James Freeman
USA
James Freeman, MA, CYC-P lives in Southern
California with his wife and three children. He has over 25 years of
experience in relational child and youth care across various
settings, including out-of-school programs, family camping, sports,
and child welfare. He holds a masters degree in organizational
leadership and is the training director for Casa Pacifica Centers
for Children and Families. In addition to serving on the board of
CYC-Net, James serves on the boards of the Association of Children's
Residential Centers and the Child and Youth Care Certification Board. James writes a monthly column for
CYC-Online and regularly facilitates training on child and
youth care topics.
Zeni ThumbadooSOUTH AFRICA
Zeni
Thumbadoo has dedicated her working life to the children’s
sector in South Africa – in direct service provision, contributing to
children’s policy and legislation, advocacy and model development. She
has worked in a children’s home, as a consultant to the Department of
Social Development, as a trainer in child and youth care work and as a
coordinator of a process of piloting of innovative projects linked to
transformed policy in the building of children’s services in the
democratic South Africa. Since 1997 she has worked as the Deputy
Director of the National Association of Child Care Workers. She has
contributed to the professionalization of child and youth care work
through: spearheading various advocacy campaigns linked to the statutory
recognition of the child and youth care field; serving on the Standards
Generating Body for Child and Youth Care Work which developed national
standards for the training of child and youth care workers; serving on
the statutory regulatory body, the Professional Board for Child and
Youth Care; and representing South African child and youth care work in
various national and international forums. Zeni is currently further
championing the recognition of child and youth care work through the
national scale up of the Isibindi model which aims to develop 10,000
child and youth care workers serving 1.4 million children in a five year
period. Zeni completed her Master’s degree in child and youth care work
with distinction and is currently registered as a doctoral student. She
serves as the Vice Chairperson on the Steering Committee of the Global
Social Service Workforce Alliance and also a member of the Board of
Directors on CYC Net. Zeni is also a honourary lecturer at the Durban
University of Technology in South Africa.

Okpara Rice
USA
Okpara Rice joined Tanager Place as
executive director in July, 2013, and assumed the role of Chief
Executive Officer July, 2015. Rice also brings leadership experience
from his work at the Jewish Child Care Association in Pleasantville, New
York, the Mercy Home for Boys and Girls in Chicago, and the Youth Campus
in Park Ridge, Ill.
He is active in the field and in the
community and currently serves as the Immediate Past President of the
Board of Directors for the Association of Children’s Residential
Centers. He is a member of the Marion Cares Board, NAMI of Linn County
Board of Directors, a member of the Cedar Rapids School Board Diversity
Committee and a member of the Linn County Juvenile Detention and
Diversion Advisory Committee.
Okpara has also presented
internationally on issues that affect children in both Europe and
Canada. He holds a Bachelor of Science in Social Work from Loyola
University and a Master of Social Work from Washington University, St.
Louis, Missouri.
He also holds an Executive Management
certification from Georgetown University. Okpara lives in Marion, Iowa
with his wife Julie and two sons Malcolm and Dylan.
Professor Jennifer Davidson
SCOTLAND
Jennifer Davidson is the Director of the Centre for Excellence for Looked
After Children in Scotland (CELCIS) that promotes quality experiences for
children, young people and their families in public care. Her
interests involve children’s daily lived experiences in care
alongside guarantees of international rights in child and youth care
practice. From Canada, the United States and the UK, Jen has held
practitioner, academic, policy and leadership positions in child and
youth care, social work and professional education. She also enjoys
the fun of raising two boys with her partner Andrew.
Professor Leon C FulcherNEW ZEALAND
Leon
has worked for more than forty years as a social worker in residential child
and youth care work and foster care in several parts of the world. Leon has
specialised in working across cultures and geographies, team working and
caring for caregivers, as well as supervision and promoting learning with
adult carers.
Dr Heather Modlin
CANADA
Heather Modlin has worked with young people in
residential care for more than 25 years. She is currently Director
of Key Assets Newfoundland and Labrador. Heather is a former
president of the Council of Canadian Child and Youth Care
Associations, an active member and former President of the Child and
Youth Care Association of Newfoundland and Labrador, a founding
board member of the Child and Youth Care Educational Accreditation
Board of Canada, a board member of the Child and Youth Care
Certification Board and the International Child and Youth Care
Network, and an editorial board member of the
Relational Child
and Youth Care Journal. Heather has a Master of Science in
Child and Youth Care Administration from Nova Southeastern
University and is a PhD candidate and sessional instructor in Child
and Youth Care at the University of Victoria.
Randolph Oudemans ReAct's founder,
Randolph Oudemans, has a passion for working with children and
youth. This area of activity has been a consistent and important
part of his life. He grew up in Indonesia, and then worked as a
teacher and youth director in several countries (Indonesia,
Australia, France, U.S.A.). After earning an MBA in
International Business in the U.S.A., he has since spent more
than 20 years working in international business mostly in Europe
and Asia. Working with ReAct allows him to combine his business
experience and humanitarian efforts. See:
http://www.careinaction.asia/
Dr Kiran Modi
INDIA
With a doctorate in American Literature from Indian Institute of
Technology, Delhi, and as co-author of a series of books on Life
Skills and Health for children, Dr Kiran Modi is a person of
varied interests, including the media and children’s theatre as
well as being a founding member of several Trusts and
Foundations working for the disadvantaged in India.
Besides
direct work with Child and Youth Care, in the Udayan Ghar
Programme, in UDAYAN CARE, a 22-year-old Trust, Dr Modi is also
the Founding Editor of the bi-annual journal, 'Institutionalised
Children: Explorations and Beyond', focused on South Asia.
Through direct work, running group homes for children and
aftercare programmes for youth, writing papers and organising
training programmes, seminars and conferences, she has been
advocating for better standards of care in Child and Youth Care
practices across India and South Asia region
Andy LeggettCANADA
Lee Loynes
SOUTH AFRICA
Lee Loynes is CEO of Girls and Boys Town, South
Africa. Lee joined GBT South Africa in 1993 and has been at the helm
of the organisation since 2007. Prior to that, her career focused on
clinical work with high risk families and youth and consulting and
training to the Child and Youth Care field. Lee feels honoured to be a
role player in the youth-care field where her goal is to find solutions
that help challenged youth get a better chance at life – and Shine. She
has served on the CYC-Net Board since 2009. Her educational background
includes a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Social Work from the University of
the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg; a Master of Science in Child and
Youth Care Administration from Nova University in the US and is working
towards completing her PhD.
Simon Walsh
AUSTRALIA
Simon Walsh is the CEO of Allambi Care in NSW,
Australia. He has been married to his wonderful wife Martina
since 2000 and they have been gifted with four amazing sons.
Initially trained as a Nurse in the mental health field, Simon
began working for Allambi Care as a Child Youth Care Worker in
1998. As the organisation evolved from a crisis refuge into a
multi service agency providing Family Support, Foster Care,
Disability and Residential Care services, Simon undertook
further studies along with his more senior roles in the
organisation. Simon approaches his work from a relational,
needs-based model of care. He gains great satisfaction from
working with a cohesive multidisciplinary team and seeing
positive results achieved by children, young people and
families. He attributes much of the agency’s success to his
immediate team as well as national and international
relationships with industry leaders, established through an
array of organisations such as CYC-Net.
Mark Strother
USA
Mark Strother, M.A. Ed., is the Executive Vice
President and Chief Operating Officer for Cal Farley’s in Amarillo,
Texas. His areas of special interest are in Adventure-Based
experiential programming (including Equestrian Assisted Growth and
Learning), trauma informed care, the application of brain research,
and the utilization of technology. Mark has been married 23 years
to Deb and has four children.
Martin Stabrey
SOUTH AFRICA
Martin Stabrey is the owner of Pretext Publishing
in Cape Town, South Africa and Chief Operating Officer of CYC-Net.
He is married to Helen and they have two daughters, Kirsten and
Tamara.
He is a product of the South African
child care system, having spent most of his childhood at
St. John's
Hostel, Cape Town.
He studied Economics and Information Systems at the University of
South Africa.
Dr Tuhinul IslamBANGLADESH
Originally a
‘forester’ by initial training, Tuhinul decided to change the
course of his career, through a chance visit to a children’s
education centre in a slum of Khulna district in Bangladesh. He
was awarded a PhD in Social Work and Social Policy for a thesis
entitled ‘Residential Child Care: The Experiences of Young
People in Bangladesh' from the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Tuhinul also has an MA in International Child Welfare from the
University of East Anglia, UK and an MBA in Human Resource
Management. He has over 20 years of leadership, operational and
strategic management, teaching, research and practice experience
in the fields of residential child care, child welfare
management, child protection, brothel, sex workers, orphanages,
madrasah, gender, education, healthcare and development in
Bangladesh, Malaysia and the UK.
Currently Tuhinul is
a Senior Research Fellow (part-time) at Northern University
Bangladesh; a Director (part-time) of Education and Child
Development Programmes of a national NGO in Bangladesh serving
over 500000 children and their families and a Technical Director
(part-time) of a Children’s Home catering service for over 1200
indigenous children. He has preferred to work within NGOs,
education and research organizations together in order to have a
better understanding of the issues affecting children and their
families thus to bridge the gap between academia, practitioner
organizations and policy-makers in order to strengthen the
rights of children.
Tuhinul has been part of several
Government appointed committees and NGO networks to influence
policy reforms in Child and Youth Care in Bangladesh for
example, rules of Children Act 2013; child friendly space (CFS)
and alternative child care policy.
Ernie Hilton,
Frank Ainsworth, Sibylle Artz,
Meg Lyndsay,
Mordecai Arieli,
Lesley du Toit, Thomas J. Mächler, Karen vanderVen, Werner van der
Westhuizen.