Meet the team

Meet the Learning and Development team!

Angela Kelly

Group Learning and Development Manager

Before joining Thera Angela started her career as a Support Worker, supporting adults with a learning disability. She worked her way through various roles to Service Manager, before moving into Learning and Development. Angela then developed herself to the role of Senior Learning and Development Specialist.

Angela has Levels 2, 3 and 5 NVQs in Health and Social Care and Leadership, as well as a Level 5 Diploma in Teaching. Angela has carried out training in all person-centred active support roles at the Tizzard Centre, University of Kent. She has a special interest in the safeguarding of adults and is very passionate about the learning and developing of others.

Susan Cooper

Senior Learning and Development Administrator
Susan started her employment within Thera in the Data Protection Team, she then moved on to the Learning and Development Team, she is loving the new challenges and working with the wider Learning and Development Team. Susan enjoys seeing people develop and learn new skills.

Before Thera Susan worked at Grantham College for 11 years within the Human Resources Department, also at Totemic and Vodafone. Susan is approachable, friendly and always willing to help.

Hannah Horn

Admin Assistant

Hannah’s responsibilities are to manage the [email protected] inbox and ensuring the provision of induction guidebooks to our operational colleagues as well as managing training bookings, answering your queries and other general admin tasks.

Hannah started with Learning Development in April 2018 this is her first role in a Learning and Development Team and she’s always eager to help people and support their requirements.

Hannah is approachable, friendly, helpful and very knowledgeable, Hannah is also good at problem solving.

Tracey Harrison

Learning and Development Project Partner

Tracey loves the challenge of training all staff and ultimately getting the participants to review their working practices, which in turn enriches the lives of the people we support. She loves to find (or borrow from other presenters) creative and innovative ways to present information that is engaging, fun and powerful.

She has previously supported people with complex behaviour, which has given her the experience, knowledge and skills to deliver PBS and PROACT-SCIPr-UK®, amongst other subjects.

Graham Valentine

Learning and Development Project Partner

Graham started work in social care in the early 1990’s as a Support Worker for Social Services within Hampshire’s care in the community programme. He has worked for the National Autistic Society and as a Developmental Therapist and Trainer working with children and adolescents.

He is passionate about motivating staff and new inductees in realising their pivotal role in delivering the best service to maintain and improve the quality of life for the people we work for.

He has a level 3 NVQ in Social and Health Care and is an NVQ Assessor. He has a special interest in sensory processing and behaviour.

Alex Letchford

Health and Social Care Trainer

Alex started supporting people with Learning Disabilities as a job coach in 2013. He continued supporting people with Learning Disabilities to secure sustained employment as well as develop their communication and social skills before completing his level 5 Diploma in Education and Training in 2018. Alex then progressed to become a Tutor, teaching people with Learning Disabilities employability and functional Maths and English skills. This is where his interest in Learning and Development began and he joined Thera as a Trainer in 2021.

Alex is really enjoying the new challenges and excitements of working with the Learning and Development team as well as the wider teams at Thera and loves seeing people learning, progressing and developing new skills.

Jay Patel

Health and Social Care Trainer

Jay originally studied fashion and design at the then Leicester Polytechnic and went onto set up her own clothing company in Leicester for 16 years. Following a career assessment, she went into youth and community work and has over 20 years’ experience in empowering and providing opportunities for individuals of all ages and backgrounds to develop and enhance their lives.  Jay is very passionate about supporting people to learn and finds it extremely rewarding seeing them progress in life

Jay has a dual role in Thera Trust and is employed for two days a week as an Executive Assistant to a Service Quality Director.

Sandy Fleming

Health and Social Care Trainer

Sandy has over 20 years’ experience in Human Resources, specialising in Learning and Development within the semiconductor industry. He took a short career change, including a role as Support Worker supporting adults with a learning disability.

Driven by job satisfaction and the knowledge of being part of a team that makes a difference to so many lives, he enjoys problem solving and simplifying processes and tasks.

Sandy has a dual role in Thera Trust and is employed for 2 days a week as an HR advisor.

Karen Harris

Health and Social Care Trainer

Karen started out as an interpretive designer and has worked for Community Inclusion and Self Advocacy organisations for many years. She has illustrated and produced easy read information as well as co-developing training to be delivered by Experts by Experience. She is a skilled graphic facilitator and works with our Service Quality Directors and the people we support, encouraging the active involvement of people with a learning disability in the delivery of training.

Karen has a dual role in Thera Trust and is employed for two days a week as an Executive Assistant to a Service Quality Director.

Marc Denman

LMS Application Specialist

Marc has always had a passion for tech, ever since his older brother gave him his ZX Spectrum. He then went on to working with systems such as Salesforce, Adobe Captivate and Moodle/Totara to name a few, using HTML coding and eLearning writing tools. 8 years ago Marc moved into the world of Learning and Development, more specifically in the lifelong learning sector. He started out building eLearning and working with Learning Management Systems and hasn’t looked back since. Prior to joining Thera Marc was responsible for building the LMS and Elearning for the Primary Care Support wing of the NHS.

Terri Bristow

Apprenticeship Levy Co-ordinator

Terri has been with Thera for many years in various roles including operational management, HR and training and has an excellent understanding of ways to increase and maintain independence for people supported. She has a passion for learning and holds a Level 7 qualification in Strategic Leadership. She is also a skilled trainer and excellent at writing learning and development resources.

Terri is enthusiastic about getting staff qualified and managing our money effectively and fairly around this. She is leading on managing our Apprenticeship Levy and does a great job of this.

Matt Bindon

PBS Lead

Matt Bindon has joined the Learning Development team as the Positive Behaviour Support Lead for Thera Trust. Matt has worked for Thera for over 12 years and has been supporting people with a learning disability for over 34 years. When Matt joined Thera as an Operational Manager he was already trained as a senior behaviour advisor and intervention instructor, as well as a trainer in Person Centred Active Support (PCAS) which he did through the Tizard Centre. Over a 6 year period Matt then studied and qualified in Positive Behaviour Support and Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and is now Thera’s PBS Lead specialising in supporting people with Anxiety and Associated Complex Behaviours, helping to bring excellent PBS support into people’s lives across the Thera Group.

Do you have a question about Learning and Development? Please contact us at [email protected]