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Meet Our Management Team

Would you like to become a Trustee of Age UK H&W?

Could you use your experience to help us make a difference to older people across Herefordshire & Worcestershire? We always welcome expressions of interest for new Trustees.

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Julia Neal - CEO

As our CEO, Julia leads the charity on a day-to-day basis, delivering our strategy with the aim of improving the lives of older people.  In practice this involves a real mix of things from working with partners, developing staff and engaging with a wide range of organisations and individuals to better understand the needs of older people and how we can work together to make sure those needs are met.

Julia has worked in a variety of roles which has provided her with a good grounding for being CEO for Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire, as well as developing her passion for improving the lives of older people. 

She is a registered nurse and has held senior clinical roles including Cardiology Matron at Worcester Royal Hospital where she commissioned the Cardiac Catheter Lab and set up Nurse led services, including county wide Community Heart Failure .

Julia’s charity experience includes working for the British Heart Foundation and most recently, the Director of Education for a national training charity, Education for Health. She is a Senior Fellow of the HEA and has held academic roles including as External Examiner for Birmingham City University. 

Julia returned to Worcestershire in 2019 to develop experience in commissioning and worked for the CCG on several projects.  During Covid she took on the role of Commissioning Lead for Palliative and End of Life Care and worked with the statutory and voluntary sector to develop the palliative and end of life care response.  She also developed the system wide approach to ReSPECT and digital Advanced Care Planning. Julia is also a Trustee for KEMP Hospice in the Wyre Forest.

  • Jude Henderson - Director of Service Improvement

    Jude oversees operations within Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire and works with a team of Service Managers to provide a range of offers to improve later life.  Her role also has a focus on quality improvement, to continually assess what we do to make sure we meet the developing needs of our clients and stakeholders.

    During Jude’s time at Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire, she has made great strides with the development of our dementia services, increasing our Meeting Centres from one to six venues across the two counties.

    Jude’s career has always involved working within the Voluntary and Community Sector delivering a range of roles supporting older people with access to services.

  • Sonya Murray - Service Manager Information, Advice & Training

    Sonya is responsible for the teams that deliver Information & Advice, the Referral Hub, Veterans Services, and the Training Team. Her role involves the day-to-day management of these services and the support of the staff who deliver them.

    Sonya and her team hold the Advice Quality Standard, which confirms that we offer a quality assured service. It demonstrates our commitment to providing consistent, relevant, and effective advice; to customer care, and that our service has clear and relevant procedures in place to manage the delivery of good quality information and advice to clients.

    Prior to joining Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire, Sonya worked in the NHS as Associate Chief Nurse in a large Acute Trust responsible for Workforce, Education and Professional Standards. She has a background covering clinical practice, healthcare education and senior operational management. Sonya is also a qualified management coach and mentor.

  • Rachael Ford - Home Support Service Manager

    Rachael oversees our Home Support services, which enable our beneficiaries to live independently in their home for as long as possible. Her team supports people in many ways, such as helping them return home from hospital safely, helping people around the house in a variety of ways and looking after their feet. Her role ensures that all services are delivered to a high-quality standard.

    Rachael finds her role rewarding, however working with a team who show so much passion for what they do is just fabulous.

    Rachael has over 15 years of experience working in public services for a range of ages, which has included delivering high quality services to improve wellbeing and independence. After finishing her degree in Health Development, she started her career in weight management delivering seated exercise sessions to the over 50’s, which mainly involved playing ABBA on repeat.

  • Kelly Reeves - Dementia Service Manager

    Kelly is responsible for the effective delivery of our Dementia Wellbeing Service, along with Maintenance Cognitive Stimulation Therapy (MCST) courses, dementia cafes and dementia meeting centres to support people with a dementia diagnosis and their carers. 

    She is keen to see the continued growth of Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire dementia services and the variety of activities and support we are able to provide to people living with dementia in the county. 

    Kelly’s previous roles have included working for the NHS and service management of the administration function of diabetic eye screening programmes up and down the country. 

  • Caroline Savage - Social Inclusion and Wellbeing Service Manager

    Caroline’s role is to create opportunities for people to get involved with activities and groups to improve people’s social interactions and promote emotional & physical wellbeing. All activities are designed to be fun, engaging and meaningful.

    Our Walking Football sessions have been popular and now have around 20 people attending each week. They organise friendly tournaments against other local groups, there has been a visit from the Minister of Sport and a local MP, and fun Christmas get togethers!

    Caroline has a background in fundraising, and she has worked for Oxfam and the British Red Cross.  She loves working with people and creating opportunities where communities and individuals can make a difference to others through working together.  

  • Gillian Tythacott - Herefordshire Service Manager

    Gillian’s role is to develop and manage a range of services within Herefordshire which include, Information and Advice, Digital Inclusion, Home from Hospital, Help at Home and Handyman Service.  She is also working on transforming our Drybridge Centre in Hereford to provide a range of activities and services to support older people.

    She is proud of what the Herefordshire Team has achieved in such a short time. Within a few months, they have launched the Help at Home and Handyman Service and provided free energy checks to residents across the County. They have also set up a much-needed Home from Hospital service to help with the discharge of patients from hospital.

    Gillian joined Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire from Age Cymru Gwent where she had worked for 13 years, managing a range of services and providing a will writing service. 

  • Lucy Caden-Robinson - Communications and Marketing Manager

    Lucy oversees our growing Communications and Marketing team and ensures that we make as many people as possible aware of the great work that we do at Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire. Lucy has recently joined the team and has been looking at how our message is being received by the people that need our services most and anyone who can support us with what we do.

    Lucy has a wide range of marketing management experience from a variety of industries including finance, professional sport, sustainable goods, manufacturing, and software. She now finds herself at Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire, as she wants to use this experience to make a real difference to people’s lives.

  • Johanna Shearman - Finance and Information Manager

    Johanna is responsible for the day-to-day management of our finance department and prepares our month and annual Charity finances. She comes to Age UK H&W with ten years experience of working within finance departments, including four years in a finance outsource company, working with a range of industries.

    Johanna is currently AAT Level 4 qualified and is working towards achieving her ACCA.

  • Jared Shinnie - IT Development Manager

    Jared's role is to manage and develop our organisation's use of IT, providing technical support to his colleagues. Jared is new to the role and is keen to progress and improve the organisation's use of technology and our IT literacy.

    Jared joined Age UK Herefordshire & Worcestershire four years ago, and has worked in several departments during this time, from organising Podiatry appointments to managing our Handyperson & Gardening service.