Governance
Our Advisors
Our Young Leaders guide every action we take; from identifying the need for new strands of after-school classes, crisis support, and collaboration projects to advising us on how we can best fulfil our role as committed allies. Our whole organisation is lead by their needs and those of their peer group (both expressed and observed). Our directors, trustees, and staff members sign on to supporting and working with PFP with this principle deeply understood: the young people always come first.
Our Trustees
Tamzin Aitken
Reina Alameddine
Hannah Barker
Vernon Freyer
Alison Griffin
Sally Hogg
Harmin Sijercic
Naomi Webb
Tamzin is a freelance arts manager, creative producer, and strategic consultant. She has extensive experience across the arts sectors, including theatre, opera, classical music and dance including working with Intermusica Artists’ Management, English National Opera, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Glyndebourne Opera, Wilton’s Music Hall, and the Royal Opera House. Tamzin is passionately committed to supporting the rights of all people, and successfully galvanised the music industry in January 2018, producing fundraising concert ‘A Child of Our Time’ at the Royal Festival Hall in aid of the Refugee Council's Children’s Section. Having worked with Play for Progress (which participated in the event), she is thrilled to be on the board and to support the organisation in its development.
After a number of years as a medical doctor in Lebanon, Reina is currently re-training as a GP in Leeds. Before moving to the UK, she worked extensively with refugees and marginalized populations in Lebanon. As Medical Director of a primary healthcare centre in Beirut, her work focused on ensuring equitable access to quality health services for refugees and the host community in Beirut as well as delivering care in mobile clinics and outreach centres.She provided care to young refugees who had fled conflict zones and survived traumatic immigration journeys, bearing witness to their stories of courage and determination. She also worked with the Ministry of Public Health on a national initiative to improve the quality of primary care services in Lebanon and has served as a member of several international teams providing training, mentoring and consultancy to organisations such as the World Health Organisation and UNHCR, with the aim of strengthening primary health workforce worldwide. Reina is excited to support the Play for Progress team in their work with young displaced people in the UK.
Hannah is a charity sector manager, experienced in supporting non-profits to maximise their reach and impact. Hannah has always been driven by her passion for supporting people to be the best they can be. She started her career in the local government sector, including advocating for policy change to enable disadvantaged children and young people to be better recognised and supported. She then took her passion for supporting marginalised people and communities to Spring Impact, where she has worked as a consultant and manager supporting a range of non-profits to develop strategies and plans for scaling their impact. As a huge lover of music herself, Hannah knows how valuable the arts are in building connections, confidence and changing perceptions. She is thrilled to be a part of the Play for Progress family.
As a passionate advocate of social enterprise as a vehicle for delivering change to under-privileged communities, Vernon currently works as a Social Impact Consultant on a range of impact measurement projects at Make An Impact CIC. Previously, he worked as a recovery practitioner working with people living with drug and alcohol addiction where he worked with a caseload of young people to support their recovery. With first-hand experience of the immigration system in the UK, where he arrived nearly 20 years ago as a young man, he has a deep understanding of the value of community for unaccompanied young people seeking asylum, and is looking forward to bringing his insight and experience to the Board of Trustees.
Alison works as Head of Influencing on conflict and humanitarian issues at Save the Children UK, where she leads a team to influence policymakers and galvanise the public to take action. She’s passionate about building power alongside children and those with lived experience to make change. Previously she’s led communications and fundraising at Refugee Action and before that spent time working on local advocacy projects in West Africa with Action Aid Senegal. As a keen pianist she knows the power of music in helping young people feel like themselves again and is really pleased to be able to support the Play for Progress team at such a vital time in UK politics and culture.
Sally is Senior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Research on Play, Education, Development and Learning (PEDAL) at the University of Cambridge. Sally is a specialist in childhood development, with a varied career including leadership roles in charities, national and local governments. Before joining PEDAL, Sally was Deputy Chief Executive at the Parent-Infant Foundation where she led work to raise awareness of the importance of the earliest years, and to drive change at a local and national level. She has also held other influential roles at the Maternal Mental Health Alliance and the NSPCC, where she developed and implemented research-led interventions. Sally started her career as a Civil Servant working on Children’s Policy in Westminster and in New South Wales, Australia. She is interested in the impacts of intergenerational trauma and has a strong belief in the power of play.
A long-standing member of the team at Freedom from Torture, Harmin is a Music Therapist in the Children, Young People and Family Team, where he has developed a strong insight into the complex psychological and practical needs of young people who have experienced significant trauma. Having arrived in the UK as a refugee from Bosnia in 1992, he soon started working as an interpreter and then caseworker in Newcastle and later in Birmingham. Having grown up surrounded by music at home, and being a keen pianist, he now uses the medium of music to help heal others of their trauma and rebuild their lives.
Naomi is a theatre producer and charity executive. She has worked at a number of major UK theatres, and as producer for internationally renowned theatre company Complicité. It was during this time that she first visited the Calais ‘Jungle’ refugee and migrant camp in 2015 and began to combine her arts experience with humanitarian work. She is currently Executive Director of Good Chance, an arts and human rights charity created out of the belief that art has a pivotal role to play in humanitarian crises. Good Chance now collaborates with refugee artists across all art forms and runs a range of programmes which bring together local people with refugees and asylum seekers across three interlinked strands of artistic work. Naomi believes passionately in the power of art to transcend borders and barriers and amplify important through often unheard voices, and she is delighted to support the Play for Progress team and their vital work with these exceptional young people.
Our Co-Founders
Alyson Frazier
Alyson is a London-based American orchestral and experimental freelance flautist who has had an active role in the commission and performance of over 100 pieces of new work, and who works with, among others, the Philharmonia, London Symphony Orchestra, BBC Concert Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, and London’s session orchestras. As a volunteer she worked in refugee camps at various stages of settlement, from long-established communities of Burmese people seeking refuge in Thailand and partially settled communities in Athens, to the transient hub of Calais. In 2013 she worked in Shey, Ladakh where she explored and developed educational tools and programmes that contributed to the creation of the Play for Progress model. She strives to combine her passions in socially impactful work and as such, is determined to expand the community of allies vulnerable young people impacted by trauma have to rely on, and to unite the arts industries in solidarity with and in celebration of our resilient, vibrant, and expressive, global community. We are, after all, one planet and one people who are inherently creative and in need of connection, community, love, and play.
Anna is a Scottish singer, writer, and medical doctor. Originally from Glasgow, she came to London to pursue her musical and creative professions. Her interest in music as a cornerstone of social and academic education has been life-long and has lead her into much philanthropic work. Having worked in A&E departments throughout the UK and traveled extensively with her music, Anna has seen the benefit of how seemingly small changes can make immense differences to people’s health and wellbeing. She was inspired to establish a foundation for children following a visit to the Children’s Orphanage of Erbil, Iraq in early 2014, which lead to the development of Play for Progress.
Anna MacDonald
Our Leadership
Becky Finlay Hall
Becky is Head of Therapeutic Practice and Organisational Health. She designs and implements the robust infrastructure that maintains our organisational health and ensures our up to date understandings of trauma science so that we are employing the best practices and maintaining our quality of delivery. She ensures that we are able to respond to the needs within our community (presented by staff and students alike) with swiftness and consideration.
Julia Beart
Julia is our Interim Executive Director. She is supporting a period of strategic transition and transformation work, positioning the organisation to move forward with a clear strategy, well defined-team, a committed Board of Trustees, infrastructure and funding in place.
Anna MacDonald
As one of the Co-Founders/Directors of the organisation, Anna is Head of Support Services. She oversees the bespoke 1 to 1 services we offer in casework, education, therapy, and the arts for young people in crisis, as well as the Young Leaders Pathway and mentorship schemes.
Our Team
Sharon is our Finance and Operations Manager. She oversees our governance stewardship, financial checks and balances, and keeps a keen eye to ensure that our work remains sustainable.
Sharon Schofield
Jodie is our Fundraiser / Bid Writer, specialising in researching and writing proposals to Trusts and Foundations. She helps us to secure the funds needed to supporting our programme delivery as well as securing our financial base for the longer-term.
Jodie Le Marrec
Valentina Frassa
Valentina is our Advocacy and Support Coordinator. She provides guidance and advocates for young people who are experiencing difficulty accessing housing, education, mental health support, physical health support, and transparency within the asylum system. She works alongside the Head of Support Services.
Joe Cryar
Joe Cryar is a long standing member of our Music Team who also leads our Welcome Team. He helps to ensure the smooth running of our in person services by welcoming young people into our space and supporting staff with venue coordination. He also supports Young Leaders from our community who also now work as members of the welcome team.
Our Delivery Staff
See our roster of exceptional delivery staff by visiting each department’s listing on within our Services tab.