Teens and Toddlers announces new chief executive

Joanne Hay, currently head of strategy at NSPCC, will take over as chief executive of Teens and Toddlers from Lady Diana Whitmore in March.

Whitmore, who won the Children and Young People’s Champion award at the CYPNow 2014 Awards in November last year, will move into a founding director role.

She launched Teens and Toddlers – an 18-week programme designed to help disengaged teenagers to succeed in education, work and the wider community – in 2001 as part of efforts to tackle the social exclusion of disadvantaged young people.

To date, more than 14,000 young people have taken part in the programme, which sees teenagers mentor young children in children’s centres and nurseries.

Whitmore said she is looking forward to working with Hay, whose previous roles include delivery adviser at the Prime Minister’s delivery unit and head of business development and policy of the London tri-borough’s children’s services department.

She said: “Joanne Hay has been a highly committed champion of our charity for many years.

“Over the next four years we aim to rapidly expand the reach of our programme.

“Joanne has built up a wealth of high level policy development experience within the children’s services sector – we look forward to utilising the exceptional skills she will bring to our organisation.”

Commenting on her appointment, Hay said: “I am thrilled to be joining an organisation that has such an illustrious track record of transforming young peoples’ lives.

“My ambition is to grow the organisation so that more people can benefit from the tremendous work that Teens and Toddlers already does.”