Testimonials

Heather has delivered and helped develop our Violence Against Women training programme in Highland over the last 8 years.  She is passionate and knowledgeable about many aspects of Violence Against Women and can deliver basic awareness sessions, skills training for routine enquiry, training on the MARAC process, and topic specific training such as impact of rape, psychological trauma,  perpetrators of domestic abuse and children’s experiences.  

Heather has front line experience of delivering services to women and children affected by VAW and is aware of the range of issues faced by survivors.  Her training combines real life experiences with the research evidence and supports development and changes of practice.  Statutory and third sector staff have evaluated her training extremely positively, highlighting her knowledge and experience along with her engaging delivery of training, making attending training on what can be a very difficult subject interesting and enjoyable for staff.

I have worked alongside Heather in the restructure of a rural charity.   Heather’s role involved interim staff management, ensuring ongoing service delivery during a time of change and creating the vision and capability to propel the service into a model of delivery that was sustainable within the available funding.  

Heather expertly managed the interim service delivery as well as the sensitive negotiations between different funders, a new board of directors and the staff team.  The work that Heather was engaged to do was completed within time and within budget and the organisation moved forward and continues to deliver crucial services on a strong and sustainable footing. 

I would have no hesitation in recommending Heather, she is an expert service manager with particular skills in service development and change.  She is committed to high quality delivery and to service user inclusion in service design.  She is adept at conducting negotiations between a range of stakeholders and partners and driving projects to a successful conclusion.

As MARAC Co-ordinator I have observed Heather develop innovative training methodologies and deliver multi-agency training to a wide range of professionals across the Highlands and Islands.  Without exception this training has been delivered to the highest standards, resulting in very positive feedback from participants and ensuring a broad knowledge base of the subject matter across agencies.

I have always been most impressed by the passion, innovation and delivery of training by Heather.

Heather has a good understanding of the monitoring and evaluation process and is enthusiastic about developing processes to help tell the story about the difference organisations work makes.  I have been impressed by her passion for making monitoring and evaluation processes part of her organisations everyday work and for developing new ways to gather service users views.

I have observed, first hand, the way in which Heather can move into and adapt to new surroundings, taking on a management role at very short notice.  Immediately Heather can engage in and priorities work, whilst reassuring the staff within her care that she has the leadership skills, an understanding of the situation and that all is under control.