Board of Trustees

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Board of Trustees

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The Scottish Child Law Centre's Board of Trustees is made up of the following members:

Gillian Donald (Treasurer)
Rebecca Strachan

Alasdair Docwra

Janice McGhee
Daniel Kelly (Chair)
Maggie Mellon
Lesley-Anne Barnes
Alan Miller

Gillian Donald

Gillian trained with Scott-Moncrieff and qualified in 1993. Since then she has specialised in the charity sector, and is the firm's specialist charity audit partner. She has extensive practical experience of charity regulation and is responsible for ensuring technical compliance with charity regulation across all service sectors within her firm. She is Treasurer of a number of Scottish charities with income ranging from under £100,000 to over £11 million. She is currently a specialist charity lecturer for the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS), a member of its Charity Working Party and was a member of the Scottish Charity Law Review Commission. She is a regular contributor on current accounting topics to charity publications within the UK.

Rebecca Strachan

Rebecca trained in Edinburgh and London in Sick Children’s nursing, general nursing, intensive care and neonatal paediatrics before studying for a Master’s in Education, followed by Doctoral studies in health and developmental psychology. She has enjoyed a wide experience as a lecturer/senior lecturer at University, and in clinical practice as head of Research and Development (RIE). She has had a broad base experience of Ethics committee (LREC) and has taught health care ethics to Master’s students. She has developed training programmes in Child Protection within acute hospital settings (A&E). Rebecca’s main research interest reflects her clinical background working with young people who suffer chronic illness. She has been closely involved with the rights of children and young people, particularly in relation to their health needs, and has a range of clinical and academic publications.

Rebecca is presently working with the Royal College of Physicians to introduce, across Scotland, standards which will be implemented to meet the needs of young people in transition, i.e. from paediatric care to adolescent services, through to care in the adult sector. The needs of the ‘forgotten tribe’ are beginning to be recognised!

Rebecca’s work in the voluntary sector includes work as Development Advisor with the Child Psychotherapy Trust, where her particular interest was with young people who progress through childhood with unmet emotional needs and go on to experience the judicial system. Her present role is with Action for Sick Children as Development Advisor (Scotland). The post, now in its final year, is funded by BBC Children in Need and involved influencing health care at strategic level for children and young people in Scotland and encouraging a climate of participation by children, young people and their families.

Alasdair Docwra

Alasdair is a solicitor in private practice at Maxwell Maclaurin, Glasgow. He is accredited in Child Law.

Janice McGhee BSc (Hons), LLB, C.Q.S.W., is a Senior Lecturer in Social Work in the School of Social and Political Studies at the University of Edinburgh. She qualified as a Social Worker in 1979 and has substantial practice experience in both child and adult services. She has responsibility for law and psychology teaching on the Master of Social Work and BSc (Social Work) programmes. Her main research interests are related to child care policy and law especially the children's hearings system in Scotland. She has written on and undertaken research on aspects of the Children (Scotland) Act 1995 and has carried out with colleagues a major study of outcomes for children involved in the children's hearings system (Waterhouse, L., McGhee, J., Whyte, B., Loucks, N., Key, H., and Stewart, R. (2000) The Evaluation of Children's Hearings in Scotland. Volume 3. Children in Focus. Edinburgh: The Stationery Office).

Daniel Kelly

Daniel is a Queen's Counsel and part-time Sheriff. His particular interests include child and family law and European Community issues. As well as his legal qualifications, he holds a Certificate of Advanced European Studies gained in Bruges, Belgium.
Daniel worked for a number of years as a solicitor before going to the Bar in 1991. He was appointed a Q.C. in 2007. He has a number of publications, including a book on Criminal Sentences (1993) and articles covering topics from jury trial to child abduction. He is Consulting Editor for the Scots Law Times Sheriff Court Reports.
Daniel’s practical experience regularly includes cases involving children, having acted for the Children’s Reporter, local authorities, parents and children themselves. Such cases have dealt with referrals to the court, adoption, abduction, contact and many of the wealth of issues which concern children.

Maggie Mellon

Maggie has been a social worker since qualifying in 1977. She has worked in a wide range of positions in Scotland and in England, mostly in children and family work. Since her return to Scotland from London in 1994 she has held a variety of practice and policy posts in children and family work in both local government and the voluntary sector. From 1999 to 2004 she worked for NCH Scotland as Head of Public Policy, and is currently Director of Children and Family Services with Children 1 st (formerly RSSPCC). She has written and edited a number of publications. These include NCH Scotland's ‘Factfile’ from 2000- 2004, the report of the Kilbrandon Now Inquiry, and editing and contributing to ‘Meeting Needs Addressing Deeds’, funded by the Scottish Executive, to promote better understanding of and working with young people who offend.
Her current work with Children 1st includes the promotion of family group conferencing as a model for decision making about children and families which dramatically redefines the relationship between professionals and families and has the capacity to reshape service provision.

Lesley-Anne Barnes

Lesley-Anne is a lecturer in law at Napier University. She graduated from Glasgow University and qualified as a solicitor in 2000. She was Family Law Assistant at Mowat Hall Dick from 2000-2002, and Family Law Associate there until 2004. Lesley-Anne was also a court welfare reporter and curator ad litem in 2002-2004. She received accreditation as a C.A.L.M family mediator in 2004.
Lesley-Anne began tutoring for the Professional Competency course in 2003, and began lecturing at Napier University on Family Law and Evidence in 2004.
She is a contributor to Butterworths Scottish Family Law Service, and is involved in a number of academic publications in child and family law.

Alan Miller

Alan D Miller sits as a part-time Sheriff throughout Scotland, and chairs Mental Health and Additional Support Needs tribunals. As a consultant he is project-managing the implementation of major child law reforms in Guernsey. He is a non-executive director of Includem, which works with very high-risk young people, and company secretary of Linlithgow Young People’s Project. From 1995 to 2005, he was the Principal Reporter of the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration.