Our team
Staff
Naomi Jackson
Managing Director
Naomi is a registered social worker. Naomi joined Social Workers Without Borders as a volunteer in 2017, undertaking multiple independent social work reports. In 2020, Naomi became the charity’s first member of staff, taking up the role of Development Lead. In September 2023, Naomi became the Managing Director. Naomi is responsible for leading the organization in delivering its strategic goals and ensuring the charity operates to the highest standards.
Prior to joining Social Workers Without Borders, Naomi worked in statutory children and families social work roles, and as a family support worker in a SureStart Children’s Centre where she was the lead professional working with families with English as an Additional Language.
In October 2023 Naomi began a PhD in Law at the University of Liverpool. Naomi’s research focus is about children’s rights in the context of parental deportation.
Vicky Shenton
Volunteer Coordinator
Vicky joined Social Workers Without Borders in April 2023 after studying for an MA in ‘International Social Work with Refugees and Migrants’. Vicky has previously worked as a support worker for a Manchester-based charity who offer accommodation, support and advocacy for people made homeless by the UK asylum system. She is actively involved in migrant justice groups and organisations in Greater Manchester, including the GM Migration and Destitution Action Group.
Vicky is responsible for volunteer recruitment, induction and support. She has led in expanding our national pool of experienced social work assessors and in developing our support and training offer to volunteers.
Ben Feder
Head of Direct Work
Ben is a registered social worker with over 15 years’ experience working alongside marginalised children and young people, including as a statutory social worker, a children’s rights advocate and a specialist caseworker with separated young people seeking asylum. He has experience of providing expert social work evidence in immigration and family proceedings. He was also the legal services coordinator for a team providing psychological expert witness reports on the impacts of domestic abuse and trafficking.
Ben previously conducted independent social work assessments as a volunteer for Social Workers Without Borders in the UK and Northern France, and has volunteered with young people on the move in Greece. Alongside his Social Workers Without Borders role, Ben works part-time as the asylum and immigration practice lead within a local authority leaving care service. He delivers training and guest lectures on social work practice with separated children and other care experienced young migrants.
Trustees
Phillida Miles
Chair
Phillida is a registered social worker with over 30 years’ experience in health and social care as a practitioner and manager. She has worked in a wide range of roles and services including: mental health, residential care, community social work, a family centre, acting as a child protection chair, and managing adult social work teams. Phillida has run a successful consultancy company for 18 years and has experience of tendering and contracts, managing finances, and business sustainability. As an independent social worker, her commissions have spanned organisational change, project management, interim management, service reviews and practice auditing. Her connection with Social Workers Without Borders started in April 2016.
Clare Cowie
Treasurer
Clare is a former city lawyer who worked on high value cross-border insolvency and restructuring cases for a top-tier law firm. She subsequently moved to the financial sector and gained international experience at a FTSE 100 firm, where she worked on global fund launches and managed legal and regulatory risk on billions of dollars of assets under management. Clare is on the National Leadership Team for Citizens UK’s ‘Settle our Status Campaign’ which is seeking a regularisation process for people with insecure immigration status. She delivers legal confidence sessions to members of the refugee community with Lawyers Against Poverty and recently contributed to Just Fair’s Civil Society Parallel Report of England & Wales for the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
Dr Lauren Wroe
Lauren is the Safeguarding Lead and Health and Safety Lead on the board of trustees and also a case coordinator for our independent social work reports. She is a registered social worker with 11 years’ experience in the statutory and non-statutory sectors. Lauren has been involved in migrant justice activism for 20 years and co-founded Social Workers Without Borders, following her time volunteering in Leros, Greece in 2016.
Lauren is an Associate Professor in the Sociology Department at Durham University where she is in the management team for the Contextual Safeguarding research programme. She is co-editor of the book ‘Social Work with Refugees, Asylum Seekers and Migrants: Theory and Skills for Practice’ (Jessica Kingsley).
Molly Abraham
Molly is a UK registered social worker with experience in leaving care teams, working predominantly with separated children. She has worked in the forced migration field since 2010 and currently works as Head of Casework at CARAS, an organisation based in London working with people seeking asylum. Previously Molly has worked at a social work centre in Southern Morocco and has spent time volunteering in both Greece and Calais.
Dr Bridget Ng’andu
Bridget has over 25 years of experience in social work practice and education. She has practised social work in a range of settings including in a primary school in Botswana, and as a frontline children and families social worker in the UK.
Bridget is currently a Senior Lecturer and Director of Studies: Social Work at the University of Kent. She is also co-Chair of the Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic Staff Network at the University. Her research interests include race and ethnic studies, anti-racist and radical social work and social work with refugees and asylum seekers. Bridget has volunteered with Social Workers Without Borders since 2016 as Case Coordinator and Trustee.
Erfan Alaei
Erfan is a UK registered social worker. While studying for his Bachelor of Social Work in Iran he voluntarily worked with refugees and people with disabilities there. Erfan holds a Masters in Human Resource Management from the University of Lancaster. He is currently working in Human Resources as a Senior HR Adviser. Moreover, he is a person with lived experience of the UK’s asylum system and offers invaluable insight into the challenges facing people seeking safety in the UK. In response to his experiences of the ‘hostile environment’ policy context, Erfan is a political organiser and campaigner.
Jamie Bell
Jamie is a Solicitor in the Public Law and Immigration Department at Duncan Lewis Solicitors. He brings extensive knowledge and skills in immigration and asylum law to the Board. Jamie has significant experience in a wide variety of complex and high profile cases, including: litigation that has prevented the detention and removal of hundreds of Afghan nationals; extensive experience dealing with vulnerable clients, including those in detention, those suffering from complex psychological issues and victims of torture and trafficking; and giving advice and support to unaccompanied refugee children in their applications to come to the UK under the ‘Dubs Amendment’. Jamie is a Recommended Individual in the 2019, 2020 and 2021, 2024 editions of The Legal 500 for his work involving civil liberties and human rights. He was nominated for Public Lawyer of the Year at the LALYS in 2022. His involvement with SWWB began in 2016 when he worked alongside social workers in Calais.
Steering Group
The steering group consists of 23 social workers practitioners, all of whom have a specific interest and commitment to this area of work and are active volunteers in one of the strands of our work. The steering group give hundreds of hours of practical support across a range of tasks. This includes acting as a case coordinators to support volunteer social workers to complete assessments, delivering workshops and lectures, writing content for our newsletter, and contributing to our social media.
The steering group is made up of social workers who have extensive experience and expertise across all areas of statutory social care, and in specialist third sector organisations working with refugees, asylum-seekers, and migrants.
