Our Team

Lynsey joined the Trust in January 2023 having spent many years in a leadership role with a national campaigning charity.  In her most recent role as Director of Services, Lynsey had strategic and operational responsibility for the charity’s community engagement and volunteering activity, as well as leading the very busy ceremonies function of the organisation.  Prior to moving into the third sector, Lynsey worked in the public sector with a focus on families, early years and parenting support.  Having led a team of family and parenting workers and worked with partners across the public and third sector to implement the Perth and Kinross Parenting Strategy, Lynsey recognises the importance of working collaboratively to ensure families have access to meaningful and responsive services.  

As Executive Director for the Trust, Lynsey leads the work of the organisation, and works closely with our Board of Trustees.  Lynsey is committed to ensuring the Trust provides accessible support for anyone affected by the sudden and unexpected death of a baby or young child; offers robust and evidence-based Safe Sleep education; and advances research and understanding as to why some babies and children die suddenly and unexpectedly. 

Outside of work, Lynsey spends most of her time chauffeuring her kids, but enjoys baking, reading and a good boxset when she gets the chance.  Lynsey is also a Trustee of her local Women’s Aid.

Lynsey can be contacted at lynseykidd@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

Lorna joined the team at the end of February 2020.  She has many years of experience providing administrative support in the legal, healthcare and charity sectors, all of which involved client/customer contact.  This included working with the Social and Pastoral Care team at a hospice in Glasgow and, more recently before joining us, volunteering for a local Credit Union.  Lorna is the first point of contact when someone phones the Trust and she acts as a link between clients and support workers, in addition to keeping records updated and assisting with the day to day running of the Trust.

In her spare time, Lorna enjoys taking her dog out on lovely walks around the nearby countryside.  She also loves meeting up with family and friends, including going out for meals and attending concerts.

Shona joined the team in early 2014. Shona is responsible for all of the income and expenditure tracking, and banking the generous donations that we are given and prepares budget reports for our Executive and Board meetings. Shona works with our Fundraising Manager, Michael, to ensure anyone fundraising for us has all of the information they need to set up their own fundraising platform and will gladly provide information about ways to make regular or one-off donations.

Michael joined the team in February 2022. His role is to give the best possible experience to all our supporters and volunteers, helping them reach their full fundraising potential.  Michael also looks out for new opportunities to partner with events, organisations and community groups across Scotland.

Michael has worked in fundraising for over a decade across Scotland, the UK and in the USA. At the age of 18, Michael survived meningococcal septicaemia. This led to him becoming an Ambassador for the Meningitis Research Foundation, which has seen him run the London and New York Marathons.

“What started out as a hobby has now become a huge passion of mine. Working for the Scottish Cot Death Trust gives me the honour of meeting new people from across the country and hearing their stories. This inspires me to ensure they enjoy their fundraising as much as possible, while making memories.”

Outside work, Michael is a lifelong music fan, regularly attending gigs and presenting a weekly music show on Keith Community Radio. His love of travel has also seen him follow the Scottish National Football Team abroad, including Moscow and Oslo. You can contact Michael at fundraising@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

Gill joined the team in October 2022 having spent several years as an addiction and harm reduction researcher. Prior to this she worked for a medical virtual reality company crafting virtual simulation scenarios and as a doctor in Acute and General Medicine.

Professionally, Gill has a passion for learning and engaging people with educational opportunities. She has a wide range of experience running clinical simulation scenarios, lectures and workshops and will be managing and developing the Safe Sleep education and SUDI simulation training for professionals. Personally, as a bereaved parent, Gill has a deep wish to see bereaved parents well supported, getting the care and help they need when they need it.

Outside of work Gill enjoys reading autobiographies, running her local toddler group, chasing her dog up hills and spending time with her family.

You can contact Gill at safesleep@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

Audrey is a semi retired nurse who has 38 years experience in the NHS. She worked in Neuro intensive care looking after critically ill children and adults.   Within this role she cared for patients who found themselves there due to tragic events – “I had a great interest in supporting the patient and family’s in such tragic circumstances”.

Audrey went onto work in general intensive care, again caring for the critically ill for many years. An opportunity arose and she worked for NHS Blood Transplant as a Procurement Transplant Co-ordinator. Part of this role was facilitating organ donation from patients who died. Audrey had a great interest in supporting the families through tragic circumstances and offered bereavement visits post organ donation.  Alongside other colleagues, she was responsible for organising the first Scottish remembrance service for recipients of organ donors to give thanks to donor families.  She is very proud to have been part of such an amazing event.

She retired from a senior charge nurse post last year and has returned as a part time staff nurse working in older people’s services.

Audrey’s interests are walking, swimming, gym and caring for her dog. She is married and has two grown-up children, Lewis  and Sarah  who she loves to spend time with.

Dr Mary Ray became Chair of the Board in February 2018, having been a trustee since 2013. Mary worked in Paediatrics for 38 years and as a Consultant for 24 years. Having recently retired, Mary was a General Paediatrician with an interest in Rheumatology. Mary’s role encompassed the care of children, dealing with their carers and parents, and training of junior doctors and nurses and other allied professionals, and as a senior examiner for the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health.

In these years, Mary has had experience of many families who have been bereaved with the loss of a child and the pain that goes with it.

Mary was on the board of trustees of CHAS (Childrens’ Hospice Association of Scotland) and held the post of Vice Chairman. Mary stepped down from the CHAS Board in Sept 2013 after 10 years with the charity.

Annie is a health visitor in NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde and Chair of the Community Practitioners & Health Visitors Association (CPHVA) Scotland. Annie has a wealth of experience in community nursing, and her current role as lead involves teaching and HR. Annie is a Scottish representative for Unite.

Alastair McLean is a Chartered Wealth Manager and Fellow of the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investment. He has a law degree from The University of Dundee as well as an MBA from the University of Strathclyde Graduate School of Business. Alastair joined Rathbones in 2015 and has over 25 years of experience in private client investment management.

Yvonne was born and brought up in London. Having graduated from Nottingham University, she began her working life in social work in and around London. In March 1996 she had her first child, Sam, who tragically died aged 10 weeks as the result of a cot death. As most bereaved parents know, the following months were a daily struggle: searching for reasons, wondering “what if….” and generally lacking in interest in many things that had previously been so central in life. Fortunately, Yvonne was referred by her Health visitor to a local parent support group which met monthly. This helped enormously both in the months following the cot death and also when Yvonne became pregnant with her next child, Daniel.

In 1988, Yvonne and her family moved to Aberdeen. After the birth of her daughter, Leah, in the winter of 1988, Yvonne was asked by two community midwives if she would consider setting up a support group in Aberdeen. She co-ordinated the support and fundraising aspects of this group for seven years, as well as helping with befriender training days.

Today, Yvonne has three children Daniel (28) Leah (25) and Aaron (19). She is a lecturer in the school of Applied Social Studies at The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen.

Adrian is a retired Detective Chief Inspector with Police Scotland and served for thirty-seven years. During his career Adrian mainly specialised in CID duties investigating a broad range serious crime.

For the last fifteen years of his service Adrian specialised in child and adult protection and the management of registered sex offenders. His drive and commitment to public protection led to membership on a number of Scottish Government groups including the Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy national reference group in 2010 and continued to the end of his service at the end of March 2014.

Adrian gained an MSc in Child Care and Protection from the University of Dundee in 2012 and continues to improve his skills and knowledge to protect vulnerable people from harm.

Adrian has a teenage daughter who is a competitive swimmer and Adrian and his wife are volunteer judges with Scottish Swimming supporting local, regional and national competitions and their daughter’s club.

Sue is an experienced HR Director and board member.

She brings a diverse range of commercial, functional and consultancy experience gained across a number of sectors. Her career commenced at the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst and she spent six years as an Army Officer in operational and HR roles. After leaving the army Sue spent time at Compaq/Hewlett Packard in a variety of roles, then an entrepreneurial IT outsourcing company as HR Director and subsequently Managing Director followed by a year as an HR consultant working with the MOD and NHS. Sue has 13 years experiences in Financial Services having worked for both National Australia Group (now Virgin Money) and Barclays in HR Director roles.

Sue is passionate about issues affecting veterans and was founding member and co-chair of the Barclays military network in Scotland for 7 years.  Sue currently co-chairs the Scottish Government’s Veterans Employability Strategic Group.  Sue is also a trustee and board member at Scottish Veterans Residences and St Columba’s School.

Dr Dawn Penman, a Perinatal and Paediatric Pathologist working in the Pathology Unit at the Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, Glasgow, joins our Board of Trustees. Dawn brings with her a wealth of expertise in Paediatric Pathology of Sudden Unexpected Death in Infancy. She has informed the work of various national groups including the Scottish Government SUDI working group. Dawn presented at the 2016 SUDI Scotland summit, where her talk was very well received by the various disciplines attending. Dawn also brings her experience of working with families in helping them by answering questions they have about their child’s post mortem. We are delighted to have Dawn on the Board.

Wilma became a Trustee in 2016, having been a supporter of the Trust since 2010. She has developed a niche for fundraising and has worked closely with the Community Fundraiser to raise not only money, but awareness of cot death.

Wilma’s inspiration is her son Andrew, who passed away in 1990 and her motivation and passion is to ensure that any family who have experienced the devastation of a sudden death of their child are supported throughout their journey and that anyone who cares for a young child is aware of how to reduce the risks of a cot death happening.

Sharing Andrew’s short life and the impact his death had on his 2 older brothers, Chris and Liam, and his younger brother Jamie has enabled Wilma to raise the funds required to produce 2 children’s books designed to support siblings.

Rory’s Star focuses on the children that have lived through the loss of their brother or sister and Andrew’s Rainbow concentrates on the children who are born after – both books aim to help families explain the inexplicable.

Wilma represents bereaved families on the Board, contributing greatly to progressing the aims of the Trust.

Alexis is a partner at Shepherd and Wedderburn commercial law firm based in the  Glasgow office. She is a member of the Private Wealth & Tax team, and has a particular expertise in charity law. Alexis advises high net worth individuals in all aspects of personal estate planning, including wills, powers of attorney, trust formation and administration, succession planning and charity formation. She also advises charity trustees on the ongoing administration of charitable organisations including compliance/regulation and mergers / amalgamations.

David was a former MSP Member of the Scottish Parliament for the Highlands and Islands region from 2007 up until 2021.  A member of the Scottish Labour Party and Co-operative Party, he was Member of Parliament for Inverness East, Nairn and Lochaber from 1997 to 2005.

David joined our Board in 2019 and represents bereaved parents. David and his wife Linda experienced their own personal loss when their baby son, Liam died in 1991 from cot death.
David will be helping us to promote some of our campaigns and with our PR and media strategy.

Gil was a former MSP for Clydebank and Milngavie for Scottish National Party. Gil served as the Member of the Scottish Parliament for Clydebank and Milngavie, from 2011 to 2021. Previously he had been an MSP for the West of Scotland region, having been elected on 3 May 2007. From 1999 to 2003 he was an MSP for Central Scotland.

Gil joined our Board in 2019 having supported the charity for many years.  Gil is keen to share his business and fundraising knowledge to assist us in creating a new fundraising strategy.

Professor Emma McIntosh is Deputy Director of Glasgow University’s Health Economics and Health Technology Assessment (HEHTA) team and Director of the NIHR Global Health Group on Arthritis. Emma has an MSc in Health Economics and a PhD in Economics. Emma’s methodological interests are in the area of economic evaluation, evaluating public health interventions, global health economics, stated preference methods and cost benefit analysis more generally. These methodological interests are applied across a large portfolio of research projects funded by the NIHR, MRC, EPSRC and other funding bodies. Emma has published over 100 peer-reviewed health economics papers, co-authored two books, ‘Applied Methods of Cost-Benefit Analysis in Health Care’ and more recently ‘Applied Health Economics for Public Health practice and research’ as part of Oxford University Press’s Handbooks in Health Economic Evaluation series.

Tom has a long history with the Trust and currently chairs our Scientific Advisory Committee. Tom was a Consultant Paediatrician in Glasgow at the Royal Hospital for Sick Children and the Queen Mother’s Hospital, where he worked for almost thirty years. He has a particular interest in the care of newborn infants and was the Clinical Director for the Queen Mother’s Hospital for several years. He represented his colleagues on a number of important National Committees and was Advisor to the Scottish Executive on maternity and children’s services. Dr Turner has also been actively involved in the education of doctors and nursing colleagues. He has a grownup family and several grandchildren. His main recreations are walking and gardening.

The following are members of our Scientific Advisory Committee:

Dr Mary Ray
Professor David Tappin
Dr Una McFadyen
Mrs Lynsay Allan
Dr Paul Brown
Professor Colin Smith
Professor Sameer Zuberi

Professor Emma McIntosh