Bernadine Burnell FCCA

Chair of Trustees

On a voluntary basis, Bernadine has chaired a number of charitable organisations over the past ten years, including the Mid Sussex Branch of NCT. In 2008, she was appointed to the Board of Trustees of The Baby Cafe Charitable Trust and in 2009 took on the role of Chair to develop a strategy of sustainability and expansion for the BCCT operating model.

In her professional career, Bernadine is a qualified accountant and currently works for a large life insurance company where she heads up the Life & Pensions Reporting function. Prior to this, she has worked in various FD roles.

Bernadine is married with children and lives in West Sussex.

Marilyn Rogers MSc, RGN, RM, IBCLC

Trustee

Marilyn is an experienced midwife and currently works in a specialist role as Infant Feeding Advisor implementing the strategy for gaining and maintaining the UNICEF UK Baby Friendly Initiative in the maternity unit. She is Lead Professional at Calderdale Baby Cafe  and a La Leche League Peer Counsellor Programme Administrator training peer counsellors in a community with a deeply entrenched formula feeding culture.

Marilyn lectures at the University of Huddersfield on a broad range of lactation topics to pre and post registration midwives and nurses and is Chair the Halifax Branch of the Royal College of Midwives.

She is married with 4 children.

Julie Osborne B Ed (Hons)

Trustee

Julie Osborne trained as a teacher and taught for 7 years in between having her own two children. She left teaching with the intention of becoming a breastfeeding counsellor and along the way trained to become a doula and birth educator.
After learning the ropes as a volunteer at the John Radcliffe Breastfeeding Clinic, she set up the first Baby Café in Oxford in 2006, and then raised funds to start a mobile Baby Café in a converted bus, which provides Baby Cafe sessions in and around Oxford. She and her team manage ten Baby Cafe drop-ins in the area.
Julie has been an active member of Oxfordshire Maternity Services Liaison Committee for four years and was chair for the last two years. She loves her job supporting mums and babies from all backgrounds with breastfeeding.

Liz Ginty BSc RGN HV dip MSc Health Ed

Trustee

Liz is a health visitor, working currently as a Community Infant Feeding Advisor in Greenwich, one of the two London PCTs to achieve stage two UNICEF BFI accreditation. She has been lead facilitator at Storkway Baby Café (formerly Eltham) since 2005 and involved with the Greenwich MUM2MUM breastfeeding peer support project in this role.

Liz has been unfortunately described as ‘the oldest member’ in her local NCT branch, is an NCT breastfeeding counsellor and member of the NCT breastfeeding peer support steering group.

She is married with three children. 

Malcolm Ashton

Trustee

Malcolm has been an active NCT member for over 21 years, during which time he has held various branch posts and now serves on the board. He has an academic background in the social sciences and his professional background is in social work.

Malcolm is especially passionate about inclusivity, in its widest sense.

Julie Stein Hodgins

Trustee

Julie has served on the NCT board for more than 5 years. She is an NCT Breastfeeding Counsellor and still involved with her local branch in Calderdale, Halifax.

As NCT Honorary Secretary, she is Chair of the NCT Nomination and Governance Committee.

Helen Ableman

Trustee

With a background in healthcare management Helen has been involved with breastfeeding peer support and a stop smoking service.  More recently she has worked for the General Medical Council (GMC) and for the Nursing and Midwifery Council (NMC) as Head of Business Development. 

She is currently a full time mum to her baby daughter.