Our Team

Sally has always worked with children and families in a variety of settings, starting off her career as a Nursery Nurse after leaving school. She qualified as a Social Worker almost 27 years ago and has worked in Adoption and Fostering for most of the time since. For the last 18 years Sally has enjoyed the opportunity to manage a range of different services within Local Authorities and Voluntary Agencies and has gained management qualifications along the way.

Over the years Sally has had a chance to work with a diverse range of Agencies across the UK. She has been a Vice Chair for a busy Local Authority Panel and is currently the Independent Chair of an Adoption Panel for a VAA in her spare time.

Sally is a mother, a proud grandmother and, as an adopter herself, her passion lies with Adoption, witnessing the fantastic outcomes and experiencing for herself what a joy it can be.

Mairead O’Sullivan has been a registered social worker for 20 years. Her background is in management specialising in mother and baby, child protection and court work. She has worked in the field of fostering and adoption for the past 10 years and began working for Adopters for Adoption in September 2017 as a permanent member of staff as principal social worker for the South and panel advisor.

Mairead lives with her partner and two little girls in London. In their spare time they love to walk with the girls and 5 year old cocker spaniel and spend most time transporting the girls from one activity to another. Mairead says: "I am excited to be joining the panel and look forward to working with the team".

Mahongo joined Adopters for Adoption, as a Team Manager, in October 2021 but has been part of AFA since 2014 as an Independent Social Worker. She has been delighted to witness AFA’s development from its inception, and is keen to contribute to consolidating the agency’s position as a beacon child and adopter-focused agency.

Having qualified as a social worker in 1992, Mahongo has substantive experience in statutory child protection services, gaining management qualifications as her career progressed. Her roles in statutory services included locality management of statutory social work teams and oversight of a locality early help family support service under the Sure Start programme. This experience gives her insight into safeguarding services and the delivery of early help for children and families, including children with Special Educational Needs and Disability (SEND) as she served as chair of a SEND resource allocation panel. Having worked in England and South Wales, Mahongo has good grasp of cross-border issues that can impact family life, particularly when children are placed across local authority and national boundaries.  She is a strong advocate for families and is keen to support adoptive families navigate the complexities of adoption support services to access the early help they need to thrive.

Mahongo has keen interest in performance management and enabling practice improvement and learning.

In her spare time, she volunteers for a faith charity, loves gardening, cooking and baking, and looks forward to enjoying grandma time.

Penny has been a qualified social worker for 28 years. She has worked with children and families in the safeguarding arena and later as a therapeutic social worker. In 2003 she coordinated the development and delivery of mental health services for Looked After Children across social care, health and education for two years.

Penny qualified as a play therapist 19 years ago and has worked independently as both a social worker and play therapist. She has delivered training to a wide range of professionals, foster carers and adoptive parents on areas such as attachment, child development, the impact of trauma and abuse and communicating with children.

Penny joined Adopters For Adoption five years ago and has enjoyed every minute of her time working with our adopters and their children, when they have arrived!

Angela began working for Core Assets Children’s Services in April 2017 as an Independent Support Administrator, moving on to Senior Administrator Assistant, overseeing and co-ordinating administrative skills to Family Fund and Children’s Services contracts.

She has worked in the care sector for over 20 years, working with Vulnerable Adults and Children within a private home setting, providing administrative and customer support roles and staff training.

Angela is really looking forward to working with Adopters for Adoption, learning all the new processes and seeing the outcomes that this wonderful service provides.

April has worked in the health, social care and private sector for almost 30 years. Her responsibilities have ranged from managing a telesales division, field sales, account management and marketing for a social care recruitment and resourcing organisation. Prior to joining AFA April’s role was in recruitment and marketing for an independent fostering agency for 10 years.

At Adopters for Adoption April has been responsible for the marketing/family finding for the last 5 years and is now the full time dedicated family finder for the agency. April works with our approved adopters, their supporting social workers and authorities across the UK to enable them to find the right child for their family.

Heather qualified with a Diploma in Social Work and M.A in Social Work in 1995 and has worked with both adults and children. She has experience of completing fostering and adoption assessments as well as offering post adoption support. Heather has also worked as a Supervising Social Worker for families who foster where she has gained experience in helping families to care for children whose behaviour is complex and challenging.

Heather has personal experience of adoption and is passionate about adoption as a means of finding forever families for children who cannot remain with their birth families. She is proud to have been a contributor to books on both adoption and parenting.

Having enjoyed working as an Independent Social Worker for Adopters for Adoption for the last three years, Heather is delighted to be joining the team as a permanent member of staff.

Heather lives in the South of England with her partner, two children, labradoodle “Hamish” and cat “Bella”.

Karen has worked with children and families in statutory and voluntary agencies for over 30 years, with a primary focus on adoption, fostering and kinship care. Karen was awarded a master's degree in Social work from Warwick university, in 2010, returning to the local authority, where she has gained a great deal of experience in her field, including court work, child protection work and life story work, along with training adopters and foster carers.

She is a practice educator and has sat on adoption and fostering panels, and worked as a senior practitioner before deciding to work independently. She began working for Adopters for Adoption in 2018 as an independent social worker, and enjoyed her time so much, that she decided to make it a permanent arrangement!

Karen, who lives in the West Midlands, has two adult children. When not at work, or in her sewing room, Karen can be found exploring the countryside in her newly restored motorhome, along with her partner Pete and their manic Border Collie Taz. She is very much looking forward to joining the AFA family and being a part of this amazing team!

Jane completed her MA in Social Work in 2005 and has since worked in both Local Authority and Voluntary settings. Jane has spent the last ten years specialising in adoption work which is her passion. Jane has experience of working in all different stages of the adoption process from assessment work and matching through to adoption support, tracing and intermediary services.

Jane has also enjoyed completing therapeutic work with children and their adoptive parents. Jane has qualifications in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP) and Theraplay. In addition to this Jane has experience as an Independent Panel Member for a Voluntary Adoption Agency. In 2017 Jane was shortlisted to the final four for Adoption Social Worker of The Year at the National Adoption Awards.

Katie Sprague, who is our Business Support Officer for Adopters for Adoption has 9 years’ experience within the Children Services Sector. Katie provides solid business and administration skills and has also worked on improving and maintaining business systems, contract co-ordination and staff training.

Working with a team of Qualified Associate Therapists, Katie currently co-ordinates the Adoption support and Therapy Services within the team to ensure that all adoptive families receive the quality post support services that AFA has to offer.

Carol has worked in administration in a fostering environment for the past 12 years in a variety of roles including the placements team, area office administrator, fostering advisor and panel co-ordinator.

Using this experience to adapt her expertise to adoption and in her current role she encompasses everything from being the first point of contact for potential adopters to entering assessment and coordinating preparation training.

Lianne has over 7 years’ experience within the hospitality industry, undertaking a wide range of administration duties and delivering highly personalised customer service on a daily basis.

At Adopters for Adoption, Lianne undertakes the reference checks for prospective adopters that are in stage one of the process, working towards achieving the two month timeline. She also assists in the marketing for the agency.

Lianne has really enjoyed her time at Adopters for Adoption so far, and loves the passion that the whole team gives to providing the best outcome for children and families.

Sarah joined Core Assets in 2014 working in the Parenting Team, also facilitating Gateway groups raising awareness and supporting people who were or had experienced domestic abuse. Sarah is the manager for AFAs adoption support overseeing the evidenced based interventions that support the parenting of children who have experienced early life trauma.

Sarah's working life has been dedicated to helping and supporting others, before joining Core Assets Sarah worked within a youth offenders unit and a semi- independent home for teenagers and Sarah also worked as a volunteer for the Samaritans. Sarah firstly gained her advanced diploma in counselling and psychotherapy, and then went onto qualify and train in Triple P – 0-12 and Triple P teens, Gateway, Solution focused brief therapy, Video Feedback Positive Parenting –Sensitive Discipline (VIPP-SD)

Sarah is passionate about her work, and said that she felt truly honoured receiving the award for “Adoption Support Practitioner of the year” at the National Adoption week 2018.

Kirsty joined Adopters for Adoption in 2017 and for the last 2 years has been supporting the evidenced based intervention that supports the parenting of children who have experienced early life trauma.

Kirsty’s working life has been dedicated to helping and supporting others, before joining Core Assets Kirsty’s roles have involved working with children and disabilities, children in care and child protection, working alongside parents with alcohol and substance misuse and running parenting groups. Kirsty firstly gained a degree in Early Childhood Studies and then went onto qualify and train in Triple P Teens, Solution focused brief therapy and is a trained Theraplay practitioner.

Kirsty is passionate about her work and helping make a positive change for children and families.

As the former CEO of Adopters for Adoption Sally successfully set up Adopters for Adoption in 2014

With over 40 years working in social care she has always been committed to permanency, raising quality standards for children and their families and improving outcomes.

Having recently retired Sally has maintained her links with Adopters for Adoption by becoming the Agency Decision Maker

Sally’s widespread knowledge and understanding of children’s social care includes child protection, early intervention, fostering and adoption. She is able to draw on her experience of working with looked after children and adopters to support Adopters for Adoption in approving adopters.