Dawn Brown

I have worked in the Voluntary Sector for over 30 years so far. In my current work role, I am a Director of Quaggy Development Trust.

Previously I was CEO of Home-Start Greenwich, where I worked for over 10 years. Home-Start Greenwich is a Greenwich-wide charity, delivering a large range of services supporting families to give their children a good start in life to build the foundations to make the best of life chances, and to narrow gaps in disadvantage. Managing family support services, two nurseries and four of the Children’s Centres in the Woolwich and Plumstead area. During my time there, they had 80 staff members and 60 volunteers.

Prior to Home-Start Greenwich, I worked for sixteen years at another charity in Islington, which offers services to adults with learning disabilities. I managed some of the housing services, including supported housing and a small registered care home.

Further to my work roles, I have been volunteering in one capacity or another since I was 19. My current voluntary commitments are being Chair of Mum’s Aid, a small charity supporting mothers with perinatal emotional health needs, being a primary school governor, and I also sit on the management committee of METRO GAVS.

The combination of the experiences above has given me experience in commissioning and monitoring (from both sides), dealing with regulation, such as Ofsted and CSCI (now CQC), staff and volunteer management, governance, finance and funding, and keeping the voice of those using services at the heart of what we do. I am very happy that METRO is committed to the Healthy Workplace Charter.

I recently joined the METRO Board of Trustees following the merge in October 2017 with GAVS, now METRO GAVS. In my short time with METRO I have been impressed with the services this inspiring charity delivers, as well as the commitment, knowledge and expertise of the trustees and staff members I have met so far. 

Through METRO GAVS we support hundreds of voluntary sector organisations to build quality and capacity as well as to represent the sector with our statutory and other partners. I would very much like to continue to find out more and be able to offer my contribution to METRO. I strongly believe that we all have a part to play in creating the sort of society we want to live in and have a keen interest in civil rights and the dignity of individuals generally – of particular interest to me is the campaign for American Civil Rights, although I still have a lot to learn.

On a personal level, I collect rare 60s soul on vinyl, like people, and ‘when I win the lottery’ I would like to see much more of the world, particularly Ghana, where I have family.