I am a freelance consultant who works with civil society organisations, funders, and the public sector, primarily on research, learning and strategy projects. I am also a qualified coach and action learning set facilitator, and bring my facilitation skills into all the work I do, whether that is running learning programmes, supporting senior teams in their leadership of organisations, or bringing together partners to identify common goals and strategic priorities. I work with a range of clients in my freelance work, and am also an associate with Innovation Unit, Koreo, Renaisi and New Local.
Before going freelance, I worked in in Government as the Assistant Director of Communities and Social Policy at the GLA for three years, and in social policy and research roles at the new economics foundation for almost ten years. In that time, I was lucky enough to take on a Clore Social Leadership Fellowship, which led to secondments with the Frameworks Institute and the Office for Civicl Society in the Cabinet Office. In 2019, when I left the GLA, I was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust fellowship, which enabled me to spend several months conducting an original piece of research into anchor organisations across North America and Australia.
I have held a number of trustee and non executive roles on boards in the NHS and charity sector, including as the Chair of Haringey Giving, a place based funder and giving initiative and lay member roles within the NHS, including with Tower Hamlets CCG and Haringey GP Federation, with a focus on public and community engagement, and equalities.
I am an avid learner, and am always interested in new ideas, tools and approaches. I have a degree in History from the University of Bristol, and a Masters in Internationl Politics from SOAS. I have also undertaken leadership development programmes with the Harvard Kennedy School on ‘Leading Change’, and an extensive range of coaching and facilitation training, including Executive Coaching, Team Coaching and Quality Improvement coaching. More recently, I have learning about non violent communication and psychologically informed approaches to group facilitation.
Outside of work I am an avid potter, which I post about here, on Instragram. You can also find me on Linke’d In.
I work with clients to help them in a range of ways, and have shared some examples below. Get in touch if you have something in mind I might be able to support with: if it isn’t something I can help with, I am likely to know someone who can!
- Review their strategic focus, goals and objectives: this can involve facilitating end to end strategy processes with the organisation and its board, developing theories of change and impact frameworks, conducting horizon scans and research or stakeholder engagement work to inform strategic decisions. I have recently supported NASP (The national academy for social prescribing), The Young Women’s Trust and The Child Poverty Action Group with similar work.
- Create spaces for learning, reflection and development: I design different types of learning programmes for organisations, from one off reflective learning events, to multi-year learning and evaluation programmes. This can include a range of methods including coaching, peer learning, action learning, facilitated group sessions and large multi-day retreats. The learning programmes that I work on often have a strong organisational development (OD) offer, which involves more active support to organisations, such as coaching, mentoring or training. Recently I have worked with the Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Q Community, London Funders, Warwickshire County Council, the National Lottery Community Fund and the Health Anchors Learning Network to deliver learning programmes and networks.
- Design and deliver research programmes to provide insights that help organisations take action: I have a particular focus on qualitative and participatory research methods, and work closely with clients to design meaningful research programmes that will help inform their work. This can include horizon scanning research, literature reviews, designing surveys, structured and semi structured interviews, focus groups and workshops and thematic analysis. I work with some brilliant copyeditors and graphic designers to create exciting and visual outputs that capture the insights and leave a legacy behind. Recently I have worked with Camden Council, Migration Exchange and the GLA to deliver research programmes to inform their strategy and policy work.
Facilitating team development sessions, away days and organisational retreats: I regularly work with clients to support their teams and boards to have energising and focused time out together. That might be some dedicated team development or group coaching sessions, an organisational away day, or multi-day retreats and convenings for large groups. I have worked on a number of events like this recently, both in the UK and abroad, including for the OPEN Network, Sport England, and Civitates and the AI Fund.
Julia Slay 