Sacro is delighted to welcome three new members to its Board of Trustees: Howard Elliot, Zahra Hedges and Sheriff David Mackie. The new Trustees bring a wealth of experience and expertise to the Board at an exciting time for Sacro as it celebrates its 50th anniversary with a progressive new strategy and brand identity.
Howard Elliot is a graduate of Strathclyde University and has worked in health and social care for 30 years; working across the public, private and third sectors. He has held senior management roles at Care UK, Cornerstone and Community Integrated Care, before joining ENABLE Scotland, where he is currently Director of Services. This role has responsibility for service development and provision across 27 local authority areas to over 1,100 adults and children, many of whom have very complex needs. Howard has extensive experience of developing and delivering high quality, person-centred services for people with learning and physical disabilities, Autism, cognitive impairment, and enduring mental health issues.
Howard is passionate about the provision of values-driven and human-rights based social care and is firmly committed to the highest quality of service delivery; ensuring continuous improvement, innovation, and excellence.
Zahra Hedges is CEO of Winning Scotland, a national charity that builds the confidence and resilience of Scotland’s young people through the adults around them. Prior to joining Winning Scotland, she worked at the Scottish Government, serving as a Policy Lead in Children and Young People’s Mental Health, specialising in working with Local Authorities to design and deliver community-based services.
She has 20 years of management experience in the public, private and third sectors including leading a social enterprise, and founding, growing, and selling a successful retail business. Zahra is an active advocate for better diversity, inclusion, representation, and fairness. Her particular passions are around supporting those with criminal convictions, care experienced young people and, from personal experience, single parent families.
David Mackie is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh and was in private practice as a Solicitor and an Advocate for some 25 years before being appointed a Sheriff in 2001. For 15 years until his retirement from the Bench in 2019 he sat as the resident Sheriff in Alloa Sheriff Court. Through his work as a Sheriff and with charities supporting disadvantaged and marginalised young people, he developed a belief in the power of redemption and applied compassion and understanding of both the victims and perpetrators of crime to his personal judicial practice. Retirement has given him the opportunity of making a greater commitment to charity work and to contribute, where he can, to the continued development of smarter approaches to justice.
Speaking on the appointment of the new Trustees, Sacro’s Chair, Jim Crichton said: “I would like to extend my congratulations and a very warm welcome to our new Board members at Sacro. The collective experience of our three new Trustees will considerably add to our existing strengths in criminal, social justice and diversity. They join the Board at a time when the work of Sacro has never been more relevant in promoting safer communities and enabling the personal journeys that make that possible.”
Howard, Zahra and David took up their new roles on 25 August and we look forward to working with them and benefitting from the skills and knowledge they bring to the organisation.
