Jackie King-Owen is a qualified social worker registered with Social Work England and is also an experienced housing practitioner with nearly 40 years working in the public, voluntary and not-for-profit third sector.
She has 3 degrees herself including a Professional Masters in Health and Social Care and a Masters in Social Work. She completed a Post Graduate Certificate in Higher Education in 2019 and is a fellow of the Higher Education Academy. She is committed to lifelong learning and has recently retired from the University of Derby where she was a lecturer for the last 4 years. She now works part time as a staff tutor in social work for the Open University. She has written and taught the Management and Leadership Module at level 6 for the last 2 years and organised placements in Gozo, Malta where she set up the EDGE project in 2002. This provided exchange visits for service users with learning difficulties as well as social work placement opportunities which won a National Skills for Care award in 2009.
She is a practice teacher for social work students and has helped to train 18 in the last 4 years. She is a trained performance and life coach. She is the Managing Director of Clarice Associates Ltd which offers training, brokerage and consultancy in health and social care.
Jackie has over 25 years’ experience in management as a leader of a large charitable organisation where, as CEO, she employed 650 staff to support 350 service users with learning difficulties. Enable was ground breaking in the period up to 2015 as a national example of co-production with 4 serving board members elected from the service user forum. She wrote a 50000 word thesis about service user involvement and chapter 9 Learning from self advocates written by Mark Doel and Lesley Best in their book Experiencing Social Work (2008) was based on the lived experiences of tenants of Enable housing association. Jackie was an initial and active member of ASL (Association of Supported Living) which is now Learning Disability England. She has also been a director of a Primary Care Trust and served on the National Housing Federation’s supported housing committee where she was regional chair in the East Midlands for 15 years. She is passionate about supporting service users and promoting person centred practice within the social model of disability. She is a trained Cruse bereavement volunteer, serving on the local committee and is currently setting up a project to provide holidays and respite support for bereaved families.
Jackie has achieved several awards: Higher Flyer of the Year, Business Woman of the Year and received a Lifetime Achievement Award in Derbyshire.
In her spare time, Jackie likes to travel - especially to France and Gozo, enjoy time with her 4 grandsons, sing and (when permitting) go to live concerts.
