Meet the Team

You are very likely to see Laura out and about making connections and creating opportunities for CDEC. As well as being a strong, optimistic force behind the CDEC team, she keeps a careful and trusting eye on the day-to-day operations while seeking new funding and project opportunities that help to ensure the organisation continues to be a force for good.

laura@cdec.org.uk

Geoff works on our Welcoming the Stranger project and is responsible for developing our schools training offer. He has worked with CDEC over a number of years as a Cumbrian Headteacher and is passionate about place-based learning and growing our connection to nature. He has lots of experience delivering Forest and Beach School and loves to spend his spare time exploring and nature journaling.

geoff@cdec.org.uk

Alison has worked with CDEC over many years as a Headteacher and British Council Ambassador delivering training and has a wealth of experience in embedding global learning into the school curriculum, international school partnerships and enabling and empowering young people to work together with their community to act as passionate global citizens. She is thrilled to be joining the team and will be promoting global learning by supporting schools and young people to gain an accurate world view, engage with their community and to ‘Think global, act local’.

alison@cdec.org.uk

Hey, my name is Mina and I'm from Iran. I moved to the UK and settled in the Carlisle area around five and a half years ago and for almost all of the time since then, I've been working with children and young people from different backgrounds (LGBTQ+ community, refugees, migrants and unaccompanied asylum-seeking children, care leaver and care-experience children) in various settings and capacities. I started working with CDEC when I was Refugee Engagement Officer at Carlisle College, continuing my working relationship with CDEC as an Associate and, since July, I'm now a member of the CDEC staff team.

mina@cdec.org.uk

Dan is here to keep an eye on the day-to-day running of the office and ensure membership subscriptions are up to date, that you get the resource boxes you've requested and that you get your invoices. His usual working days are Monday to Thursday.

dan@cdec.org.uk

Debbie is passionate about creating opportunities for children to participate in excellent global learning, and is a forest schools, eco-schools and environmental expert. As well as running the Global Schools project, Debbie is instrumental in leading the development of new CDEC courses and is one of our associate tutors.

debbie@cdec.org.uk

Jane is well known in Philosophy for Children (P4C) circles as a registered SAPERE P4C trainer providing accredited courses in Foundation (Level 1) and Advanced (Level 2) P4C. She originally trained as a primary school teacher and while at Charlotte Mason College started to borrow resources from CDEC in 1989. She believes it is this that certainly set her off on her global learning pathway. Jane worked as a primary school teacher and then began extending her experience to global learning and P4C. Her tremendous work in this area won her Think Global’s Global Educator of the Year Award in 2017! She runs courses in Cumbria, nationally and internationally.

Carol, until recently, was a primary school teacher in Cumbria with the responsibility of global lead teacher. After 14 years in teaching, she understands embedding global learning into primary schools and also using P4C in the classroom. Before training to be a teacher, she worked in science as a laboratory chemist in the nuclear industry for 10 years. Here she developed a profound sense of responsibility for the environment. As her career developed into management roles she gravitated towards training and development, to eventually start her teaching career, and is now pulling all this experience together as a CDEC associate trainer.

Katie Carr is an experienced trainer and facilitator (CIPD qualified) with over 15 years experience in statutory, further and higher education. For five years she was CDEC’s director, supporting schools, organisations and the wider community to engage with education for sustainability and global citizenship. She works across the boundary of research and practice, and is an expert in sustainable leadership. She is passionate about youth voice, and is a strong advocate of participatory practice. She has delivered lectures on educational change as part of Lancaster University’s MA Education

Margaret is a very experienced primary school practitioner with a passion for CDEC and what it is we are trying to achieve. She has worked extensively throughout Cumbria for over 20 years as a primary teacher and headteacher. For the past five years she has worked as an independent consultant and trainer, writing and developing training materials and supporting schools on areas including the Early Years, outdoor and experiential learning, continuous provision, maths, literacy, art and safeguarding, SEND, alternative provision and Pupil Premium Provision and Reviews. Margaret loves working on new projects and with new people. So being part of the associate trainer group is stimulating and fun. And it helps her support CDEC and the important role CDEC has in working closely with schools to raise awareness of and achieve the Global Development Goals.