Meet The Board
All charities are governed by a Board of Trustees (BOT) and our charity is no different; our Board makes sure we are true to our mission and vision and to our Articles of Association. They lead us by ensuring that we guide and communicate the practical tools to enable many to experience a better way of life and recovery from mental illness.
Our Board members have a passion for what we do as an organisation however some of our trustees have been touched by mental illness, either through a personal experience of mental illness or through that of family members or friends. Our Board also includes people with professional experience in mental health provision, support services and within the nursing and teaching profession.
We also have a working committee which governs the work we do for our Uberheroes programme. We are always interested to hear from individuals who have a heart for our work, a passion for shaping a positive future of recognition and change and offer additional skills and experience – Are you interested to hear more? Would you like to be part of our board or our working committee? If so then please apply through our contact us page.
Please note this is not a paid role as we are governed by the Northern Ireland Charity Commission and in line with charitable law and our articles; no member of our governance committee can be paid.
Stephen Greyston
Chair
I have been practising as a solicitor for approximately 17 years, in England and in Northern Ireland. On qualifying as a solicitor in 2007, I specialised in criminal defence litigation and regularly represented clients charged in relation to a variety of criminal offences. It was clear to me that the majority of individuals labelled as criminals suffered from a range of mental health problems, including anxiety, depression and substance misuse. Since qualifying, I spent a number of years working in private practice before commencing a role in the public sector in 2011.
When I joined the Hope 4 Life Board in 2019, I was very impressed with the energy and commitment which they showed in their mission of delivering programmes emphasising prevention and early intervention concerning mental health.
It is a great privilege to contribute to the mission of Hope 4 Life.
Cara Taylor
Deputy Chair
Cara is a communications manager in financial services with 15 years’ experience in business development and marketing. An advocate of children’s wellbeing, Cara previously sat on the board of another local charity for children’s health and has proudly been on the board of Hope 4 Life since 2022.
Nicola Murray
Treasurer
Nicola is a fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland. She has 11 years’ experience working as a Finance Manager in a variety of public sector organisations, and 4 years working as an external auditor. Nicola has since moved into Project Management as she enjoys working to add value and helping to identify efficiencies through optimising processes and people to realise benefits.
Victoria McLaughlin
Victoria McLaughlin is a highly motivated individual with twenty years’ experience as a self-employed Barrister practicing in family, children and matrimonial law. Victoria specialises in cases involving child contact disputes, domestic violence and family finances upon breakdown. Through her work she has developed effective relationships with many professional stakeholders, operating often in challenging environments and has recently also taken up a position in Policy & Research for the Alliance Party.
Kate Doyle
Kate has a long career in social work and education, working for many years in the field of social work training in a Health and Social Care Trust and as a tutor for The Open University. This tutoring role covered the areas of community care, social work and mental health. Many students undertaking these courses faced challenges with their own mental health. Kate has a particular interest in the human rights of individuals with, she completed a Masters in Law, she is passionate about continuous professional development.
David Nixon
David has worked within the private and public sectors with Short Bros and within the Northern Ireland Civil Service. Most recently he has spent a lot of time helping those who are at risk or marginalised within our society working with organisations such as Housing Association, Extern, Barnardo’s, Pips and ourselves and has been a member of our board since 2018.
Nathaniel Hamilton
Nathaniel graduated from QUB with a BSc. in Computer Science. He is currently working in retail in Belfast. Growing up in Nigeria he has a breadth of cultural experience beyond Northern Ireland. He has been a fan of comic books since he was about 6 and has had an interest in Uberheroes since day one, reading each of the comics in draft form and giving his input from volume 1. Nathaniel brings an interest in, and understanding of the online world, an understanding of youth culture, in at least some of its many guises, an interest in all things comic oriented and experience of working with children and young people.