Speaker
Sue North MBE
Head of Children and Young People
Biography
Sue North is the Head of Children and Young People and currently takes a senior lead on policy responses in the Learning Disability and Autism Programme for NHS England and NHS Improvement. Prior to this, she was Director of the National Parent Carer Participation Programme, a delivery partner for the Department for Education as part of the SEND reforms.
A social worker for over 27 years, Sue spent many years working for a local authority as a child protection social worker, team manager and service manager. She has been the registered manager of a children’s home for children with complex health needs, learning disability, autism and behaviours that challenge and also undertook regulation 44 inspections of children’s homes. She was the Director of a Community Children’s Centre that incorporated a Child Development Centre. She worked for a year in North Carolina U.S.A. with disabled children, young people and adults and end of life care.
She was a Local Programme Adviser on the Together for Disabled Children Programme working on behalf of the Department for Children, Schools and Families supporting local authorities to implement Aiming High for Disabled Children. She has worked as a consultant and developed and delivered training around a wide range of issues in relation to disabled children, social care, social work training and safeguarding.
She sat as a lay member on a local authority Safeguarding Children’s Board, has been an independent visitor for children in care, a school governor and has been a member of the National Working Group for Safeguarding Disabled Children. She has a lived experience of disability and has been a wheelchair user since childhood. In 2016, she was awarded an M.B.E. for services to children and families.