Oracle’s greatest asset, we take great care of our staff because they look after our young people 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Oracle believes that the key to consistent care is a stable, well-informed and happy staff team. Oracle has a duty to educate through the enhancement of knowledge and skills and the Oracle team have a shared commitment to on-going, lifelong learning and development. Oracle Care Ltd is an equal opportunities employer and we actively promote anti-discriminatory practice within the Oracle Community.

Each staff member has been hand-picked to make up a staff team comprising of experienced, qualified and skilled individuals, selected for their respected expertise and capacity to work in this demanding field. The multi-disciplinary team have backgrounds in social work, teaching, health care and psychology. They have access to ongoing staff supervision and professional development to equip and enable them to work with our young people to meet their needs, optimise their opportunities and help each of them achieve their true potential.

Details of individual team members are available in the Statement of Purpose for each specific home. We welcome feedback on staff performance, incorporating this into our quality assessment process, and always pass on compliments to individual teams/members of staff.

Senior Management Team:

Board of Directors: non-executive Directors, Fiona Lowry (an experienced commercial board director), Ravi Maheswaren (Finance) are actively involved in overseeing the business and regularly attend the Oracle office. Tina Cowen (Lawyer) is employed in a London Law firm and provides legal advice and guidance to Oracle. Gina Blackburne (HR) is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development. All are involved because of their interest in “making a difference” for both the children and young people that Oracle care for, and also because of Oracle’s commitment to work towards safer communities, both now and into the future.

Steve Gray, CEO: Steve has extensive experience in working with children and families. Trained as a cognitive behavioural psychotherapist, with postgraduate qualifications in forensic behavioural science and management science/organisational psychology, he is also a qualified social worker.

Steve has a particular interest in helping young people with complex and challenging needs, having worked in community and secure settings. He was instrumental in establishing a national resource for young people who display sexually harmful behaviour or have psychosexual problems due to developmental or victim/abuse experiences.

Steve is Responsible Individual and holds overall operational responsibility for Oracle’s fully integrated Therapeutic Care & Education, the components of which we believe are intrinsically and inextricably linked.

Alison Trainor, Director of Development: Alison holds a degree and post-graduate management qualifications gained in the Children’s Services sector. Alison began working with children in a voluntary capacity, which moved into a professional career in residential care in 1992. Alison’s experience includes group, dual, solo care and outreach within the community. In 1998, she established, developed and managed a regional resource delivering Supervised Contact & Parenting Skills Support Services. Alison joined Oracle in October 2006 and works closely with Steve and the Oracle team in all aspects of improvement and development.

Tom Mayer, Chief Operating Officer: Responsible for overall operations at Oracle Care, Tom came to the team from the technology industry, where he worked as a strategy and operations consultant. His background also includes work as a carer and residential manager in homes for developmentally disabled adults. Tom has also worked as an American high school German teacher for pupils aged 15-18. He holds BA, MA and MBA degrees.

Nicky Mosson-Jones, Clinical Director: Nicky Mosson-Jones is a chartered forensic psychologist with extensive experience of managing and delivering clinical services with young people in secure and community settings. She holds a degree in Combined Studies (Psychology/Sociology) and a post-graduate degree in Applied Criminological Psychology. Her primary model of intervention is cognitive behavioural therapy. Nicky has a specialist interest in risk assessment, and in working with sexually harmful behaviour and other interpersonal aggression.

Rowland Coombes, Consultant Therapist: Rowland is a qualified social worker (MA, DipSW) with over 18 years experience working with clients with complex needs in community and secure settings. Previously he was with Lucy Faithfull Foundation (a child protection charity) for nine years and before that he worked in the Probation Service. For the past seven years he specialised in working in a juvenile secure unit with young people who have sexual and aggressive behaviour problems, involving direct therapeutic work and multi-disciplinary approaches to reduce risk of harm. He has extensive experience in the UK and abroad of delivering training, supervision and consultancy in the specialist field of aggressive and sexually problematic behaviour. Recently trained in restorative justice approaches, he is particularly keen to facilitate repair of harm and reconciliation where this can be assessed as safe and suitable.

Heather Taylor, Operations Manager: Heather is a qualified social worker with experience of both the public and independent sectors. Heather’s background is in working with children and family on local area social work teams, including child protection, long term, fostering and emergency duty. She worked for local authorities for 15 years and came into residential in 2003.  Heather is also a qualified TCI instructor and has operational responsibility for the residential homes and staff teams in both regions and works closely with Steve Gray, Oracle Therapists and Steve Bromley (head teacher) in all aspects of staff training and development, meeting young people’s needs and liaising with Social Workers and other professionals.

Steve Bromley, Head Teacher: “Big Steve” (well, we have to make a distinction!) is a qualified and experienced teacher who joined Oracle after seven years teaching in a Local Authority mainstream school responsible for the team of teachers and delivery of the National Curriculum in line with the Individual Education Plan’s for each young person at Oracle. Steve works closely with Steve Gray and the rest of the team to ensure continuity and stability through strong links between education and therapeutic residential care.

Yvonne Mason, Financial Controller: Yvonne is an expert multi-tasker and works closely with our Finance Director, Ravi, controling the finances and managing the payroll and Head Office function. Yvonne is the organisation behind Oracle’s Head Office and works closely with everyone. Yvonne has worked closely with Steve Gray since around1904 and has surprisingly not gone grey yet!