Our Team

Gill joined the team in October 2022 as the Trust Education Officer and is now our Acting Executive Director, having previously worked as a clinician and researcher. Gill currently leads the work of the organisation and works closely with our Board of Trustees to ensure we remain true to our purposes as a charity. 

As a bereaved parent Gill is committed to ensuring the Trust provides accessible support for anyone affected by the sudden and unexpected death of a baby or young child at any point in their journey of loss.  Gill is also passionate that the Trust continues to offer robust and evidence-based SUDI-related training for all professionals to ensure they are well equipped to support families in turn.

Outside of work Gill enjoys reading autobiographies, running with her long-suffering cocker spaniel and keeping her family out of mischief.

You can contact Gill at gillburton@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.

Shona joined the team in early 2014. It is Shona’s responsibility for all of the income and expenditure tracking, and banking the generous donations that we are given. Her role also involves preparing budget reports for our Executive and Board meetings.

Shona works with our Fundraising Officer, Justine, to ensure anyone supporting us has all the information they need to set up their own fundraising platform. She is also on hand to provide information to donors about ways to make regular or one-off donations.

When Shona’s not working, she enjoys spending time with her family, early morning walks with her dog on St Andrews Beach, and catching up with friends.

Caroline joined the team in October 2023, bringing with her a wealth of experience in developing and managing services, such as volunteering, mentoring, counselling, and family support services.

Caroline’s new role as our Bereavement Support Manager is to oversee a variety of support services, including our Next Infant Programme. She is COSCA Counselling Skills trained and uses these skills in her practice offering empathy, genuineness and compassion, ensuing that the support is tailored to and guided by families. Caroline believes passionately in co-production and that families voices are at the heart of service delivery.

Caroline believes passionately this role is a privilege and takes a psychologically informed approach to ensure that people feel safe, comforted, and connected to the Trust, at a time when they have experienced loss of an infant or child suddenly or unexpectedly.

Caroline enjoys spending time with her family, walking the dog, reading books and cooking as well as spontaneous adventure and outdoor camping.

You can contact Caroline at carolinemcintosh@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

Justine joined the team in August 2023.  She has experience of providing event management and communications in the corporate and charity sectors.

Justine oversees all the fundraising activities based in Scotland, including events and challenges.  She also supports existing and new opportunities to engage communities and corporate supporters in fundraising for the Scottish Cot Death Trust.

The Trust is a charity that Justine finds very special and has always volunteered with, having lost her little sister Claire to cot death.  She is passionate about raising funds to help make a difference to families across Scotland.

In her spare time, Justine enjoys spending family time with her two children and walking her dog around the nearby beach and woods.  She is also a photographer and photographs newborns, families, weddings, events and headshots.

If you have any fundraising ideas, or would like to participate in any of our events, please email justinefox@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

Kirsty joined the team in August 2023 having spent over 10 years working in marketing and communications in the performing arts industry. She graduated from the University of Teesside with a BA Hons Degree in Tourism Management and went on to study a Professional Diploma in Marketing, and Diploma in Digital Marketing, both with the Chartered Institute of Marketing of which she is an Associate Member. Kirsty has worked in various marketing and communication roles in several industries, including publishing, finance, travel and theatre, and has lived and worked in Australia and Canada.

As Communications Officer, Kirsty is responsible for communicating all the latest news from the Trust through a variety of channels and spreading news of the organisation’s vital work far and wide! She also runs the Trust’s Safe Sleep provision for Early Years Care Practitioners and other professionals. She is thrilled to be working for an organisation dedicated to such important work.

In her spare time, Kirsty enjoys spending time with her family, going to the theatre and is addicted to The Traitors. Kirsty is also an Associate Artist with The Occasion Theatre Company as their marketing specialist.

You can contact Kirsty at kirstyrough@scottishcotdeathtrust.org

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.

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.

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 is a Principal Educator within the Women’s, Children, Young People and Families team at NHS Education for Scotland (NES).  He is the strategic lead for the Scottish Multiprofessional Maternity Development Programme (SMMDP) and has additional responsibilities for midwifery, maternity and neonatal workforce education and development.

Previously an ambassador for the trust, he is also an Honorary Advanced Neonatal Nurse Practitioner (ANNP) within NHS GG&C, undertaking clinical teaching around newborn examination, and is the Consultant Editor for the British Journal of Midwifery.  Prior to his appointment at NES, Tom was a Senior Lecturer in Midwifery and Specialist Nursing at the University of the West of Scotland which followed a long clinical career in midwifery and neonatal care.

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