Meet the team

Diana is Head of the CYPIC Programme and is passionate about helping others to apply the rigour of QI thinking to get better outcomes for children, young people and families. She has almost thirty years’ experience as a public servant, across a range of corporate and delivery areas, and has spent much of her career supporting and enabling Improvement. She is a graduate of the IHI Improvement Advisor Development Programme and an ILM Level 7 Executive Coach.

Catriona Hayes is Portfolio Lead for early years. She completed the IHI Improvement Adviser Development Programme in 2012, and spent several years in the Leading Improvement Team in Scottish Government providing support to apply QI thinking across a wide range of policy areas before joining CYPIC in 2021. She is a statistician by background, starting in academia before joining the Government Statistical Service in 1999.

Gavin Russell is Portfolio Lead for children’s services priorities and family support. He graduated from the IHI Advisor Development Programme in 2014 and is a qualified Executive Coach, having worked as an Improvement Coach using QI and EFQM methods since 2010. He has supported improvement programmes in Local Authorities, Health and Social Care Partnerships, NHS Boards and in national roles while working for HIS and the Scottish Government.

Marie-Claire Stallard is Portfolio Lead for education, currently working on embedding QI within the education sector. Since graduating from the IHI Advisor Development Programme in 2013, she has worked as an improvement advisor in early years, education and healthcare. She has held roles in strategy and corporate planning, most recently developing a standard approach to quality management in Scotland before joining Scottish Government in 2021.

Jan Adair is an Improvement Advisor working on embedding QI within the education sector. She graduated from Northern College Dundee with a Bachelor of Education (Hons) and started her career as a primary teacher in 1997. She worked as a Depute Head and Head Teacher in schools within Fife Council before completing the Scottish Improvement Leader (ScIL) Programme and joining Scottish Government in 2020.

Julie Wild is an Improvement Advisor supporting the ELC QI Learning Exchange and wider early years portfolio. Her professional background was an engineer in the automotive industry and her passion for QI was ignited in those early days. She has also worked in the Third Sector with experience in early years and parental engagement in education and health services. A graduate of the SCiL Programme, she has been involved with CYPIC since the Early Years Collaborative.

Laura Haggarty is an Improvement Advisor supporting Element 2 of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund. From working in the NHS as a Specialist Physiotherapist and discovering QI, Laura went on to work on a national improvement programme with the Care Inspectorate where she applied the rigour of QI to Intergenerational Practice.  Laura graduated from the ScIL Programme in 2018 and joined the CYPIC Team in 2020.

Lesley Ann Henderson is an Improvement Advisor supporting Element 2 of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund, ELC QI Learning Exchange and wider early years portfolio. She has 25 years experience as a public servant principally in the early years sector in local government. As a graduate from the ScIL Programme, she has spent much of her career supporting and enabling Improvement. She joined Scottish Government as a Professional Education Advisor to GIRFEC before joining CYPIC in 2020.

Marie-Claire Leese is an Improvement Advisor currently supporting policy colleagues to Keep the Promise. She was a Lead Speech and Language Therapist for 20 years before taking on a management role implementing the Parenting Framework in NHS Greater and Clyde in 2012.  She graduated from the IHI Improvement Advisor Development Programme in 2015 and joined Scottish Government in 2016.

Sacha Will is an Improvement Advisor supporting Element 2 of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund. After an initial career in banking, she began working with children and families in 1995 and knew immediately that improving outcomes for children was what she wanted to do. She graduated from the IHI Improvement Advisor Development Programme and worked collaboratively across operational and strategic roles in children’s services before joining CYPIC in 2020.

Steph Beringer is an Improvement Advisor supporting Element 2 of the Whole Family Wellbeing Fund.  She was an Occupational Therapist for 17 years, working within children and young people's services in the NHS, across outpatient and community settings in clinical, leadership and strategic development roles.  She has used QI since the Early Years Collaborative and completed the ScIL Programme. She joined Scottish Government in 2020.

Wendy Toner is an Improvement Advisor currently supporting policy colleagues to Keep the Promise. As a Speech and Language Therapist with over 25 years’ experience, Wendy has worked in a variety of clinical and leadership roles and was also a clinical tutor with Strathclyde University. She graduated from the IHI Improvement Advisor Development Programme in 2015 and joined Scottish Government in 2016.

Sarah Duncan is Programme Manager, providing support across the CYPIC national team and overseeing administration of the programme. She joined Scottish Government in 2009 as a policy administrator and progressed through a range of roles in education and early years before joining CYPIC in 2020. She achieved the APM Project Management Qualification in 2017.

Tracey McRae is Project Support Officer for the education portfolio as well as providing general support to the programme. She brings over 30 years’ administrative experience to the team, having worked in a range of education policy roles within Scottish Government before joining the CYPIC team.

Minerva Centenera Perez is Project Support Officer for the early years portfolio as well as providing general support to the programme. She joined Scottish Government in 2019 to provide support to the Children and Families Directorate before joining the CYPIC team.