Sally Williamson is a founding member and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Salus.
Throughout her career, Sally has demonstrated her commitment and passion for securing services that really make a difference to children, young people, their families, school and communities. Leading a ground-breaking social enterprise has provided the opportunity to continue to develop ways to do this creatively and efficiently while achieving the best possible outcomes.
Prior to establishing Salus, Sally had more than 15 years’ experience of working across children’s services and strategic management for a number of Local Authorities and the Government Office London (GOL). Roles included Head of Attendance and Behaviour (including Alternative Provision) for Kent County Council (KCC) and Children and Learners Strategic Adviser for GOL. Both Sally and the services she has been responsible for, have won numerous awards and accolades in recognition of their impact.
Sally is a keen advocate for the role of the voluntary sector and is a VCSE representative on many Boards and Steering Groups, including the Kent and Medway Integrated Care Partnership Group. Sally has a BSc in Psychology (hons), Post Graduate Diploma in Systemic Approaches, an MSc in Occupational Psychology and is in the final stages of qualifying as an Occupational Psychologist.
Peter Heckel is a founding member and Co-Chief Executive Officer of Salus
Peter has a track record of creating innovative and ground breaking services to some of the most disadvantaged children and young people in Kent. Throughout his career, he has shown commitment and determination to securing the best possible outcomes through high quality services.
While Peter is a JNC qualified Youth Worker, his early career was with environmental charities working in some of the most deprived areas of Manchester and Birmingham. He has a degree in Environmental Earth Science (hons), an MSc in Environmental Impact Assessment, MA in Youth Work and Community Development, an MBA and a MA in Education.
Since the late 90’s Peter has worked with vulnerable groups and communities most recently as a strategic manager for KCC. Peter’s Services have won awards for quality and the robustness of evaluation. In his spare time Peter volunteers with scouts and for parkrun he is also a keen ultra-marathon runner and triathlete.
Sally has over 25 years plus experience of working with children, young people, families, and communities. Her experience is working in schools, local authority and the voluntary sector all exhibit her passionate for social justice especially for young people in disadvantaged communities to be given every opportunity to thrive and meet their full potential.
During lockdown Sally completed an MSc in Advanced Child Protection at the University of Kent this has complimented her safeguarding and training portfolio that she delivers across the Southeast to ensure the children’s workforce keep children safe from harm and respond in a trauma informed approach. Recently her role specialising in exploitation, she led The Serious Youth Violence Programme, a government funded pilot scheme across North Kent working in collaboration with Kent and Medway Police with Youth Offending Services , has demonstrated outstanding success as evaluated by London South Bank University. This has included promoting effective partnership working in reducing Serious Youth Violence and knife crime.
Previous Head of Service roles in the high-profile Government Funded Family Support Service led to long term sustainable change for families across Kent. Sally has extensive knowledge of partnership working, diverse communities and has initiated several high-profile partnership projects and collaborations during this time. Before this Sally led the SPARK project a localised, schools focused, early intervention provision aimed at improving the mental health and wellbeing of children and young people in line with the aims of the Kent CAMHS Joint Commissioning Strategy, ensuring effective pathways of provision. Working in primary and secondary schools across Kent, with children with Special Educational Needs, Sally trained staff in meeting the needs of those children who are neurodiverse.
Jacqueline was a Police officer for over 15 years before working for the local authority in children and young people services supporting families with significant and complex needs. In 2017 she was appointed as the Restorative Justice service manager, as well as overseeing the service she also facilitates Restorative Justice conferences, and Restorative Justice Council (RJC) accredited training. She is a member of the Restorative Justice council.
Emma has worked at Salus for 8 years in several different roles including family support and the Serious Youth Violence project.
Throughout her career, Emma has always been passionate about working with children, young people, and families, and empowering them to make positive lasting change.
Prior to working at Salus, Emma had more than 15 years’ experience of working with children, young people and families. Emma’s career working with children and families started as a nursery nurse in a children’s day nursery and working her way up to deputy manager. Emma then decided that she wanted a complete change and started working with young offenders in a secure unit who were sentenced or remanded to custody, Emma started as a training centre assistant working her way up to a team leader. Emma then decided she wanted to work in the community with young people and families to support young people before they became involved within the criminal justice system and this is when she chose to come to Salus, or shall we say Salus chose Emma. Emma has a BA (Hons) in Youth Justice Studies and a Professional Certificate in Effective Practice. (Youth Justice).
Jody has worked for Salus for over 20 years and with Children and Young People for 30 years.
Jody is qualified as an early year’s specialist and has a degree in sociology (Canterbury Christ Church) and most recently completed a post grad certificate in leading and managing change in mental health services for children and young people (Kings College London) .
Jody has been a manager at Salus for the last 15 years and oversees the coordination and delivery of emotional and mental health and well-being interventions for children and young people aged 4 – 18yrs.
Including:
Wellbeing practitioners (schools)
Therapeutic interventions:
Jody’s background is as an early year’s specialist working within schools and she is Passionate about making a positive change to Children & Young People’s lives with a keen interest in supporting SEN and early years Jody developed and delivered Peer Mentoring training programme for Salus (previously Kent Safe Schools) and developed and delivered social skills, emotional regulation and self-esteem programmes for Children and Young People.
Michelle Kite is the Head of Office Services at Salus. She has worked with the company for over 8 years and oversees all aspects of administrative support across the company to ensure the continued smooth running of all services.
Michelle has more than 20 years’ financial administration experience, including previously working within local Government. Throughout this time she has gained extensive experience in finance, personnel, and recruitment. As well as being an excellent communicator, Michelle tries to bring a positive and fun atmosphere to the office environment. This makes Michelle the go-to person for many people within Salus when they have queries or issues they need help to resolve.
Sarah has over 20 years’ experience working directly with and for children and young people in a range of settings. Following a successful Knowledge Transfer Partnership (KTP) with Canterbury Christ Church University to implement evaluation practices within the organisation, Sarah’s current role is to quality assure, through monitoring and rigorous evaluation, the services delivered by Salus as well as support bid writing and other tasks.
Sarah has a degree in Psychology and Early Childhood Studies (hons), an MSc in Child Development, a Level 5 Diploma in Management and Leadership, in addition to a range of training and work-based qualifications including an NVQ Level 3 in Working with Children and Young People. She also sits on the General Committee for a local pre-school.
Nikki has over 20 years’ experience working predominantly within commissioned services across Kent supporting Children, Young People and Families.
Since joining the Salus Team in 2013 Nikki has delivered and managed various children and family’s services, along with leading on specific tasks and projects that contribute to the successful implementation of Project Salus priorities.
Nikki is also a Practice Lead in Signs of Safety and provides training, coaching and mentoring to team members as part of professional development and to maintain organisational standards.
Nikki has a degree in Psychology and Sociology (hons), and a diploma in Cognitive Coaching and Mentoring, and is a member of The British Association of Psychological Therapies.
