How we started and our first 10 years
Article 39’s Founder Director
Article 39’s Founder Director, Carolyne Willow, had been a child protection social worker in the 1980s and held specialist children’s rights roles for 25 years when she came to set up Article 39 at the beginning of 2015.
During her time running the Children’s Rights Alliance for England (2000-2012), Carolyne had felt most angry and troubled about the abuse of children in prison. She was frustrated that the restraint-related deaths of 15-year-old Gareth Myatt and 14-year-old Adam Rickwood in 2004, in secure training centres run, respectively, by G4S and Serco, were child protection scandals largely unknown outside the world of prisons. Carolyne saw parallels with how many children living in children’s homes were treated at the beginning of her career – as inherently unworthy and at the mercy of punitive rules, arbitrary punishments and oppressive use of force. Her book ‘Children behind bars. Why the abuse of child imprisonment must end’ was published in February 2015 and Article 39’s trustees held their inaugural meeting two months later, on 9 April 2015.
Article 39’s Patron
Sir William Utting has been Article 39’s Patron from the start of the charity. He was the country’s first Chief Inspector of Social Services and then, amid widespread abuse scandals in children’s care and custodial settings, led the Children’s Safeguards Review for government in 1996-97. At the time, Carolyne was head of the children’s rights programme at the National Children’s Bureau and was commissioned, as part of that review, to seek the views and perspectives of disabled children and young people about their experiences in residential care. At the beginning of 2015, Carolyne told Sir William about her plan to set up Article 39, asked if he would consider becoming its Patron and, wonderfully, he said he would be honoured to have this role.
Our first Board of Trustees
Carolyne approached the first trustees knowing what each could bring as individuals, and the tremendous children’s rights values and expertise they would hold together.
Alex Gask (Article 39’s first Chair of the Board of Trustees) was a solicitor at the campaign organisation Liberty when he and Carolyne first worked together; upon joining Article 39, he was an established human rights barrister at Doughty Street Chambers.
Cathy Brown (Article 39’s first Secretary) had been a UK civil servant for many years, latterly leading a major children’s participation fund in the Department for Education and involved in the creation and appointment of England’s first Children’s Commissioner for England.
Nicola Wyld (Article 39’s first Treasurer) was a solicitor by background, and had worked in children’s rights for many decades, including at the pioneering Children’s Legal Centre and Voice for the Child in Care (now Coram Voice). By the time Nicola joined Article 39, she was a psychotherapist which gave her even greater insight into the long-term impact of childhood loss, mistreatment and trauma.
Suraya Skelland and Carolyne had known each other from the 1990s when they were both working in children’s rights services. By the time Article 39 was formed, Suraya had decades of experience supporting children and young people to influence local, regional and national decision-making bodies.
First Expert Panel
An Expert Panel of adults with personal and professional experience of children’s institutional settings was established in 2015. First members were Professor Kevin Browne who had undertaken extensive research into child maltreatment in institutional settings; Slater and Gordon solicitors Kim Harrison and Richard Scorer, each with a track record of representing those who were abused as children in institutional settings; poet and campaigner for changes in psychiatric care, Jo McFarlane; and social policy expert and care experienced campaigner Will McMahon. (In October 2024, Article 39’s first young people’s Expert Panel was established, replacing the one that had been set up when the charity started.)
Childhood experiences which brought strength to the charity
Adding to their extensive careers, Carolyne and the first Board of Trustees and Expert Panel collectively brought diverse childhood experiences which added fuel to Article 39’s fight for the rights of children separated from their families and living in institutional settings. Carolyne had, for example, been ‘sent away’ (as she perceived it) to a sanatorium on two separate occasions as a young child due to her having very severe asthma.
In summer 2017, we were contacted by a young person leaving residential care, Ella Dhillon, who offered to volunteer with Article 39. She became a trustee shortly afterwards, serving two terms to 2023.
Registration with the Charity Commission
Registration with the Charity Commission took some time: we applied in June 2015 (two months after the first Board of Trustees meeting) and secured registration in March 2016. We were told the human rights component of Article 39’s constitution meant the charity was subject to extra scrutiny.
Invaluable practical support from large children’s charities and others
We continue to be very grateful to The Children’s Society for letting Article 39 hold its first Board of Trustees’ meetings at its London offices.
In March 2019, the NSPCC very generously allowed Article 39 to move its registered office from Carolyne’s home address to the NSPCC office in Nottingham (which remained our registered office until November 2025). This was a great act of support and solidarity. By this time Phillip Noyes, chief advisor on child protection at the NSPCC, was an Article 39 trustee (later to become its second Chair of the Board of Trustees).
The inaugural meeting of our Children and Young People’s Advocates Network took place at the Manchester offices of Slater and Gordon solicitors’ firm in February 2019. This was followed in March 2019 by a London event hosted at Matrix Chambers.
Funding and building our impact
Article 39’s first funding came in 2016, from The Little Charity and The Roddick Foundation. This allowed trustees to employ Carolyne on a part-time basis; her post was to later become full-time.
Our next early funders were The Bromley Trust, Esmée Fairbairn Foundation and The Hadley Trust, and then the Persula Foundation, BBC Children in Need and The Legal Education Foundation. Among other developments, this led to our work supporting children’s rights officers and advocates – through specialist training, legal information and materials, and peer events – being massively boosted with the arrival of Karolina Kozlowicz in January 2020. Karolina was a leading part of Article 39’s small team for almost six years, building our reputation for caring, high quality and dependable support for advocates working directly with children and young people.
In May 2022, Millie Hall joined the team to lead our work around children and young people’s activism, with a particular focus on challenging mistreatment and promoting changes in mental health inpatient care. With Millie’s support, our Blooming Change group – whose members are young people who were detained as children under the Mental Health Act 1983 – made great strides in bringing about legal and cultural change. Blooming Change’s successes include drafting a new Clause which was voted by Peers into the Mental Health Bill in March 2025, the design and delivery of the training course ‘Do you get me?’ and working with an animation company to produce an awareness-raising video.
Other developments across Article 39’s early years included our second national investigation into institutional child abuse undertaken by our then Head of Policy and Advocacy Kamena Dorling in 2021, and the launch of our ON YOUR SIDE advice service in October 2022, led by our then Head of Children’s Rights Advice Service Augusta Itua.
Article 39 is incredibly fortunate to have enjoyed significant support from a small group of very loyal funders throughout our formative years. We have also enjoyed generous donations from members of the public, particularly around strategic litigation. We have deliberately kept our team small and focused, always judging ourselves and the charity by what we have been able to change and defend with and for children and young people.
Changes in leadership
In our first funded year, 2016/17, Article 39 secured funding of £25,011. Carolyne stepped down as Article 39’s Director at the start of 2025, in order to complete her training as a barrister. In that financial year (2024/25), the charity’s income was £437,349.
Our first Deputy Director, Rebekah Pierre, took up post in June 2024, and Jez Tigani became Article 39’s Interim Director in December 2024. Throughout 2025, Carolyne continued to assist the charity on a part-time basis, combined latterly with practising as a barrister. She led Article 39’s work on the inquest of Nonita Grabovskyte (more here) and its participation in module 8 of the UK Covid-19 Inquiry (more here), and left the charity when her part-time contract ended.
Jodie Wickers joined as Article 39’s first Executive Director in October 2025.