Staff Team

Fiona Garven - Director 

Fiona was appointed Director of SCDC in November 2008. She is responsible for the overall performance and management of the organisation.  Fiona's main focus of activity within SCDC is community engagement, building community capacity and community-led approaches to health.  (MORE)

Stuart Hashagen - Senior Community Development Advisor (part-time)

Stuart is former Director and Co-Director of SCDC.  His work focuses on community capacity building, on community development practice skills, and on community engagement, linking these to debates on wellbeing, co-production and community asset building. Within SCDC he co-ordinates the policy, information and communications functions, and as honorary research fellow in Urban Studies, helps maintain the links with Glasgow University. (MORE)   

David Allan - Head of Programmes: Community Capacity and Engagement

David has broad responsibility for SCDC's community capacity and community engagement programmes as well as the training and consultancy function.  Current examples of programmes / contracts include:

ACE (Achieving Community Empowerment - a community capacity building programme funded by BIG); LEAP development and training; Community Engagement/VOiCE training and development; support for local strategic development of community capacity building; and development of a community development strategy for older people in Highland.

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Janet Muir - Head of Programmes: Community-Led Health and Networking

As Manager of CHEX, Janet oversees the implementation of CHEX work programmes and has a particular remit to promote CHEX's engagement with the health and social policy arena.  Over the past few years, she has been active in implementation of the Scottish Government's policies related to community-led health improvement working with a range of partners such as NHS Health Scotland and other national health intermediaries. (MORE)

Clare O'Neill - Head of Finance

Clare is responsible for all financial administration at SCDC, for financial reporting to the Director and the Board of Trustees, and manages all external financial services.

Robert Cuthbert - Development Manager

Robert's main role is within the CHEX team to oversee the development of the Health Issues in the Community training initiative - in particular, he is responsible for the promotion, strategic development and evaluation of HIIC along with tutor training, support and networking.  Robert's other key role is in identifying training/learning needs within the sector and developing/delivering appropriate materials and courses as a consequence.  (MORE)

Kate McHendry - Development Manager (Part time)

Kate's role within SCDC focuses on Community Capacity Building and Action Research. She is currently working on the ACE programme (Achieving Community Empowerment) a community capacity building programme funded by BIG. It involves working with groups across Scotland to develop their skills and confidence; strengthen their organisations to enable them be more effective and influential in their activities. Kate is also working with Scottish Natural Heritage on their Learning through Doing Programme, which supports Community organisations to carry out their own research, on the barriers and constraints to people engaging with their natural heritage. (MORE)

Elspeth Gracey, Development Manager (part-time)

Elspeth's role within CHEX is to support organisations in the CHEX Network. This is done through working with networks of community health projects, promoting networking and collaboration with individual projects as well as planning seminars and training events. Elspeth also promotes the role of Community Health Initiatives in supporting and enhancing mental wellbeing and has participated in a range of national working groups ensuring that the community-led health perspective is reflected at a national level. (MORE)

Paul Nelis - Development Manager 

Paul is currently working as part of a team on a number of national programmes including the continued development of VOiCE, the community engagement tool, the new LEAP database, Scottish HLC Alliance and various small contracts. (MORE)

Susan Paxton - Development Manager

Susan takes lead responsibility for organising LEAP training and consultancy support, including delivery of the credit-rated LEAP course.  She is also responsible for delivering a range of community capacity building and community engagement programmes and is currently involved in development of a new resource for strategic community capacity building.  Susan also delivers several small consultancy projects across Scotland.  MORE 

Olivia Hanley - Development Manager  / Information & Communications Officer (part-time)

In her role as Development Manager Olivia currently coordinates the Scottish Co-production Practitioners Network. Chaired by SCDC and NHS Tayside and supported by Scottish Government, the network is a forum for the sharing of learning and practice exchange of co-production practice in Scotland.  Olivia also works across SCDC programmes with a focus on community engagement and is an Information and Communications Officer 2 days a week across SCDC programmes and within the CHEX team where she is responsible for publications, events and information bulletins in relation to all aspects of community development, particularly community-led health. (MORE)

Andrew Paterson - Policy Research Officer / Information & Communications Officer (part-time)

Andrew's role as Policy and Research Officer is to provide an efficient and effective policy and research function for the delivery of SCDC programmes and, in doing so, help to maintain SCDC's position at the forefront of community development practice and policy in Scotland. As Information and Communication officer, Andrew helps to provide both internal and external communication across a range of SCDC programmes. (MORE)

Victoria Muir - Internal Services Manager

Victoria works across SCDC to manage the provision of an effective, efficient, compliant and best practice human resources, facilities and ICT management service.  Victoria works to support the Director in the strategic aims of the organisation. (MORE)

Aileen Skillen - Administrator

Aileen provides administrative support to the SCDC team which includes administration for CHEX, Health Issues in the Community and various other programmes across the centre.