Siân Lockwood is a graduate of Oxford University with a Masters in social work studies. She worked in a wide range of statutory and voluntary sector organisations in the UK and Africa before becoming in 1991 the Chief Executive in of a charity in the north of England which provided a variety of community and family based services including Shared Lives.

Siân was elected Chair of NAAPS UK (the umbrella organisation representing Shared Lives and other small community services in the UK) in 2002 and in that role worked closely with UK governments to promote the value of very small localised services and ensure that legislative and regulatory requirements were appropriate and did not place unnecessary barriers in the way of people establishing and delivering local small scale enterprises. She continued and extended this work when she was appointed as the charity’s first Chief Executive in July 2004 and was instrumental in securing recognition by central and local government of the important of micro social care and health services to the successful transformation of adult social care.

Siân is the first Chief Executive of Community Catalysts, a Community Interest Company launched by NAAPS (now Shared Lives Plus) in January 2010. Community Catalysts works through local partner organisations to support the development of sustainable local enterprises delivering services that people can buy to live their lives.

Siân was awarded an OBE for services to social care in the 2010 Queen’s Birthday Honours List