Executive Directors
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Ross Barnett
Director
Ross began his career in 2001 working for the Local Authority as part of the specialist Looked After Children team. He also worked in the local authority’s mental health and long term child protection teams before setting up Channels and Choices with his colleagues in 2005. He is a Qualified Social Worker registered with the HCPC and he also has a degree in Psychology. Ross holds the registered manager’s award for children and young people and undertook the role of registered manager within Channels and Choices at the company’s inception in 2005. He also tutors professionals about managing conflict and appropriate physical interventions.
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Steve Davison
Director
Steve is a Director at Channels and Choices. He is a Qualified Social Worker with a Diploma in therapeutic child care. Steve has over 20 years experience working with children and their families. He has worked for the Local Authority as part of the Youth Service, Young Offenders team, Education Welfare and 7 years in a LA residential children’s home. Following his qualification as a Social Worker Steve worked for the Council’s Long- term & Child Protection Team before he helped form Channels and Choices.
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Martin Scholfield
Director
Martin has over 10 years experience working for Kent County Council working as both a residential and field social worker. Martin started his career in residential settings working with children and vulnerable adults. He worked at the Local Authority’s in-house specialist children’s home which catered for children with complex attachment difficulties for a number of years prior to Qualifying as a Social Worker. Martin then worked for the specialist ‘Looked after Children Team’ based in Thanet before he founded Channels and Choices in 2005.
Operational Directors
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Salwa Farid
Operational Director and Registered Manager
I have been a qualified social worker since 1994 and have extensive experience working with children and their families in different statutory settings (ie: Fostering, Adoption, Professional Standards, Quality Assurance, Child Protection, Looked After Children, Placement, Commissioning, and Safeguarding Partnership). Before joining Channels and Choices therapeutic community, I worked as a Head of Children Social Services in different local authorities. I am also a qualified workplace coach, and a practice educator.
My post graduate degree focused on the “attachment theory” and how it can be applied in both fostering and residential settings.
I have a diploma in Systemic Supervision which I use to ensure that the voices, views, and experiences of children are placed up front in supervising conversations.
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Kate Stephenson
Operational Director and Responsible Individual
Kate joined Channels and Choices in 2008 as a residential care worker and quickly progressed towards management. She was a key member in the pilot project of ‘Bearing the Unbearable’, led by Christine Bradley, as well as completing her level 3 Diploma in Health and Social care and level 5 in Leadership and Management. Kate has since progressed to Residential Services Senior Manager for our group living residential houses.
Heads of Departments
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Paulette Holliday
Director of Safeguarding & HR Consultant
Paulette has nearly 30 years experience working with children & their families within a Social Services setting and in various Education Provisions. She worked for the Local Authority for 16 years as a Social Work Assistant and Administration Manager in various teams such as the Asylum Team, Children in Care Team and Child Protection Team. Before joining Channels and Choices Paulette worked in both Primary & Secondary Schools as the Lead Safeguarding Manager & Children in Care Coordinator. Paulette has been a Lead Associate Trainer with Kent Safeguarding Children’s Multi-Agency Partnership for the last 17 years delivering Child Protection & Safeguarding, CSE, Online Safety and Radicalisation Training to professionals across Kent. She is also a Home Office approved trainer and she leads on many of the courses provided to our foster carers and staff from all departments across the community. Paulette is a member of our Fostering Panel and also part of the School Management Committee taking the lead on Safeguarding in both roles.
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Joyti Burke
Therapy Service Manager
Joyti has been supporting Looked After Children since 2009, working across a variety of roles and settings. Prior to qualifying as a child therapist in 2018, she completed a Level 5 Diploma in Leadership and Management.
She joined Channels and Choices in 2019 and now leads the organisation’s therapy department as Therapy Service Manager. In this role, Joyti oversees the delivery of therapeutic interventions, assessments, and support for children, staff, and foster carers across the organisation.
Joyti is a qualified Creative Arts Play Therapist and a Systemic Family Therapy Practitioner. She is also trained in Theraplay, Therapeutic Life Story Work, Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy Practice (DDP), and the AIM3 assessment and intervention guidance for supporting children who may present with harmful sexual behaviour.
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Wayne Beech
Head Teacher - The Sallygate School
I have worked as Head of Mental Health and Communities at Porchlight, a leading mental health and homelessness charity, where I have overseen community-based support for adults and young people facing complex and multiple disadvantages. Prior to this, I served as a Headteacher in a school setting that supported children and young people with a range of social, emotional and mental health needs, often alongside significant Special Educational Needs.
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Lydia Unger
Deputy Manager - Fostering Team
Lydia has worked for the Fostering Team at Channels and Choices since January 2020. After completing an MA in Social Work she started her career in the field of child protection and looked after children, and later worked in adult social care. Aspiring to build on her existing skills and exercise her passion for art, she decided to complete an MA in Arts-Health, where she learned to use Art safely as a form of practical everyday support for people with diverse needs. She devised and managed her own research project into the impact of the Arts on adults with autism. Seeking to use this experience in different areas she started work as a Supervising Social Worker for a therapeutic Fostering Agency and later became Fostering Manager before joining the Channels and Choices Fostering Team.
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Adam Holland-Hobbs
Lead Area Manager / Responsible Individual
Adam joined Channels and Choices in May 2019, previously Adam has worked with children in residential care since 2009 and has worked in every position within the sector, from being an RSW , registered manager right up to an assistant director as well as a regulation 44 visitor, Adam retains both the level 3 diploma in residential child care as well as the level 5 diploma in residential child care leadership and management, additionally Adam retains qualifications in safeguarding and behavioural analysis from his previous roles with other organisations.
Adam was appointed as lead area manager and responsible individual for the residential service within Channels and Choices in February 2025.
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Jenny Graham
Partnership & Referrals Manager
Jenny has been responsible for supporting the opening and development of two brand new schools for children with Autism and SEMH needs. She previously worked as a Senior Commissioner for The Children’s Placement Service for a Local Authority in London, and also spent some 8 years as a Foster Carer, caring for 21 children 0-18 over that time.
She spent a large part of her career in banking, and then specifically as a Business Development Manager for Operational Rigour within that sector.
