How did it all start?

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Eileen has enjoyed a rewarding career in Housing for more than 33 years and has held a wide variety of roles in different authorities. Her most recent post was as Head of Housing Services with Renfrewshire Council for 15 years. She was also a member of Renfrewshire's Child Protection Committee for many years.

In recent years she was Chair of the Association of Local Authority Chief Housing Officers in Scotland and a member of the national Joint Housing Policy and Delivery Group alongside government and national housing stakeholder bodies.

Anne is a qualified accountant and has had a long and varied career in the public sector. She has spent much of her career in roles related to audit and governance and was for a number of years the chief internal auditor for Renfrewshire Council. In recent years she worked as Head of Resources for the Social Work Service, which she found very rewarding and through it developed a personal interest in the work of the service. She was Chair of the national Resources standing committee for Social Work Scotland, and work locally and nationally on the integration of Health and Social Care Services.

Mark joined Strathclyde Police in 1986 and retired from Police Scotland in January 2016. He has been involved in a range of innovative and successful community and partnership projects. His last post before retiring was Support Superintendent in Renfrewshire and Inverclyde Division. The post carried a wide range of responsibilities that included Professional Standards, HR, Counter Terrorism, Criminal Justice, Events Planning and Partnerships. Mark has an MBA in Public Service Management from Stirling University.

 Ruth McQuaid, LLB (hons) Dip LP. solicitor has worked for 26 years as a prosecutor for the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and is the Procurator Fiscal for local courts, West of Scotland. Ruth is also COPFS's national Equality and Victims champion and national lead on community engagement and currently chairs the Justice Board's Equality and Diversity sub-group which oversees criminal justice projects tackling access to justice for the disabled and under-representation of minority protected characteristics across criminal justice workforces. 

Billy Burke  (BSc PGDE MSc) has been a senior manager in education for 13 years, the past 7 as head teacher of Renfrew High School. As Past President of School Leaders Scotland Billy contributes to educational development at a national level and he also assists Strathclyde University on leadership development courses. Billy is committed to the promotion of wellbeing, equality and inclusion in schools and beyond, and is passionate about the value of lifelong learning for all.

David Duncan, Chief Superintendent, Head of Safer Communities

I joined the legacy Strathclyde Police in 1995 and have served in uniform and detective roles throughout my service.

I lead on Prevention, Partnerships and Community Well-being for the service, aligning closely to territorial divisions and taking a public health approach towards ingrained issues such as drug/substance misuse, violence reduction, mental health, suicide, and our approaches to vulnerability. I also have responsibility for the International Development Unit which manages inward study visits and deployment of officers abroad. 

I remain operationally active across a range of specialisms including command of armed operations, public order events and incidents, and major/critical incident responses.

Bringing a background of IT and Project Management and a wealth of experience in creative crafting, Laura is also P.A to the Board and Chair of the volunteer Committee, ruling the meetings with her gavel! Having suffered from depression on and off most of her adult life, she brings an understanding of some of the difficulties people can face in every day life, especially those that are not obvious to the outside world. 

 Hello! I’m Laura Matheson, I am a 4th Year Psychology student, and I have been a part of I Am Me since I was in S6 of high school, following my I Am Me Keep Safe Ambassador Training. I am very passionate about tackling disability discrimination, especially so given my experiences of growing up with an autistic, epileptic brother, and personally experiencing multiple eye operations, compromising my vision. I have further great interest in mental health and mental wellbeing, and greatly enjoy being part of such a lovely team :)