About Us
Our Social Purpose:
The raison d’etre of MutualGain is to empower organisations and communities to reconnect in the social space, which lies between the state and the individual. Ultimately, we aim to promote greater participation and active citizenship within our democracy and increase social capital, for the mutual benefit of all.
Who We Are
Susan Ritchie
Hi, I’m the Director of MutualGain. You’ll find me at the heart of our training and delivery programmes.
I set MutualGain up because of a passion for democracy: I love listening to all the different perspectives on any given issue, and want to hear as many of those perspectives in all our government’s policy development and service design.
By building social capital we can increase the voice of those most marginalised in society, and value their experience positively.
Committed to social justice in our democracy I am a former volunteer prison mentor.
When I’m not working I’m looking for new places to visit and learn from, or cuddling my gorgeous grandchildren, or sitting in my garden enjoying the little bit of nature that you get living in a city!
Welcome to MutualGain – I look forward to learning with you.
Contact details
Email: susan@mutualgain.org
Twitter: www.twitter.com/Mutual_Gain
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/mutualgain
Dr Andrew Fisher
Hi – I am Dr Andrew Fisher and I am MutualGain’s lead associate for Community Safety. I started to work with MutualGain in 2012 following my retirement as a police superintendent.
My role is to liaise with new clients and work with them to plan a training programme that suits their needs. I am then involved in writing and delivering the training programme and supporting the participants as they plan and deliver their events.
I am very interested in the changes in language and behaviours of participants as the clients learn and apply new methods of engagement; and I enjoy the fun of encouraging learning through creativity.
Our moto is ‘Capture The Learning‘, and as an academic (I am an an sessional lecturer at Liverpool John Moore’s University) I enjoy being able to write papers based on the learning from the programme; you will find some of these in the various sections of our web site.
When not working I enjoy cycling, watching my favourite football team, travelling and spending time with my beautiful grandchildren – not all at the same time though.
Email: andrew@mutualgain.org
LinkedIn: https://uk.linkedin.com/in/dr-andrew-c-fisher-7b6a501b
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MG_Andrew
Garry Shewan QPM
Email: garry@mutualgain.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/garry-shewan-4881233b/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MG_GarryS
Becky Thomson
Hi, I’m Becky Thomson, with an undergraduate degree in 
international politics, intelligence and security, and masters from the university of bath in international development, conflict and security. I have gained a wealth of knowledge on the benefits and necessity of building social capital in today’s society. From encouraging community grassroots organisations to getting involved in their councils budget meetings, to facilitating real social movement with the climate emergency at centre stage.
I’m an avid outdoor adventurer and traveller so I’m most easily found cragside or up a mountain in my free time, especially if there’s tea involved.”
Email: becky@mutualgain.org
Liz Citron
After a 25-year career helping a wide variety of organisations – from tiny businesses to large institutions like the BBC and the Ministry of Justice – create easy to use technology, I changed my focus away from software delivery in the last two years to support people in achieving their goals and formally trained as a coach.
With a background in user-centred design, I find the skill of understanding users’ needs, applies almost directly to coaching because it’s all about helping people understand how their own minds work in order to make changes in order to get different results.
I am delighted to be one of the MutualGain associate coaches because their great work in connecting individuals and groups with public services allows for many communities to be given both the voice and the means to contribute much more meaningfully to society as a whole.
Outside of work, I love to spend time with family and friends and can often be found in a quiet spot curled up reading a book.
Email: liz@mutualgain.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lizcitron/
Twitter:
Brian Roberts
Brian joined Cheshire Police in 1986. He has worked as a Detective in local CID teams and in the County Drug Squad. On promotion to Inspector he focused his work on Community Policing and Partnerships. In 2004 he worked in the US as part of a Group Study Exchange where he worked with Law Enforcement Agencies and Communities in Chicago.
After his promotion to Chief Inspector in 2006 he obtained a Foundation Degree in Policing. He later took over as the Detective Chief Inspector and was awarded a BSc Honours Degree in Criminology at The University of Portsmouth.
Brian was appointed as Deputy Director of Intelligence where he remained for five years. Brian’s team spear headed the law enforcement response to Cyber Crime in Cheshire. Brian was a qualified and experienced Tactical Firearms Commander in Cheshire where he led on numerous critical and firearms incidents.
In 2014 he took up a position to embed Evidence Led Policing with frontline staff and took responsibility to use those principles to drive a culture of preventing crime and reduce re-victimisation. Brian has been part of a developing relationship between Cheshire Police and the University of Chester.
He has received numerous Commendations for his performance on tackling Drug Trafficking, Crime and Community Policing. Married with three children, Brian runs an under 15 football team and recently completed his third Triathlon. He is currently undertaking a postgraduate studies (PhD Digital Criminology).
Brian retired from Cheshire Police in 2016 and now lectures across a variety of Departments across the University of Chester. He is in the process of writing a research paper with colleagues from the University on Police Use of Firearms. Brian has recently returned from The Hague for Global Justice in Holland where he lectured on the ethical issues affecting firearms officers with the challenges of terrorism.
Email: brian@mutualgain.org
LinkedIn:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MG_Brian
Antigua Riley Corion 
Antigua is the Business Support Officer for MutualGain. Antigua has an interest in being a voice and being able to make a difference for future generations.A resident of Bromham, Antigua has been involved in MutualGain programmes seeking to understand the views of the communities in relation to serious youth violence.
Antigua has an interest in the arts, music and philosophy.
Email: antigua@mutualgain.org
Phone: 07951179573
Twitter @AntinguaMg
Michael Keating
Gained from a range of roles in local government, the health service and higher education, Michael Keating has wide experience researching and understanding sensitive and controversial diversity, equality and engagement policy and service issues, developing effective practice and the skills to manage them successfully.
Since June 2012 Michael has been working freelance on the management of change – to understand its nature, to strengthen the confidence of organisations and individuals in handling it and build the energy to find innovative solutions. Given the challenging public sector context Michael is interested in strengthening our collective capacity to articulate problems, be unafraid to acknowledge their difficulty and thus work out ways of addressing them.
Michael chairs the Tower Hamlets Education Partnership Steering Group which is developing a collaborative partnership of all local schools to drive school improvement. This draws on thirty years’ experience of being involved in education including being a governor of Stebon Primary School in Limehouse since 2012. Michael is also a member of the Council of Spitalfields Music, a music charity which brings together world class artists and local people to produce two annual music festivals and run creative music projects throughout the year in the local community.
Contact details
Email: michael@mutualgain.org
Phone: 07534223018
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/michael-keating-29baa75
Andy Mills
Andy Mills was Head of Involvement and Patient Experience for NHS Cheshire Warrington and Wirral (CWW) from 2011-13 commissioning user-insight from all services providing to the PCTs across CWW.
Andy previously held posts in Public Health and Stakeholder/Partnership management during a 20 year career in senior roles within the NHS. As an Assistant Director of Public Health in Wirral, he managed a team developing award winning public health interventions around wider determinants of ill-health and substance misuse. As Head of Partnerships he improved the performance of the LSP (Local Strategic Partnership) against alcohol and drug use targets.
Since leaving public service in April 2013 Andy has set up AMP Ltd providing insight, research and policy advice to clients including Local Authorities, regional and national charities, and to various parts of the new NHS landscape ie CSU’s CCGs and NHSE. Commissions have included: user experiences of urgent care, review of peer mentoring for asthma sufferers, user views of smoking cessation services and insight into sensory disability and access to primary care.
Andy is a skilled qualitative researcher and business process consultant and experienced in consultation quality assurance and public health advocacy/policy implementation.
Andy gets fired up about improving children’s mental health and the rights of people with learning disabilities.
Outside of the day job Andy runs a cycle event business encouraging people to get out on their bikes for mental health benefits, meeting mates for a coffee and cake or closed road racing.
Contact details
Email: andy.mills@mutualgain.org
Twitter: @MG_AndyM
Phone: 07887 653280
Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/ampartners/
Andy Paice
I’m MutualGain’s lead associate for Citizens Assemblies and community engagement for Sustainability. I’m a committed advocate, convener and facilitator of participatory forums for building community and helping local and national democracy to become more relational, deliberative and inclusive.
I have been organising community-based deliberation in and around London since 2011 and have been actively researching the best practice in democratic innovation from around the world with the US based non-profit Co-Intelligence Institute.
Since May 2018 I’ve been involved in a major project in the London Borough of Newham advising the administration of Mayor Rokhsana Fiaz and training staff for the implementation of various forms of participatory democracy. The main body of this project has been a cycle of 32 Community Assemblies from September 2018 to March 2019 that have resulted in 8 co-produced community plans.
I have also advised and supported Newham council in running Youth Assemblies and Assemblies for Disabled People, the Deaf community and on the issue of Mental Health.
I’m well versed in the combination of digital democracy platforms with in-person events to maximise ways in which a community can engage and input into decision-making. I was also involved in facilitating the UK’s first ever online deliberative polling event on the Future of Britain after the EU Referendum.
Outside of my public engagement work I’m a keen practitioner and teacher of mindfulness and spent a large part of my twenties and thirties living in France as a buddhist monastic. I enjoy mountain walking, swimming and listening to podcasts on psychology, politics and spirituality.
Contact details
Email: andy@mutualgain.org
Linkedin: /https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypaice/
Debby Mackay
Hi,
I joined MutualGain as an Associate in 2017 after 30 years of police service with Merseyside Police. My 30 year span of service has seen a number of varied and exciting roles, including managing a large operational department through a period of cuts, change and regionalisation. I have a background in safeguarding adults and children, and supported both women and children to have a voice within the criminal justice framework, working alongside a number of other agencies.
I worked for a number of years within the diverse community of Toxteth, Liverpool, coordinating and managing the local neighbourhood team and working closely with the local community leaders. My passion is community engagement and working with the real issues in the community, not just what statutory agencies think are the issues.
I also worked closely with the staff support networks within the Police Service, mentoring and coaching officers and police staff to work towards their aspirations within the work place. I became the chair of the Network of Women in 2015 until I left in 2016.
I have also completed my MSc in Police Leadership studying at Hope University. During my studies I researched and analysed the changing culture of the firearms department within the police service. I am also a lecturer at Liverpool John Moore’s University where I have completed my CertEd qualification.
As well as delivering on MutualGain’s strengths based learning programmes, I am the Internal Verifier for our online learning platform, MutualiLearn.
Outside work I enjoy travelling, reading, cooking and going to the gym and have recently begun working with a local homeless charity, where I cook on a regular basis and I am in the process of setting up a supportive reading group with this charity at the local library.
Contact details
Email: debby@mutualgain.org
Phone:
Linkedin:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/MG_DebbyM
Jiwan Raheja
| Jiwan Raheja is a highly experienced civil servant with vast experience of developing strategy and policy in different areas of government and has successfully implemented both strategies and policies in central government and in public authorities in various sectors from 1998 to 2012. | ||
| Since April 2012 Jiwan has been working freelance with the Fundamental Rights Agency (FRA) and Roehampton University. She developed the toolkit Joined Up Governance with the FRA and is also a visiting lecturer for the Human Rights Policy and Practice MA course at the University of Roehampton, which involves working with partners from Gothenburg University in Sweden, University of Tromso in Norway and other departments from University of Roehampton. | ||
| Jiwan worked with MutualGain on the community action programme commissioned by Greater Manchester Police. This involved encouraging local communities to take personal responsibility to identify what they could do for themselves and the community by sharing knowledge, experience and where possible resources with the end result of a mutual gain for all. |
Contact details
Email: jiwan@mutualgain.org
Phone:
Linkedin:
Twitter: www.twitter.com/MG_Jiwan
Issy Harvey
Issy Harvey is a collaborative, transformational, life & business Coach, Facilitator, Community Organiser, NLP trainer and registered Practice Educator for trainee social workers. Her knowledge, skills and techniques enable people to improve their results in all areas of life including business and the workplace. Issy has significant experience of youth empowerment and development, including Participatory Budgeting programmes, and has supported behaviour change with people who having faced many challenges in life have gone on to soar. She established and led a community-based, media production charity in Tottenham, North London that gave ‘a voice to the voiceless.’ Issy was both a Trustee and Director of Haringey Play Association and remains a strong advocate of the power of play in building resilient communities.
Issy is interested in how organisations can achieve more through applying Appreciative Inquiry and Generative Change models.
Email: issy@mutualgain.org
Phone:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/issy-harvey-040b4455/
Twitter:
Afua Abedi
I am currently in my first year at the University of Northampton where I study Sociology. I thoroughly enjoy studying social identity; looking at how different characteristics of an individual that cannot be changed may, or may not, set them back in comparison to their peers and how it could be approached to create equality within society, enable for there to be little or no setbacks in the future. These characteristics may include social class, ethnicity, age and gender
When I am not sat behind my desk reading for my assignments, I enjoy watching the best team in the British Premier League, Arsenal, play.
From a young age, until now, I have always been told by others, my mother in particular, that I have always had a passion in debating topics and also solving problems. From this I now aspire to become a social/youth worker and give more to society through my own enjoyable experiences, such as sports and drama.
Dionne Spencer
Dionne joined MutualGain as an Associate in 2019 and is passionate about the community coaching programme being delivered in the Ardwick Community in Manchester. This involves encouraging the local community to establish goals that they care about that will make a positive difference to themselves and others within the community.
As an senior manager and coach within the Higher Education Sector, Dionne uses as range of coaching models and techniques to enable staff and students to achieve their desired goals and potential. Dionne has a Level 5 Certificate in Coaching and Mentoring, an MSc in Coaching Psychology and is currently working towards completing a Doctorate in Coaching and Mentoring. Outside of coaching and studying, Dionne loves spending quality time with her daughter and supporting her to fulfill her dreams and potential.
Email:dionne@mutualgain.org
Phone:
Linkedin:
Twitter:
Colin Heyman
I have been working in the field of leadership and diversity for over 20 years. My passion for leadership and diversity arises from both my own experience and from a belief that
improving the leadership and diversity practice in organisations that provide services, is vital to improving people’s lives. 
My work has been mainly in the public and third sectors, and I have worked with people at all levels of organisations, from boards and top teams, to people working on the front line, to service users and communities.
Through my work I hope to make issues around equality, diversity and inclusion discussable, help people to realise that those issues permeate almost all of what we do, and help people build social capital.
Outside work I love hillwalking, reading, gardening and cinema, and am active in my synagogue.
Email:
Phone:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colin-heyman-5895721a/
Twitter:
Toni McLelland
As an active community member I chaired my resident’s association at the age of 22 so the silent voices were heard. I secured the very first and only of its kind Residents Participation Compact as a pilot, set up a Parents and Teachers Association and represented on scrutiny panels locally in my spare time. I was proactively working with councillors through the London riots and bombings as well as being a lay visitor for the Metropolitan Police Authority (MPA).
Professionally my journey has seen me spend 18 years as an Officer in Charge with the MOJ Central Government, lead on youth crime as a local authority Community Safety Officer, represent on Trident, GLA Guns Gangs and Weapons, and critical incident panels. I have undertaken crime audits, consultations and developed strategies for the then CDRPs and Children’s Trusts whilst advising Councillors and Chief Executives. I led a successful national campaign and trained Metropolitan Police officers in diversity as part of the Stephen Lawrence Macpherson Enquiry before moving into Principal roles and consulting in education transformation, crisis management and social care |LAC settings. I am very interested in behaviour and learning styles and amongst other qualifications have a master’s in applied criminology community safety and youth justice.
With a wealth of strategic business development experience across criminal justice, education, care and fast forward to the present day, my work has seen me managing multi-million-pound budgets and portfolio projects whilst focusing on large reorganisations, transformations, service reviews and feasibility projects (e.g. The London Mayor projects and MOPAC). All across public sector, voluntary and private sectors. My work includes working with C- Suite executives, leaders and boards at the sharp end whilst also supporting start up organisations with their development, financial and compliance plans for business growth in a critical friend and mentoring capacity.
Here at MutualGain I am an advocate of all the products as they are all so important in building social capital not only in the community but in the workplace.
Outside of work I have a passion for netball, music, cooking and family.
Email: Toni@mutalgain.org
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/toni-mclelland-msc-5167042b
Twitter @Toni_MG
Deborah Cohen
Over twenty years leading and developing services across the NHS and local government, championing integration and joint working across health and social care, and the partnerships with housing, Police, and local communities, as the way to improve service experience. I bring knowledge, skills and expertise of working in complex systems, and of working co-productively with service users, patients, and carers. I am a qualified Executive Mentor and Coach.
I am passionate about the rights and safety of users of services, and that the voices of the users of services and of the local community are heard. Since leaving full time employment I have taken up roles as Independent Chair of a Safeguarding Adult Board for a London Borough, and as a lay Mental Health Act manager – roles that are about the rights of individuals.
Which brings me to MutualGain. My involvement with MutualGain brings an opportunity to promote and facilitate the changes needed in public organisations to enable them to listen and work in partnership with the communities that they serve. I have become an Associate at a time of immense change and upheaval, at a time that might be a “reachable” moment where we can pull together to sustain and build on the social capital we have seen grow and flourish on the back of COVID
Email: Deborah@mutalgain.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/deborah-cohen-35791913
Joshua Milnes
I am an Economics student at the University of Bath currently 
on my placement year at MutualGain. I hope to be able to bring my experiences living abroad in places such as Singapore and Chicago to provide a different viewpoint. This is hopefully combined with putting an economic value on the impact MutualGain has.
Email: josh@mutalgain.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-m-388038158/
Max Weightman
I recently finished my second year of studying Economics at the
University of Bath and therefore I am now taking part in my placement year. I particularly enjoy the behavioural economics aspect of my course and I am looking forward to implementing this knowledge to analyse the social impact that Mutual Gain has on its clientele.
In my free time, I enjoy playing and watching rugby, and support my local team the Newcastle Falcons. I also like to ski in the wintertime and often play the drums.
Email: max@mutalgain.org
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/max-weightman-b4466a189/