MCF Team

Victoria Green

 CEO

Victoria is a registered social worker with over 30 years’ experience working in the field of child protection. Much of her social work career has been working within local authority children’s social care. She has a wide range of experience at both operational and strategic level and has been a frontline worker, manager, principal social worker and Safeguarding Children Board development and strategic manager.

Victoria has been with the Marie Collins Foundation (MCF) since 2015 where her portfolio includes the development, delivery, and enhancement of Click: Path to Protection, MCF’s unique training programme to enable frontline workers to better protect children harmed online. She has worked with partner agencies to deliver training both nationally and internationally.

As well as direct work with children and their families, Victoria continues to work with a range of professionals including police and social workers around the identification, investigation, and response when children have been the victim of abuse, especially when this abuse has been facilitated by online technology.

You can contact Vicki here. 

Lawrence Jordan

Deputy CEO

Lawrence Jordan is the Deputy CEO at Marie Collins Foundation (MCF). This
role requires Lawrence to oversee, and manage projects being undertaken by MCF
project workers, and ensure budgets are maintained and all costings auditable.
Lawrence produces reports on the work undertaken and manages a number of the
MCF staff. Lawrence is a keynote speaker as well as undertakes facilitating specific
courses on sexual abuse. As part of the MCF ethos in ensuring the victim-survivor
voice is at the heart of our work, and to ensure we don’t lose sight of this value
Lawrence as with all senior management undertakes some direct work with victims-
survivors of Technology Assisted Child Sexual Abuse (TACSA).

Lawrence has worked within the Children Social Care arena since 2003. His first role
was a residential support worker for children with learning disabilities and then an
assistant manager in a children residential setting. After this Lawrence worked as a
family advice and support worker undertaking direct work with children and their
families.

Lawrence is a qualified social worker and has worked in a Multi-Agency
Safeguarding Hub (MASH) as well as a case holding social worker within a family
support team. Lawrence was worked in an emergency social team that responding to
safeguarding concerns that arose out of normal office hours. It was during this time
Lawrence developed a local response to Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) including
overseeing a small team of specialist CSE support workers.Lawrence has also worked as a social worker in a.

In 2016 Lawrence was promoted to the Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE) Coordinator
to address the wider aspects of CSE and to develop a stronger multi-agency
response. Further development in this area meant that Lawrence became the local
authorities, Professional Lead for Children Missing, Exploited and Trafficked and was
tasked with creating a multi-agency hub to respond to all forms of child exploitation
and to incorporate the child missing service within it; a team that is still operating
today.

Lawrence has received 2 awards, firstly relating to his work with children and
families, and secondly a police commendation for his exceptional work with children
who are exploited, go missing or have been trafficked.

You can contact Lawrence here.

Claire Cheeseman

Business Manager

Claire joined Marie Collins Foundation in 2021 after working within the healthcare charity sector since 2010. Claire brings a wealth of administration management experience. Prior to this, she worked in recruitment for 15 years where she ran a successful branch in the North West.

Claire is a Mental Health first aider and the wellbeing champion for the organisation.

You can contact Claire here.

Rhiannon-Faye McDonald

Head of Advocacy

Rhiannon-Faye McDonald is the Head of Advocacy at the Marie Collins Foundation. Rhiannon was the victim of Technology-Assisted Child Sexual Abuse (TACSA) when she was 13 years old. She has used this personal experience to inform the work of MCF, co-ordinating the Lived Experience Group and advocating and campaigning to improve outcomes for victims and their families.

Rhiannon shares her experience by speaking at conferences and events, inputting on training programmes and resources as well as informing the media.  Her ambition is to increase awareness and understanding of the impacts of TACSA and promote the need for better support for victims and their families to help their recovery journey. For Rhiannon, the most important part of her role is to ensure that the voice of lived experience is elevated, listened to, and influences the work in this area, both within MCF and by other agencies and organisations.

Rhiannon has a degree in Law from Manchester Metropolitan University, a post-graduate diploma from the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives and a masters degree in Child Care Law and Practice from Keele University. In February 2019 she qualified as a lawyer specialising in family law. She is currently a non-practicing Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives.

You can contact Rhiannon here.

Sarah Brown

Training and Development Manager

Since gaining a First Class BA Honours in Youth Studies in 2008 Sarah has worked alongside children and families in a variety of roles, starting her career as a Pastoral Manager within a secondary school before moving into Children's Social Care as a Family Support Worker. 

Sarah spent several years volunteering as a ChildLine counsellor listening to and supporting young people with whatever may be worrying them. She then moved on to become a Supervisor at ChildLine managing the day-to-day responsibilities of running the service and a team of volunteers, ensuring that the child's voice was at the centre of all they did. It was here that Sarah began to develop her training skills; welcoming new volunteers into the service, training them in counselling skills and areas such as suicide, bereavement, self-harm, abuse and bullying.

After leaving ChildLine Sarah moved to a charity supporting young people who had been sexually exploited where she delivered training and offered support to practitioners from health, police, Social Care and the charity sector on this area. Sarah spent 6 years prior to joining the Marie Collins Foundation in May 2022 at NWG as their trainer. Here she developed a suite of CPD accredited training, workshops, and webinars around the issue of Child Exploitation and its complexities including the incredibly successful "Mind Your Language" course.

Sarah is committed to listening to the voice of victims and survivors and is looking forward to ensuring their voices continue to be integral to the development of the training that MCF offers.

You can contact Sarah here.

Megan Hinton

Victim and Survivor Advocate

Megan is a survivor of Technology-Assisted Child Sexual Abuse and since 2016 has used her lived experience to raise awareness of online harms through campaigning for change to practice, policy and victim rights.  

Megan has joined the Marie Collins Foundation staff team as a Victim and Survivor Advocate after being an active member of our lived experience group since 2021.

In her early career, after gaining a degree and gold standard diploma in Multimedia Journalism, Megan worked as a Digital Editor covering breaking news and public affairs for a political radio station. Megan progressed on to work as a communications officer for a national children’s charity where she championed and amplified the voice of diverse young people with lived experience of children’s social care.

You can contact Megan here. 

Karen Garland

Research and Policy Officer

Karen is a lawyer by profession, working in private practice for several years, prior to raising a family. She holds a Masters, with distinction, in international safeguarding. This was multidisciplinary, covering areas of law, criminal justice, investigation of abuse and social work.

Karen has a specific interest in intrafamilial child sexual abuse and disclosure, as well as legalities around protecting children from harm and abuse. She is also keenly interested in online grooming and offence pathways between online and offline grooming. Prior to her more recent work as Research and Policy Officer within the charity sector, and with MCF, she lived in North Africa with her family. There she created and developed a suite of child safeguarding material as part of a public health initiative, for an international medical NGO. Through this platform, Karen wrote and co-delivered child safeguarding lessons, training parents, educators, children, and physical therapists throughout the country. These lessons have been acquired and translated for use in other countries, including India and Uzbekistan. Thereafter, Karen was the global safeguarding lead for a large international NGO where she led a multicultural global team in responding to child safeguarding reports and allegations internationally. This has included liaising with the FBI, Interpol and the National Crime Agency on perpetrators operating internationally. As global safeguarding lead, she was also responsible for updating and delivering regular trainings to a diverse audience. She has led inquiries into non-recent abuse, including analysis of safeguarding policy and protocols; practice and response; governance issues and remedial and safeguarding enhancement measures for organisations. She is a passionate advocate for children and their protection, where she strives to use her voice to make safer spaces for children, both online and offline.

You can contact Karen here.

Hazel Kirby

Services Co-ordinator

Hazel joined the Marie Collins Foundation staff team in December 2018. She began her career as a primary school teacher. Since then, Hazel has worked for both local and national charities and now has over 30 years’ experience within this sector.

Hazel has a Postgraduate Certificate in Education and a BSc (Hons) Environmental Science degree.

You can contact Hazel here.

Philip Baines

Safeguarding and Training Consultant

Philip joined Marie Collins Foundation as a consultant in March 2022 following a 30-year career as a police detective. The last 14 years of his service were in the Child Abuse Investigation Unit covering Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Oxfordshire.

During his police career, Philip also became a qualified trainer. For two years, he was the Thames Valley Police lead trainer in delivering courses to police and local authorities on how to investigate child abuse and to protect vulnerable people.

Philip designed and delivered the TVP ‘Specialist Child Abuse Investigative Development Programme’ (SCAIDP) to police forces throughout the south of the country.

Amongst other courses, Philip was also the lead trainer for the following:

‘Achieving Best Evidence’ (ABE)

‘Joint Investigation’ (for police and local authorities)

‘Significant Witness’ Interviewing

‘Family Liaison’

‘Domestic Violence’

Philip is passionate about safeguarding children and vulnerable people in any way possible.

While he was waiting to reach the police joining age, Philip worked for Virgin Atlantic as long-haul cabin crew, a job that allowed him to see the world while serving thousands of cups of tea and coffee.

Sam Tarling

Training and Resource Development Consultant

Sam Tarling is a qualified Social Worker with over 20 years child protection experience and is registered with Social Work England. She holds a postgraduate certificate in Education and Training and an MSc in Child Forensic Studies.

Sam is an experienced learning facilitator having worked as a Safeguarding Children Board Development Officer before starting her own business delivering bespoke safeguarding and child protection training.

Sam continues to practice, specialising in psychology-led investigative interviews, one piece of work of which Sam is particularly proud involved interviewing a three-year-old witness that resulted in the 1^st UK conviction for female genital mutilation. Sam is passionate about protecting children and ensuring that they are given the best opportunity to tell adults what has happened. Her particular areas of interest are working with children who are victims of crime and multi agency training in child protection because she believes it makes a difference.

Penny Tyndale-Hardy

Therapeutic Consultant 

Penny Tyndale-Hardy is a qualified teacher and practising psychotherapeutic counsellor. As a former Assistant Headteacher, she continues to work with young people and is passionate about supporting them and ensuring that their voices are heard.

She is an experienced educator, and has delivered training in a range of areas, including mental health support and coaching, to leaders, organisations, teachers and young people for over ten years.

Penny is delighted to be working with the Marie Collins Foundation to bring their message and vision to those people who can make a real difference to people’s lives.

Christie Knowles

Trainer

Christie has over 30 years policing experience, working and specialising as a Detective, nationally and internationally, in a number of roles including surveillance, criminal investigation of serious and organised crime and public protection.

Whilst serving in public protection roles, including Domestic Abuse Investigation, the risk management of Violent and Registered Sex Offenders and Child Abuse Investigation, Christie qualified as a Specialist Child Abuse Investigator. A posting, as an Internet Child Abuse Investigation Detective, allowed her to use her skills and develop further knowledge to combat the threat posed by offenders using technology to commit offences online.

Christie is highly experienced in performing duties as an inter-agency child protection professional, having worked for many of years in teams with professionals representing partner agencies. Effective inter-agency work is required and necessary, to ensure the protection of children, particularly those experiencing and at risk of harm.

She remains current and develops her investigative and training skills by conducting complex investigations in support of law enforcement organisations and for the private sector. She also provides training and review services to law enforcement, government agencies and local authority child protection teams.

As a result of working with children and families in public protection roles for many years Christie has developed a strong passion to be an advocate for children and young people. Her mission is to ensure that the voice of the child or young person is heard and considered at all stages of any assessment, enquiry or process, in an effort to minimise or avoid further trauma and impact.

Now working as a trainer with The Marie Collins Foundation, Christie hopes to share her passion further and to inspire other professionals to be professionally curious, confident and challenging, so as to ensure the recovery of victims of online abuse is a priority.