Date published: November 9, 2023
Farewell from Jayne Wilson, Deputy Chief Executive
Jayne Wilson, our Deputy Chief Executive and Director of Development, will be moving on from Shared Lives Plus at the end of November. Jayne will be CEO at The Hive youth zone and we wish her all the best with this next opportunity.
Ewan King, our CEO says, “It has been an absolute pleasure working with Jayne, who has been a huge part of making me feel welcome at Shared Lives Plus. During her time here, she has successfully led several national programmes of work, led the organisation successfully through a challenging period as interim CEO, and provided huge support to those she has managed. I’m confident that Jayne is going to thrive in her next role where she goes closer to her roots working with young people, and we all thank her for the incredible work she has done for Shared Lives Plus over recent years.”
Jayne reflects on her time at Shared Lives Plus.
It’s only been three years since I joined Shared Lives Plus, but it has been such an eventful three years. It felt appropriate that my moving on co-incided with the inclusion of shared living in the DHSC menu of innovation, after I have been involved in so many conversations and proposals to highlight to government the incredible value of the work surrounding shared living, but the need for investment in the sector. I hope we can now get the investment needed to ensure more people can benefit from both Shared Lives and Homeshare.
From coming in to lead an expansion project in covid I saw the dedication and wonderful work of schemes and carers to provide amazing support. But it also really framed how I approach the other roles I have had in Shared Lives Plus, especially as Director and Deputy CEO – the importance of listening and learning from the people delivering and supported via shared living and the value of co-production. At Shared Lives Plus we have worked hard to do more of this to continue to serve our membership to the best of our ability through an amazing team. The key developments of the data collection through the state of the sector, the development projects to support a wider range of people through Shared Lives, the incredible invaluable campaign and the establishment of Your Voice forums are all things I will remain incredibly proud of being a part of during my time here.
It will be incredibly hard leaving such an amazing group of colleagues as well as amazing ambassadors, but as ever whenever I move to a new role, I will take away lessons and experiences but also friends and fond memories. I feel like I am returning home with my new role – as CEO of The Hive youth zone on the Wirral; a role I can remember saying ‘that’s the role for me’ over seven years ago when it was just an idea but now works with over 3000 young people each year. However, I will continue to advocate for shared living and hope that in years to come the numbers will grow so that everyone who wants to share their lives in this way can do so.
