Graham Goulden, BA, is an experienced and committed leadership and violence prevention trainer.  For thirty years he was a Scottish police officer and Chief Investigator specialising in criminal investigation, drug investigation, training and crime prevention.  For the last nine years of policing career he was a Chief Inspector and a key member of the Scottish Violence Reduction Unit (VRU).

Since retiring from policing Graham continues to focus on supporting healthy relationships.  He works in schools, universities, in prisons, sports teams and in workplaces helping them build the environments that support success.

Graham is a member of the Men and Boys Coalition and a passionate advocate for supporting boys and men in their lives.  Throughout his career Graham has become all too aware of the challenges that boys and men face.  Much of his focus is on engaging boys and men to be the best they can be, to be authentic and to be leaders in their communities.

From 1996 until 2009 I was invited by the UN to deploy to war zones in Bosnia, Kosovo, Croatia and in Sierra Leone as a member of National & International Forensic teams who were tasked with providing physical and scientific evidence of war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide from the victims exhumed from mass graves, many of whom had suffered extreme torture and then executed. I also assisted in the identification of British & Australian soldiers killed in WW1 and helped repatriate victims of the South East Asia tsunami.

After retiring I experienced mild PTSD as disturbing images of atrocities visited me in the night. Concerned by this my wife, knowing I was interested in Art bought me an easel and I began to teach myself how to paint by tackling some of these these images.

I soon realised that by expressing myself through art I had found it to have therapeutic value for me.

I am currently the Vice Chair of the charity Remembering Srebrenica (Scotland) and visit schools, colleges and prisons to try to help educate people about the 1995 genocide in Bosnia and encourage people to express themselves through the Arts.

Lena has been teaching and working in education since 1992. She trained in England and taught Drama and Modern Languages in Cambridgeshire, London and Cumbria before moving to The Outer Hebrides and then Argyll in Scotland. Early in her career, she also trained in Dramatherapy and Counselling Skills and this training gave her very useful insights into the emotional needs of children and young people, as well as nurturing practices. She has held a range of middle and senior leadership roles. 

Lena was very fortunate to be seconded to her local authority team shortly after arriving in Argyll and she worked to develop policy and practice around Getting it Right for Every Child and child protection.

She is currently seconded again from her Head of Teaching and Learning post to lead on support for care experienced children.

She writes and speaks extensively on a range of issues related to inclusion and equity and is an advocate for challenging stigma around mental health.

Walter Humes has been a Professor of Education at the Universities of Aberdeen, Strathclyde and West of Scotland.  He is now an Honorary Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Stirling.  His academic publications include work on policy analysis, history of education, curriculum studies, teacher education, and educational leadership and management. His highly critical account of the governance of the Scottish educational system (The Leadership Class in Scottish Education, published in 1986) is still cited by researchers.  He is co-editor of Scottish Education (5^th edition, 2018), which has become an important source for students, researchers, teachers and other education professionals. As well as his academic output, he has written many short articles in the Times Educational Supplement Scotland and the online journals Scottish Review and Sceptical Scot. Two controversial pieces in Sceptical Scot – ‘Seven Reasons Why Scottish Education is Underperforming’ (http://sceptical.scot/2018/01/seven-reasons-scottish-education-performing/) and ‘The Parochialism of the Present’ (http://sceptical.scot/2019/02/the-parochialism-of-the-present/) – attracted considerable interest on social media.

Kate Jones is Head of History at The British School Al Khubairiat in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirate but is originally from North Wales where she began her teaching career. In addition to her teaching and leadership role Kate is a Lead Practitioner and Governor. In 2018 Kate’s first book was published with John Carr Publishing entitled Love To Teach: Research and Resources for every classroom. You can also visit her educational blog at www.lovetoteach87.com