Meet Our Advisory Board & Our Ambassadors

Using our Lived Experience and Expertise to Shape a better Care Experience for Black Children and Young People in Children’s Social Care

Judith AM Denton, Founder & Chair

Judith is the CEO and Founder ‘The Transformed You’, an Intervention & Support Mentoring Service created to transform the live and raise the aspirations of Children and Young People in Care and Care Leavers. Through her lived experience of being in the Care System, Judith is a powerful Speaker, an empowering Trainer, an expert Consultant and an authentic Author.

Judith is also the Founder of The Black Care Experience helping to shape a better Care Experience for Black Children and Young People In Care in the Children’s Social Care System.

Ric Flo - Advisory Board Member

Ric Flo is a London based Rap Artist. Growing up in foster care, the creative arts became a therapeutic medium of introspection and self-expression. His debut project 'A Boy Called Ric' is a reflective journey about his life in foster care which has resonated strongly with the undervalued community. His album 'Rise Of The Phoenix' debuted 35 on the iTunes UK Hip Hop / Rap Charts with no PR or marketing. Created entirely during lockdown, 'Rebirth of The Phoenix' is a body of work which illustrates Ric's most recent evolution and is a portrait of his journey beyond foster care and carries a sense of musicality that champions why he has a voice that can't be ignored. Ric is the Founder of Mantra Music CIC, a Record Label to champion and support talented care experienced artists with their music career and he’s also created a travel photobook memoir entitled One Way Ticket to India.

Vanessa Peat - Advisory Board Member

Vanessa is a Performance Nutritionist, Registered Associate Nutritionist, Personal Trainer, Neurodiversity and Looked after children advocate. She has a lived experience in overcoming disordered eating. She graduated with a Bachelor of Medical Science (2013) from the University of Leicester, a 1st Class Honours Bachelor of Nutrition with Medical Science (2020) from UCL, and a Postgraduate Diploma in Performance Nutrition (2022) with Distinction from the IOPN. In July 2024, she was awarded a Certificate of Recognition as a Healthcare Support Professional of the Year.

Jerome Harvey – Agyei - Advisory Board Member

Jerome is the Co-founder of the Tope Project C.I.C which supports Care Leavers to have meaningful spaces to feel connected as well as staff to feel re-energised about the roles they play in society, with a particular focus on the 'care system'.

He describes himself as a care leader, a person of love, a connector and value creator and growth facilitator.

Over the years Jerome has engaged in a variety of areas such as; speaking, awareness campaigns, radio hosting, empowerment workshops, music management, participation, advocacy, politics, community resolutions, support work, Mentoring, coaching, consultancy, diversity and inclusion work, international development and is currently working across London to reduce violence.

He brings realness, simplicity to solutions and an ability to create deep connections and deep understanding of local and global solutions to complex problems.

‘Growing through what we go through’, is what Jerome encourages others to think about, while to enabling more meaningful living. His approach to things are very experiential and help you to not just listen or observe but to feel connected to what is alive within you.

Karadean Temple - Advisory Board Member

As a dedicated support worker, I am deeply passionate about empowering young people to reach their full potential. With my lived experience in the care system, I utilize a strengths-based approach, encouraging personal growth through active listening and leaning on my own experience, to show anything is possible. In addition to my work as a support worker, I am deeply passionate about reducing criminalization among care experienced young people. I believe that young people transitioning from care often face significant barriers that can lead to negative outcomes, including involvement with the criminal justice system. I work to raise awareness about the issues facing, care experience young people and promote policies that prioritize their well-being and reintegration into society. My goal is to ensure that these young people receive the support and opportunities they deserve, empowering them to create positive futures free from criminalization.

Michael Henry - Advisory Board Member

Michael is a Systemic Family & Couples Psychotherapist, Lecturer/Facilitator, Social Work Consultant, Executive Coach, and Principal Consultant at Sakara Consultancy Ltd. He has amassed over 25 years of experience working in various statutory, corporate and non-profit organisations in the UK primarily centered around working with children & families and the systems that surround them.

For the past 10 or so years, Michael has developed a global presence working in Baltimore, USA and Jamaica in his clinical work with a foundational ‘trauma informed’ lens to his practice. Utilising cutting edge treatment techniques that he has added to his repertoire has led to breakthroughs in other areas of his work as a positive. For example, adding the intervention ‘Brainspotting’ has been a tremendous resource for his Executive Coaching work.

Michael, with his warm, gregarious and optimistic style, engages audiences as a gifted workshop facilitator and lecturer. He is highly sought-after to deliver a wide range of training and workshops to develop and empower professionals in a number of varied industries.

Born and bred in East London to Jamaican parents, an ex-service user, his ‘Britishness’ is most evident whenever he travels around this world (which is often). He proudly embraces the many aspects of his multiculturalism.

Denise Rawls - Advisory Board Member

Denise is the Executive Director of the National Network of Care Leavers (NNECL), a registered charity supporting professionals to transform the progression of young people with care backgrounds into and through post-16 education so they can begin fulfilling careers and build financially secure lives.

Denise was a civil servant for almost three decades gaining valuable experience of working directly with ministers and ministerial teams, public affairs, large scale events, education, the criminal justice system, health and safety and international trade. She moved into the not-for-profit-sector in 2016 to focus on strategic planning, advocacy, marketing and income generation for charities and social enterprises.

Denise is a diversity and inclusion trustee at the Charleston Trust, a trustee at the Primary Shakespeare Company and an avid fiction writer. She collects early Black British literature and leads workshops exploring 400 years of Black British writing.

Henrietta Imoreh - Ambassador

Henrietta Is an applied theatre practitioner with a lifetime’s history of being engaged with polices that tackle the over-representation of looked after children in the criminal justice system. Her focus has been developing participatory projects and programmes delivering motivational talks in schools for care experienced young people.

She is passionate about social change and using her creativity to support young people from seldom heard communities. Henrietta has previously been a trustee for women and young girls in prison and an advocate for care-experience people she uses her lived experience to inspire, empower, innovate strategic change. Her key achievements include setting up her own theatre company based in Battersea arts centre.

David Akinsanya - Ambassador

David’s dad was Nigerian and mother English – by the time he was born, his parents had separated. They decided to put David into Private foster care in Chelmsford in Essex, near where his father worked. When he was 2 and a half, his mum married and her share of the costs stopped. He was taken into the care of Essex County Council where he spent 7 happy years in a small family group home. When Aunty Betty left when he was 10 – David’s world collapsed and he was excluded from primary and sent to a boarding school for maladjusted children.

When he was 13, it was decided he would be able to return to a regular school near the new home for teenagers he lived in. At 15, while still at school, he was part of a pilot project where youngsters lived in a shared house without on site care. David never missed a day of school and stayed on into 6th form but the unlimited freedom meant it was easy to get into trouble. He went out late in the night robbing cars and breaking into shops and two of the town’s pools – a burglary in the local collage lead to his arrest. Then charges took ages to get to court and he was sent to borstal not long after moving into his leaving care flat. Luckily, he was able to keep it while in jail.

He decided to leave his home town soon after leaving borstal as he was associated with the criminal community and was harassed by police in the town. Although technically homeless he only spent a few nights on the streets in London and managed to sofa surf most of the time.

David began campaigning aged 14 via a social worker. He was the secretary of “Who Cares” Essex who ran a group for kids in care. David was asked to help at the Black and In Care conference and went onto to produce the report and help out of the Black and In Care video.

David got free accommodation tied to running a hostel for single young homeless people in Camden which he ran for 15 years while building a career in the media. David help set up Stonewall housing Association, Who Cares? Magazine and served 12 years on the board of the Princes Trust and more on his local committee. Concerned about police brutality, he volunteered to visit police cells as a Lay Visitor in Camden and began fostering teenagers for Barnardos and various local authorities – over the years he has supported 20 youngsters and their families.

David worked in broadcasting for 30 years – working his way up from junior researcher to producer/director/reporter. He worked mainly at the BBC but also Channel 4, Sky News Features and won various awards for programmes he worked on including for the International federation of Journalists – he made social current affairs progammes in the UK, Europe, Africa,the Caribbean, USA and Australia.

For the last 10 years David has worked for various authorities making films with young people, delivering health and well-being training, educating social workers and doing outreach for day centres for the elderly.