Our patrons

Peter Bently – children’s author

Charlie Condou – actor and LGBT families advocate

Mick Hucknall – singer

David Lammy MP

Tim Loughton MP

Nigel Planer – actor and author of ‘A Good Enough Dad’

Sir Tony Robinson – actor and TV presenter

Leroy Rosenior – anti-racism campaigner and football pundit

Baroness Stedman-Scott

Chuka Umunna MP

Our trustees

Jack O’Sullivan, Chair

Jack leads a consultancy that helps university research to increase its impact on government, mainly in health and social policy, and is co-author of several studies on NHS reform.  He is a father, stepfather, godfather and uncle and is keen to learn how to do each role and particularly about how to play. To find out more, he interviews researchers into child development for the Child and Family Blog and writes about early learning for the Jacobs Foundation. He also co-authored ‘He’s Having a Baby’, a BBC guide to fatherhood and helped set up the Fatherhood Institute. Before becoming a dad, Jack was an Associate Editor and leader writer at the Independent and he still writes occasionally for the Guardian.  He studied Philosophy, Politics and Economics at Oxford University and was a Harkness Fellow at New York University. On holidays, he plays Irish music on the fiddle, whistle and guitar quite badly, but his singing is better and less embarrassing than his dancing and acting.

Will McDonald

Will McDonald is UK and Ireland Public Policy Director at Aviva. Previously Will worked in the Treasury, the Dept for Work and Pensions and DCLG as a Special Adviser to Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP between 2007 and 2010. Will also managed the public affairs team at the Commission for Racial Equality and worked for 5 years in Parliament as a researcher. He has degrees from Leeds University and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, and was Chair of a primary school governing body for 7 years. Will and his wife have two young children.

Yusuf Chadun

Yusuf lives and breathes the daily challenges and joy of being a hands on father of three children aged 6 and under. He is a co-founder of an innovative solution for working families, the Third Door – the UK’s first shared workhub with an onsite nursery, allowing parents to work close to their child and be part of a community of like-minded professional parents. He has 20 years experience within the technology and management Consulting sector, having worked in both corporates (BT, PwC, Accenture and Dell) and several start-ups. Yusuf also holds an MBA.

Shaddai is a former early years practitioner who has worked in a variety of settings and in family support. He is a lecturer in Early Childhood Studies, supporting delivery to students at Bath Spa University and for the Pre-School Education (China) programme, taught at Hunan University of Humanities, Science and Technology (HUHST), Hunan Province, China. Shaddai has written for a range of academic and other publications about racism, heteronormativity and gender in early years education, and sits on the steering group of our MITEY campaign.