Meet the team

The Senior Management Team is responsible for the effective running of CLIC Sargent. Each Director has a specific area of expertise and experience, and contributes to the day-to-day management of the organisation. Through the Chief Executive the Senior Management Team reports to Board of Trustees.

CLIC Sargent’s Senior Management Team is:

Lorraine Clifton (Chief Executive)
Lorraine joined CLIC Sargent in August 2009. Over a period of 14 years Lorraine has been Chief Executive of three London and South East NHS Trusts. Before starting at CLIC Sargent, she was Interim Chief Executive of the African health development charity AMREF UK (African Medical and Research Foundation).

Lorraine started her career in the commercial sector, spending more than 12 years working for the oil company BP in a variety of project management and marketing roles.

Dominic O’Reilly (Interim Director of Communications and Campaigning)
Dominic O’Reilly joined the Charity in August 2009. His career started in journalism and he worked for a number of publications – regional, national and international. He then worked as a Director of Communications for charities - Chance to Shine and Media Trust.  More recently he took the role as Director UK of Afghanaid UK before taking up the interim role at CLIC Sargent. top of page

Dara de Burca (Director of Services)
Dara joined in February 2009. Dara’s career in working with children and young people began in 1985 when following graduation she spent a year as a Community Service Volunteer with Ossory Social Services in Ireland. She then went on to spent five years working as a residential social worker and manager in care homes for children in Ireland and London. In 1991 Dara completed her post graduate social work qualification. She worked as a child protection and fostering social worker before becoming a deputy manager of an NSPCC/Centrepoint partnership project for young runaways in London.

From 1996 to 2003 Dara managed community and residential care services for young people in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. This included setting up the first community based multi-agency partnership working with adolescents at risk. Dara was the practice expert on the national advisory group developing competencies for residential social workers. Dara led on developing guidance on meeting the education health and sex and personal relationship needs of children in care that was adopted as national guidance for local authorities. She then moved on to be a senior commissioning manager in both Hammersmith and Hackney councils, commissioning services for disabled children and those considered ‘in need’ by the local authority.

Before coming to CLIC Sargent Dara was Head of Hackney Youth Services where the service moved from failing its Ofsted inspection to be rated as ‘good’ within two years and in the third year was rated by the National Youth Agency as providing ‘outstanding’ youth participation services. In 2006 Dara received an award from the Institute for Public Relations for best local authority consultation with young people.

Dara is a trained social work practice teacher and has a management qualification in health and social. She continues to be registered as a practising social worker by the Social Care Council.

Peter Atfield (Director of HR)
Peter joined CLIC Sargent in 2006. He started work in the pharmaceuticals and hotel and catering industries, worked in local government and has now worked in the charity sector for about 25 years. He was HR Director at Amnesty International’s International Secretariat for 14 years and at ChildLine for seven. He has been chair of Harrow Council for Voluntary Service and of his children’s primary school, and has been a member of the steering groups of the Charity HR Directors Forum, the Charity HR Benchmarking Group and the Charity Pension Group.

Peter is married to Jane and has three school-age children. He likes international politics, sport, reading and travelling.

Lucy Caldicott (Director of Fundraising)
Lucy joined CLIC Sargent in October 2007. She started her career as a graduate trainee for American Express, where she stayed for five years working in European direct marketing roles focusing on customer acquisition and retention. She then moved to The Prince's Trust, working in business development and corporate fundraising before, unusually, returning to the commercial sector to a Europe and Africa marketing role with money transfer company, MoneyGram International. She then spent 12 months studying full-time for a Masters in Development Studies at SOAS before returning to the voluntary sector as Head of Corporate and Trust Fundraising for VSO in 2003 before being appointed Head of Fundraising the following year. Lucy is a trustee of St Giles' Trust and Vauxhall City Farm.

Steve Williams (Director of Finance)
Steve started his career as a Local Authority accountant responsible for leisure and community services before he moved into Information Technology when he spent a while developing management information systems.  Following a period managing the finance department at the Barbican Centre in London, he was appointed in 1990 as their Finance Director and was responsible for business and corporate services. Whilst at the Barbican he was admitted to the Freedom of the City of London.

In 1996 Steve moved to the voluntary sector, firstly as a consultant and then as Finance Director of Citizens Advice, where he led finance, estates and ICT services and implemented planning and MI systems.  In 1998 he was elected a fellow of his accountancy institute.

In a voluntary capacity Steve has been a governor of an East London comprehensive school, Chair of Finance at City and Islington College, and for 13 years an instructor at a Home Office Attendance Centre for young offenders.  He was Honorary Treasurer and a member of the board of the Charity Finance Directors Group (CFDG) and is a regular speaker at the charity sector accountants conferences.

Steve is married to Sue, who is a college vice-principal. They have two teenage children, Alex and Rebecca. The whole family is motorbike-mad with Harleys and sports bikes in the garage.  Steve also enjoys model engineering and swimming.