russian children”.

Mrs Joy Horne, Educational psychologist,  B.A. Hons, MSc, AFBPsS:

“As an Educational Psychologist and currently manager of the Hounslow Portage Service, I know first hand what an absolutely vital service Portage is to children with special needs. Portage is an early intervention teaching service for children with any type of difficulty or disability under the age of 5. It breaks down tasks into very small steps, setting goals and planning activities to support the child in the achievement of these goals.  The Russian children in the Ryazan Baby Home will be suffering from a severe lack of positive interaction, access to stimulating toys and are not currently in a position to be able to reach their potential. Receiving the Portage service through ThePromise will give them an extraordinary chance to do this.”

Registered Office: 181 Jersey Road, Isleworth, Middlesex TW7 4QJ  UK  Tel: +44 (0) 20 8737 2987

Registered Charity No:1098771    Registered Company No: 4751873

Email: post@thepromise.org.uk