Khulisa are delighted to announce the appointment of an Interim CEO, Jodie Wickers.
Jodie is the successor to Cara Cinnamon, who, after 6 years with Khulisa, will be taking on a new role at Mission 44 (founded in 2021 by Sir Lewis Hamilton), where she will continue to support young people who’ve experienced disadvantage.
Khulisa’s Chair Jean-Marc Morel said:
“Jodie steps into the CEO role with a wealth of experience across youth work, education and therapeutic settings. She is a qualified youth worker and Criminologist, with a Masters from the Tavistock and Portman NHS in Systemic Leadership. Jodie’s passion and expertise in systems change, and growing charities that deliver high quality therapeutic services for young people, has come at a brilliant time for Khulisa as we enter this next stage of rapid transition, development and growth. Her vision, authenticity and inclusive leadership style will drive Khulisa through the challenges ahead.”
Jodie has been Khulisa’s Director of Partnerships and Programmes since 2020. Since then, she has helped Khulisa to navigate the Covid-19 pandemic, tripled the size of the delivery team, doubled our reach to support 46,181 young people and adults in 21/22s. She is a champion of trauma-informed work and the chair of Khulisa’s Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging committee. Before joining Khulisa, Jodie held senior leadership positions in organisations offering a variety of therapeutic services to young people in care. Most notably, Jodie pioneered the development of a new £1.2m therapeutic unit for young women. The unit, the first of its kind in the UK, advocated for choice-based approaches in managing psychiatric and complex risks. It went on to achieve a reputation of outstanding service delivery and high levels of engagement and transformation with marginalised young women.
Jodie says:
“I feel enormously privileged to take on the leadership role at Khulisa on the next stage of its journey. We are tackling the social and emotional wellbeing crisis that young people and their support networks face and as someone with lived experience of exclusion and working in alternative provision settings, I am so passionate about making real, long lasting change for as many young people as possible.”