Tam has over 35 years experience working on children and young people’s issues.

In the initial stages of his career, Tam spent more than 20 years as a practitioner working with our most vulnerable children and young people. This practice provides a solid base for all of his future influencing work.  Later, he influenced service delivery through the development of good practice and the re-provisioning of services.  For the past 15 years he has been operating in positions where he is able to influence national and local policy, with progressively increased opportunities to engage in international activities.  As a consequence, he has been involved in influencing activities through UN structures reporting on the UNCRC and has had the opportunity to influence children’s rights policies at European level through the European Commission and the Council of Europe.

He has been a manager and leader of staff and budgets for over 30 years, including raising necessary finances for developing services in various settings.  He is experienced in dealing with national and local politicians and senior civil servants.  He has extensive experience of public speaking and engaging with the press, radio and television media.

Tam was the Children and Young People’s Commissioner (Scotland) between May 2009 and May 2017.  

With his role as the Children and Young People’s Commissioner, Tam had a duty to promote and safeguard the rights of children and young people in Scotland under the age of 18, or those under 21 if they have ever been in the care of a local authority.

The Commissioner had duties of:

• Raising awareness of rights
• Involving children and young people in our work
• Considering law, policy and practice that concerns rights
• Communicating best practice about rights

Tam’s current activities include:

• Chair the Shetland Public Protection Committee
• Chair of the Western Isles Child Protection Committee
• Vice-Chair of the Child Protection Committees Scotland
• Board member of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA)
• Chair of the Campaign to End Youth Homelessness in Scotland
• Board member of the International Play Association, Scotland
• Board member of the International Play Association, World
• Board member of Upstart Scotland
• Ambassador for Cyrenians, Edinburgh
• Ambassador for Lickity Spit Children Theatre Company

Tam also works a speaker, trainer and consultant in the field of children’s rights.

Juliet is Director of Together (Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights).Over the past decade, Juliet has led work to progress the human rights of children across legislation, policy and practice.

She is Vice Chair of the Children’s Parliament, a Trustee of the Environmental Rights Centre Scotland and is a founder member of the Observatory of Children’s Human Rights Scotland. She sits on numerous Scottish Government Advisory Groups, including the UNCRC Strategic Implementation Board and the Human Rights Bill Advisory Board. She is former chair of the Rights of the Child UK Coalition and has played an active role of a number of UN Taskforces, including UN Committee’s Day of General Discussion on Children as Human Rights Defenders.

Juliet is a guest lecturer at the University of Edinburgh and her work on children’s rights has been published widely. When not working, Juliet spends as much time as possible exploring the outdoors, climbing, biking, running or skiing to the most remote places she can find.

SallyAnn has over 30 years of experience working in Children’s Services, having qualified as a social worker in 1990. She was promoted to her first management post in 1996 and has worked in several Scottish local authorities in middle and senior management positions until 2008.

Prior to joining Aberlour as CEO in 2014, SallyAnn worked for Barnardo’s Scotland, first as Head of Operations, then as Acting Director of Barnardo’s Scotland.

SallyAnn has a keen interest in strengthening and improving practice with an emphasis on taking rights based approaches. She has a particular interest in improving the experiences of children and young people who have experience of the wider care system in Scotland.  She has enabled Aberlour to put in place ambitious plans for improvement in how the organisation works alongside children and families – not being afraid to be led by the views of children and young people and their families.

She is a member of the Scottish Government Leadership Group on Child Protection and the Perinatal Programme Board.

SallyAnn has a commitment to challenging and reducing poverty and inequality and she has worked with colleagues within Aberlour and across Scotland over a number of years to ensure that reducing child poverty is at the heart of the political agenda.

SallyAnn has supported colleagues in Aberlour to focus on digital transformation and the organisation is currently involved in a number of initiatives to take change forward.

SallyAnn is currently the Chair of STAF (Scottish Throughcare and Aftercare Forum).

Katy joined Clan Childlaw in January 2022. As Legal Policy Manager her job is to influence legal and policy change in Government and across local authority areas. She does this with the aim of improving the rights of children and young people in Scotland.

Before coming to work at Clan Childlaw, Katy was a court lawyer working on behalf of public bodies across Scotland. When not at work Katy enjoys running her Brownie group, pilates and watching movies with her family.

Rami Okasha was appointed Chief Executive of CHAS in September 2019 and formally took up the role February 2020. As Chief Executive Rami is responsible for providing strategic leadership of the organisation, and for ensuring that CHAS meets its statutory and service obligations. In his role as Chief Executive, Rami places a particular emphasis on the continued delivery of high-quality specialist palliative care, service transformation and developing a positive workplace culture.

Throughout the pandemic, Rami has been committed to leading CHAS to build effective and enduring relationships with partners and support staff and volunteers to be resilient in the face of uncertainty.

Prior to taking up the role of Chief Executive, Rami was Director of Transformation and Innovation at CHAS. In this role, Rami successfully led the development of CHAS's new strategy Reaching Every Family 2020-2023 which includes ambitious plans to continue CHAS's mission to reach every family in Scotland through developing its people, growing the organisation and influencing its partners.

Prior to joining CHAS, Rami was Executive Director of Strategy and Improvement at the Care Inspectorate, Scotland's largest scrutiny and improvement body. There, he was responsible for leading the Care Inspectorate's improvement support activities across the care sector, and directed approaches to scrutiny methodology, intelligence, organisational development, corporate reporting, involving people who experience care in decisions, communications and policy development. He co-led the development of Scotland's Health and Social Care Standards, working with people who use and provide care to ensure these are outcomes-focused, based on human rights and wellbeing, and person-led.

Rami is also a member of the Equality and Human Rights Commission's Scotland Committee and is responsible for advising the Commission on its work in Scotland.

Fiona is Director of Place 2 Be in Scotland.

Having practiced as a Barrister representing children in London, she went on to work with the Care Review in Scotland and then as Head of Public Affairs for The Promise Scotland. There she led on the policy and communications work of the organisation, working to support organisations across Scotland to embed and keep the promise to Scotland's children and families.

She is passionate about place-based working, bringing services to where people are and smoothing the paths to early help and support.

Rebecca is the UNCRC implementation Project Manager at the Improvement Service, the 'go-to' organisation for local government improvement in Scotland. In this role Rebecca supports local authorities to prepare for, and progress, their approach to meeting the requirements of the new UNCRC legislation in Scotland. The project’s work programme has been built in response to the needs of local government, identified through engagement with all Scottish local authorities, and has developed practical resources to allow councils to develop a proactive approach to children’s rights alongside spaces for peer support and knowledge exchange. Rebecca places real value in working collaboratively with a wide range of organisations to share learning and insight into children’s rights.

With over 20 years’ experience working in local government in Scotland, Rebecca is a firm believer in the importance of high-quality public services in reducing poverty and inequality. She sits on the UNCRC Embedding Children’s Rights in Public Services Working Group and the Human Rights Bill Implementation Working Group.

When not working Rebecca is kept busy with her three children and their new puppy, walking on the beach and baking.