Ian McCrickard, Chair

Ian retired from the Northern Ireland Housing Executive in 2022, having held various positions during his 38 years of service, including District Manager in both the Downpatrick and Lisburn Districts, Regional Manager in both the South and the Belfast Regions and Assistant Director, Housing Services.

As District and Regional Manager, Ian worked directly with all the various communities within the Housing Community Network throughout the Districts and Regions and was always deeply committed to maximising community involvement in the housing service, believing this would work to the benefit of both tenants and local communities.

During his years as Assistant Director of Housing Services, Ian was responsible for strategy development, policy development, budget management (including community development funding streams and significant staffing budgets), personnel management (including responsibility for over 400 staff) and IT development. An important part of his portfolio was the development and implementation of the NIHE’s Community Involvement Strategy and the management of the Supporting Communities Service Level Agreement.

As a passionate advocate of community participation in housing, Ian looks forward to using his extensive experience to advance the work of the SCNI board.

Ivan Armstrong  

Ivan is a former District and Area Manager with the Housing Executive. In this latter role, he managed some 75 staff and housing functions across 4 District Council areas.

Throughout his career he worked with and encouraged community groups on many levels. He has played a significant role in promoting projects which assisted their development and enhanced amenities in their estates. He has been a strong advocate of partnership working with communities and other statutory bodies.

Justin Cartwright

Justin is National Director for Northern Ireland at the Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH). Justin is experienced in policy development in Australia and Northern Ireland with a focus on social and economic issues. For the past eight years, he has developed housing policy and professional practice at CIH Northern Ireland where he has led the organisation’s marketing, communications and member engagement work. Justin was Editor of Housing Ireland – the journal for Irish housing professionals – from 2014 to 2018. He is a certified practitioner of CIH, a member of the Chartered Management Institute and holds a Bachelor of Applied Science (Honours) from RMIT University in Melbourne, having undertaken research on acoustics in the built environment. 

Justin also sits on the board of our trading arm, Empowering Communities.

Caroline Casserly-Farrar

Caroline is the Director of Operations for Oaklee Housing. An integral member of the senior management team within Oaklee, with collective accountability for strategic leadership, Caroline has sole responsibility for all aspects of the organisation's operations linked to housing services, property, and asset management alongside customer service, ICT, property compliance, remediation projects and investment.

Prior to this, Caroline was Director of Housing and Human Resources for  Dublin Central Mission. This role included responsibility for Customer Care for the Older Person, supported living, performance standards linked to housing, property, compliance, and human resources.

Before joining the housing sector in 2015, Caroline’s career was in the retail sector for 15 years, where she worked in a variety of management and senior management roles. The focus in this area was operational oversight, customer services, human resources, strategic leadership and driving performance.

Caroline has completed the Transformative Leadership Programme with CAN Academy and The Wheel as well as Community and Equality Studies from Maynooth University, Housing Studies from University College Dublin (IPA), a master’s from Trinity College Dublin and has previously studied Business Studies and Retail Management. 

Kelly Foster

Kelly is the Community Investment Manager for Ark Housing Association.

Kelly has been with Ark Housing for 20 years in various frontline roles within homelessness and housing management. Kelly is responsible for overseeing the delivery of the Shared Housing Programme by developing with her team the necessary components to improve community cohesion within shared housing schemes and surrounding communities.

Kelly is also responsible for delivering the Tenant Participation Strategy within Ark, an area that she has championed throughout her career in social housing. She uses her role to advocate for the voice of the tenant to be heard. 

David Lamb

David is a chartered management accountant who spent the first half of his career working for large manufacturing organisations before joining the Housing Executive as Assistant Director of Finance until retirement in 2018. His voluntary activities included church-based youth work, primary school governor, two terms on the governing body of a further education college, many roles in his church at various levels and involvement in several other Christian organisations. He joined the Supporting Communties Board in 2019.

Dave Maher

Originally from Dublin, Dave spent his working life in the shipping and transport business on both sides of the border. Now living in the Newtownabbey/Carrickfergus area, Dave has become a very active tenant with Habinteg Housing Association, working on the tenant newsletter and other interests. Dave is also a member of the Housing Policy Panel, a consultative forum to the Department for Communities made up of tenants from all the major housing providers in Northern Ireland.

Dave says his own personal experience of moving into the social housing system has made him want to devote his energies to changing the attitudes and policies towards those facing homelessness and to bringing a different perspective to the question of housing rights and equality.

Jim Ripley

Jim has worked in social housing for more than 35 years and has recently retired from being Chief Executive of Phoenix Community Housing since its inception in 2007. He was previously Divisional Director of Housing at the London Borough of Barking and Dagenham, Regional Director for Servite Housing Association and also held management roles at the London Boroughs of Lambeth and Tower Hamlets. His experience covers all aspects of housing from homelessness management, multi-million pound capital programmes and expansive new homes programmes. Jim has been a passionate believer in the resident led model and wishes it was more prevalent in the housing sector. He is a passionate cyclist for commuting to work as well as for pleasure.

Jim also sits on the board of our trading arm, Empowering Communities.

Karen Rodgers

Karen has spent over 20 years in management roles across retail and the construction industries throughout the UK and Ireland. Karen completed her degree at the University of Ulster in Business and Communication and recently gained an APM Project Management Qualification. 

Currently working as a Social Value Consultant, Karen advises on social value legislation, best practice for maximising local impacts and promoting exemplary stakeholder engagement practices.

Karen is passionate about building key relationships and finding positive outcomes to achieve long-term social value. She believes that public, private and third-sector organisations can collaborate better to promote equality of opportunities and enhancement of communities.

Joanne Vance

Joanne is the Director and Company Secretary of the Community Development and Health Network (CDHN), an organisation working to use community development and social determinants of health frameworks to end health inequalities.

With 30 years of experience in the community and voluntary sector, Joanne brings a wealth of experience in social research, community development, health promotion and public policy evaluation. She is interested in co-design and community-based participatory research approaches to develop interventions to improve well-being and ensure equitable access to public services.