TLAP team members

Ian McCreath, Director of TLAP

Aside from a stint working for a national newspaper my career has been exclusively working in disability related roles. Early experiences with my Nan, who had mixed dementia, and as a support worker, led me to question why it was so hard to deliver what matters to people despite colleagues agreeing it was the way forward.

I worked in community development, policy and campaigning, before joining Alzheimer’s’ Society in 2006 to manage service teams across three counties. Since 2012 my focus has been personalisation policy and practice. I’ve worked on the Care Act guidance, a Dementia Friendly Charter for Personal Budgets, both iterations of TLAP’s Making it Real and partnered with NHS England and Improvement’s Personalised Care Group to set up and run the Dementia Change Action Network (DCAN).

My personal and professional experiences have embedded in me a deep sense that personalisation values, principles and practice provide the best approach to today’s challenges faced across communities, health, and social care. The most effective route to meaningful change and workable solutions is through co-production and collaborative partnerships of which Think Local Act Personal is a pioneering example.

Tim Parkin, Head of Policy

I work for TLAP as a senior policy advisor, working across a range of projects.  My career has been spent in social care in different roles that have included policy and strategy; partnership work; commissioning and project management. Previously  I worked across the South East of England for the Department of Health, and then the Health & Social Care Partnership, supporting policy implementation in the areas of personalisation, User Led Organisations, safeguarding, and carers.

I greatly enjoy the opportunity that TLAP presents to contribute to the development of person and community-centred approaches, I particularly value working with a wide range of organisations for a common purpose and co-producing all we do with people with lived experience.

Martin Walker, Policy Advisor for Personalised Commissioning and Self-directed Support.

I have worked in Local Government for many years with roles ranging across education, welfare, children’s social work, neighbourhood management, and adult social care. Prior to this I worked in retail and the banking sector.

I contribute my experience of policy and change work at a local level to the exciting programme Think Local Act Personal is developing around personal budgets and self-directed support.

I look at what works around the country and use this knowledge to help areas work out what’s the best approach and practice for them in their ongoing work to embed personalisation. I have written many articles and created resources on direct payments on the TLAP website.

Kate Pieroudis, Senior Co-production Advisor

I support the National Co-Production Advisory Group (NCAG) having previously helped shape co-production at the Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE). 

I’m passionate about people who use services having a voice - working in partnership with professionals to share power and be involved in designing and delivering services all the way through to seeing how well they are working. believe people closest to problems are often those closest to solutions.

I have many years experience within disability user-led organisations in project work, policy and campaigning roles including Disability Rights UK and the Stroke Association. 

National Co-production Advisory Group

TLAP co-produces all its work with members of the National Co-production Advisory Group . They are intgral to how we operate and are key to our success as a partnership.