Robert Berry BA MA NPQH PQSI  –  Education, Community Development and System Thinking Services Lead at Flowhesion

Bob graduated from the University of Bradford in French with Russian in 1983, and completed his Masters in French at Leeds University.  Originally a teacher of Modern Foreign Languages he went on to be a senior leader in secondary schools for eleven years, and worked for Ofsted.  He was appointed Head of School Improvement in Tameside and then Assistant Executive Director of Education for the borough.  His particular areas of interest are bamer communities, the interface between faith and education, anti-racist practice, and the connections between education and the wider fields of children’s social care and health.  Bob is an experienced coach at executive leader level.


Sheikh Imam Shoaib Vaka Msc  –  Prison and Probation Programmes Services Lead at Flowhesion

Shoaib graduated from the prestigious Muslim seminary Darul Uloom Al-Arabiyyah- Al- Islamiyah at Holcombe Bury in 1995 as an imam. He has over 15 years of experience as a prison chaplain at; HMP Kennet, HMP YOI Hindley and more recently HMP YOI Thorncross. He oversees our New Horizons programme working to rehabilitate ex-offenders across 15 North west approved premises. The service offers counselling, buddying and welfare/advocacy. Shoaib was nominated for an award for his work on the programme by The Howard League for Penal Reform. He is a member of Greater Manchester Police’s Independent advisory group. He holds a level 2 diploma in counselling and has recently completed his MSc in safeguarding at UCLAN.


Nimrita Bahia – Senior Lecturer of Childhood, Youth & Education Studies (CYES), Coventry University
Counselling and Therapeutic Programmes Services Lead at Flowhesion

Nimrita is an academic at Coventry University lecturing on Counselling Coaching & Mentoring, and Social Work at undergraduate level. She is a practising Integrative Therapist (in Psychotherapy & Hypnotherapy). She has over 13 years of experience working with children, young people and their families in the West Midlands region. Nim has been a service manager in Coventry where she was developing and delivering service provision on substance misuse treatment, health and early intervention. Her research interests revolve on BME and Family Mediation for Substance Misuse.


Sabera Ahsan – Director of The Asian Mums Network
Women Empowerment, Parenting Programmes Services Lead at Flowhesion

Sabera has an MSc in safeguarding studies from the University of East London. She spent 6 years with Sussex police as a diversity trainer and assessor. She has also held senior equality and diversity roles in the National Police Improvement Agency. Sabera has spent 4 years at the home office based in the crime directorate managing a wide -ranging portfolio of strategies including; youth offending, FGM, women offending, police crime panels and Mental health and policing. Sabera works on Internet safety tools to support parents to understand the dangers of grooming, exploitation, bullying, and safeguarding leading issues. She currently is the founder and chairwoman of the National Asian Mums network.


Gillian Kirkman – Assistant Professor of Social work, The University of Bradford
Head of Flowhesion centre for Bamer Research, Strategy Services Lead at Flowhesion  

Gill is a qualified social worker with over 15 years of experience in the Child Protection and LAC arenas. She has over 13 years of experience as a senior lecturer at The University of Huddersfield. She has held posts in lecturing on and developing the MSc in advanced safeguarding. She was the former programme leader for the University’s Social work programmes. In 2013 Gill obtained an MA in Higher Education and development. In addition, she was the UK country director for the none in three global research centre that is based at Huddersfield University. The initiative works to eliminate Gender Based Violence and sexual abuse of women. Gill is also completing her PhD on a similar topic. She currently lectures and supervises social works students at The University of Bradford.


Raymond DouglasFounder of Gangology and Minusviolence
Young People’s Programmes Delivery Services Lead at Flowhesion

Raymond Douglas has over 25 years of experience within the gangs and youth violence arena. In his early twenties, he went on to qualify as an adult education teacher in order to gain a better understanding of the theory of learning and behavioural change. At this time, there was a very obvious rise in gangs and serious youth violence across the UK. Raymond felt that traditional youth work was no longer fit for purpose to engage this social pandemic, which led him to successfully launch Anti Youth Violence working to upskill the public and third sector. This intervention aims to reduce the number of young people at risk of life-threatening behaviour relating to gun, gang and knife crime. It became clear that there was a need to build practitioners’ CPD in how to engage young people at risk, giving rise to a new training programme called Gangology.


Amena Patel
Health Inequalities and Cost of Living (CoL) programmes Lead at Flowhesion

Amena is a specialist in organisational change advancing equity, diversity, and inclusion and has worked within the third sector for over 20 years. She support organisations to create equitable and inclusive work environments  She is passionate about Health Inequalities and currently serves in a senior role at CAB. Her experience engaging with stakeholders, minority-ethnic communities to arrange advice, welfare and support has given her a strong understanding of health and financial inequalities that impact our communities. Amena’s passion about Health inequalities has encouraged her to take part in the NHS NeXT director scheme. The scheme provides opportunity for minority ethnic people to develop the relevant skills to sit on Trust boards. 


Dr Laurens De Rooij – BA MA Phd– Senior Lecturer – Department of Theology and Religious studies – The University of Chester  
Interfaith and Community Cohesion Services Lead at Flowhesion

Laruens has completed a BA in Theology and Religious Studies (2010) and an MA in Theology and Religious Studies, specialising in Islam (Cum Laude, 2012), and earned his PhD from Durham University in July 2016. Laurens has spent time at a number of institutions across the globe, these Include: The Graduate School of the Syarif Hidayatullah State Islamic University in Jakarta, Indonesia (spring 2013), the Religion Department at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, USA (Autumn 2013), The Centre for Religion, Media and Culture in Journalism & Mass Communication Department at the University of Colorado in Boulder, Colorado, USA (spring 2014), and at Brazil’s Fundação Joaquim Nabuco (summer 2016). In 2017 he was a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Cape Town for a year, where his research analyses how the media discourse on minorities. He is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy since 2016.


Debbie KoromaFounder and director of Creative Branches Consultancy – Lecturer Manchester Metropolitan University
Digital Poverty, Social Mobility Services Lead at Flowhesion

Debbie has over 30 years’ experience working with disadvantaged families and young people in in the VCSF and public sector. She was a children’s services manager at Barnardos spanning 22 years. Debbie has a particular interest and expertise in attachment, trauma and resilience based practice’.. She is an Academic, lecturing in youth and community work at Manchester Metropolitan University and holds Professional Qualifications in Youth and Community work, Coaching and mentoring, and Leadership (NPQICL-National Professional Qualification in Integrated Centre Leadership).