Jennie McShannon

I've recently joined Tavistock Consulting, part of the Tavistock and Portman NHS Trust, and work with leaders in organisations, networks and partnerships to unravel the emotional life of the system. What is the irrational and unconscious stuff that stops people from working together and stops great ideas from making a difference? My role is to support the people in the system to figure some of this out.

I have twenty years experience in the voluntary sector, primarily developing services in partnership with the people who use them so they have more impact. Some of my favourites have been street based detox access for rough sleepers, engaging Gypsy and Traveller women and piloting assertive mental health outreach services.

I spent six busy years as CEO of a national membership body for Irish voluntary sector organisations in Britain where I worked on key policy issues such as health inequalities, built a collective voice across race equality groups and mobilised whole community health and census campaigns.

I've mixed lots of time with people in grassroots services with lots of policy and politics- addressing select committees both here and in Ireland, working with MPs to create an active All Party Parliamentary Group, speaking on NI peace process and Ireland’s diaspora policy -including democratic enfranchisement.

In between this I’ve trained leaders in local government and the civil service in how to apply system-thinking concepts to their work… and enjoyed a short time with the Point People’s Systems Changers Programme.