I am a committed and insightful leader and strategic thinker with over 20 years’ experience working in social care and housing. I am driven by an ambition to promote independence, choice, and participation for those experiencing difficulties such as homelessness, disability and older age. I am currently Head of Business Development for a large housing association with a national presence. I have also been the Head of Homelessness for a London borough as well as having held roles in project management, older people’s housing regeneration, strategy, and occupational therapy. My qualification and early career in Occupational Therapy centred around goal-oriented enabling, where interventions support people through a ‘doing with, not doing for’ approach. This experience began a career in seeking to address the barriers faced by those sometimes less able to advocate for themselves or access equality of opportunity. I am a member of the National Housing Federation's National Homelessness Group, chair the Housing & Health group for the Lambeth Housing Partnership and am a Trustee on the Board of The Passage Housing Services.I have delivered a number of projects at local authority, pan-London and regional levels, that improve the structure and delivery of buildings and services. I have successfully brought together partners across departments and organisations to deliver on visions and objectives that make long term improvements.In my current role, I am leading on the development of the organisation’s strategic position for supported housing. This sets out an ambition to deliver good quality environments and support services that provide the critical foundation from which those experiencing homelessness, or have other support needs, can settle and thrive. The plan speaks to the important need for the sector to advocate on behalf of our service users, challenge funding and policy, and deliver meaningful growth and change. To support our internal strategy, I designed and completed a comprehensive review of supported housing across the region. I have reviewed the supported housing stock on several different measures that allows analysis on quality of accommodation, financial performance, social purpose, risk, and organisational objectives. This work provides the evidence base to influence internal departments, funding organisations and commissioning partners.