We are delighted to welcome Tassie Ghilani and Michael Lister to our Board of Trustees. Both bring a wealth of professional expertise alongside powerful lived experience, strengthening our commitment to ensuring the voices and experiences of children and young people remain at the heart of everything we do.

Tassie Ghilani

Tassie currently serves as the National Lived Experience Lead at HMPPS, where she works to ensure the voices of people who have experienced the justice system help shape policy, practice and reform at a national level. Her work focuses on helping organisations better understand the realities faced by children and adults who come into contact with services, and on strengthening relational approaches that create safer systems and better outcomes.

Tassie’s own lived experience of the care system has shaped her commitment to improving the quality of care children receive: “I understand how important stability, consistency and feeling genuinely valued are in shaping a young person’s sense of identity and possibility. That experience drives my determination to champion not only the needs of children in care, but also the foster carers who stand beside them every day.

“Foster carers need the right support, recognition and investment to provide the safe and nurturing homes children deserve. TACT embodies these principles through its unwavering focus on children, relationships and high quality fostering. I am incredibly excited to work alongside such passionate and values-led trustees and senior leaders who share a deep commitment to improving lives and creating lasting change.”

Michael Lister

Michael Lister is a qualified social worker currently working for a London local authority within the children in care team. Alongside his professional role, Michael also serves as a trustee of Mental Health Innovations – a charity that uses digital innovation to provide accessible mental health support to people when and where they need it most.

Michael’s professional work focuses on supporting children and families, ensuring effective care planning and permanency for children who are looked after. Through this role, he gains first-hand insight into the challenges and realities faced by both foster carers and young people.

Michael is also care experienced, something that has significantly shaped both his professional practice and his commitment to improving the system for children and young people.

Michael said: “What led me to become a trustee for TACT was its values to fostering and its commitment to putting children and young people at the centre of its decision making. I am very passionate about strengthening participation and ensuring that young people’s voices meaningfully shape the services designed to support them.

“As someone with lived experience, serving as a trustee carries an additional layer of meaning for me. It’s vital that lived experience is represented in these spaces, and I take that responsibility seriously. Representation matters. Being able to bring that perspective into the governance of the charity, and ensuring that children and young people’s voices are not abstract ideas but central, real considerations, is something I value deeply.”

Chair of Trustees, Bert O’Donoghue, said: “I am absolutely delighted that Tassie and Michael have joined us. Their recruitment was part of a purposeful strategy to continue to build a board that is diverse, meaningful, and relevant to our purpose. We have an excellent board who are passionate in supporting the organisation to deliver on its promises to provide the best support possible to children and young people in our care.

“Both Tassie and Michael bring invaluable experience and passion to the Board. Their commitment to championing the voices of children and young people will help support TACT’s ongoing mission to provide safe, stable and nurturing homes for children and young people in care.”

Read more about our Board of Trustees.