The Team at Children's Law Centre

CLC Management Committee

Trása Canavan

Trása Canavan is the Senior Policy & Public Affairs Lead for Barnardo’s NI. Trása works closely with the wide range of services delivered by Barnardo’s NI, to understand the realities facing children in Northern Ireland and uses this evidence to shape policy to achieve the best outcomes for children.

Deborah Drury

Deborah Drury has worked in education for over twenty years and has a particular interest in special educational needs and neurodiversity. She has experience of directing whole-school policy and implementing initiatives to improve literacy amongst children at post-primary level. Her doctoral degree researched the capacity of emerging technologies to help reduce anxiety among autistic children. She is a Patron of the National Autistic Society in Northern Ireland and is passionate about giving all children a voice in policy related to their needs. Deborah is currently working in the business sector and is Managing Director of her family-run art company.

Duane Farrell

Duane Farrell has been working in the Community and Voluntary sector in Northern Ireland for over 20 years. During that time, he has worked within the LGB&T community, as well as with older people and children & young people. In these roles, he has developed services, led campaigns and worked to influence legislation and policy.

Currently, Duane is the Secretary and Chief Executive of The Honourable, The Irish Society, a Commissioner with the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland and a Trustee of Grow NI.

Jerome Finnegan

Jerome is the Policy and Practice Impact Adviser at Save the Children. He has worked on a wide range of issues, from early education to climate change to poverty, and experience of working with children and families to campaign for change.

Jerome is committed to human rights and working collaboratively with others to achieve positive social change.

Chris Haugh

Chris Haugh is a Chartered Accountant, currently working as Claims Team Manager within Invest Northern Ireland. He has more than 10 years post qualification experience working within finance, audit, risk and governance roles in a wide variety of organisations in the public, private and third sector. As a member of the CLC Board and Finance, Audit and Risk Committee, Chris applies his financial skills to assist in the effective governance of the Centre.

Brian Moss

Brian is a Solicitor with Worthington's Solicitors where he specialises in judicial review litigation and disputes involving public law and human rights issues in a wide range of areas, with a particular interest in educational law, and in immigration.

Amanda Stewart

Amanda is part of the Senior Management Team at Northern Ireland Youth Forum. She leads on projects that are mainly focussed on housing, homelessness and mental health, ensuring that young people have their voices heard and are involved in decisions that affect their lives. Amanda is currently studying to become a psychotherapist as well as being a mummy to three amazing and lively boys! In her very limited spare time she likes to run (a little bit) and does yoga.

Shirelle Stewart

Shirelle is the Northern Ireland Director for the National Autistic Society. There are an estimated 700,000 people with autism in the UK and the society provides a range of services and supports to help them and their families.

Alicia Toal

Alicia is the Chief Executive of Voice of Young People In Care (VOYPIC) a children’s charity that promotes the rights and voice of children in care, aiming to ensure that every child has a safe, stable, and positive experience of care and is involved in decisions about their life.