Our ADR NI Ambassadors help us to advocate and drive forward administrative data research, linkage and innovation in Northern Ireland:
Koulla Yiasouma
Chair of Oberstown Children Detention Centre
Koulla is a qualified social worker and worked as a probation officer in England. She established the first 24-hour telephone helpline for women who were experiencing domestic abuse in Northern Ireland before she joined Include Youth in 1998 as Director (Chief Executive).
In 2015 she was appointed by the First and Deputy First Ministers to be the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People and her eight-year term ended in March 2023. While Commissioner, Koulla and her team undertook significant work in the areas such as mental health, special educational needs and child protection. She also published the first formal investigation into the care of a child.
Koulla has been appointed by the Minister for Children in the Republic of Ireland to be the Chair of Oberstown Children Detention Centre. She has also been awarded the role of Honorary Professor of Practice by Queens University Belfast and will be working closely with the School of Social Sciences, Education and Social Work.
She is a member of the Board of Trustees of Barnardo’s UK and is currently working as an Interim Chief Executive and consultant.
Koulla is a passionate advocate for human rights particularly the rights of children and young people and believes that the formal realisation of rights ensures better outcomes for all of society.
"As an advocate for change throughout my career, I have increasingly come to recognise the importance of administrative data. This was particularly the case when I worked as the Northern Ireland Commissioner for Children and Young People. I was responsible for scrutinising government performance to realise the rights of all children, and the first port of call was often the data that statutory agencies collected.
"Such administrative data is essential to understanding the effectiveness of public expenditure. Billions of pounds are spent every year and administrative data should be used to evaluate whether the maximum impact has been secured. Administrative data is also vital for planning for future interventions and provision, particularly where planning processes can be co-designed with experts by experience.
"I am delighted to be a champion of ADR UK as their work is pivotal to ensuring public expenditure is used as efficiently and effectively as possible."
Trish Kelly
Directorate Business & Governance Manager, SE Health and Social Care Trust
Trish Kelly is the Directorate Business & Governance Manager for Mental Health, Learning Disability, Healthcare in Prison & Psychological Services in the South Eastern Health and Social Care Trust.
Trish is member of a Steering Group for an ADR Northern Ireland project that has developed a new dataset containing information on mental health and addiction among people in prisons in Northern Ireland.
Lee Kane
Engagement Manager, VOYPIC
Lee is Engagement Manager at VOYPIC- Voice of Young People in Care, the organisation for children and young people with lived experience of care in Northern Ireland. Since joining the organisation in 2019, he has worked to promote the voices and experiences of children and young people in the development of legislation, policy and practice. His role includes leading external communications, media relations and public affairs activity, as well as coordinating Northern Ireland’s annual Care Day celebrations. He managed the facilitation of a Young Person’s Advisory Panel to the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care Services, as well as supporting the inclusion of young voices in the passage of the Adoption and Children Act (NI) 2022 and the development of A Life Deserved, the cross-departmental strategy for children in and leaving care.
Prior to joining VOYPIC, Lee was Regional Coordinator of the Northern Ireland Anti-Bullying Forum for ten years, where he worked collaboratively across education, government and community sectors to address bullying behaviour and support safer environments for children and young people. Through this role, he worked with the Department of Education on the introduction of the Addressing Bullying in Schools Act (NI) 2016.
Lee has a particular interest in the use of administrative data alongside lived experience evidence to inform policy development and improve outcomes for vulnerable groups. Through partnership work with ADR NI, he has supported projects exploring the experiences of care-experienced young people in relation to mental ill health and homelessness, highlighting the value of data-informed research in shaping services and policy responses.
“Administrative data research helps us to draw a picture of what is happening, while the voices of lived experience colour that picture in, giving us a clearer understanding of the issues impacting real lives. When we bring robust data together with voices and experiences of the people behind the data, we are better equipped to share policy and practice that is informed, compassionate, and effective. Used well, this combination has the power not only to improve services and systems, but ultimately to improve people’s lives and outcomes across society.”
Nicola Armstrong
Senior R&D Programme Manager
Nicola has served as a Senior R&D Programme Manager for over 20 years within the Health and Social Care Research & Development Division (HSC R&D Division), where she leads on the secondary use of health and social care data alongside a wider portfolio of strategic responsibilities. Her work spans a number of major initiatives, including the Northern Ireland Trusted Research Environment (NITRE), the Northern Ireland Longitudinal Study (NILS), the Honest Broker Service, the Administrative Data Research Centre (ADRC), the Northern Ireland Cohort for the Longitudinal Study of Ageing (NICOLA), the Northern Ireland Cancer Registry, and Health Data Research UK (HDR UK). She is also a member of the 4 Nations PPIE Working Group.
Nicola holds a degree in Nursing and a PhD in Biomedical Sciences. Prior to moving into research management within HSCNI, she spent eight years in postdoctoral research, contributing to longitudinal cohort studies, population-based registries, and clinical and prevention research at UCL, the University of Exeter, and Ulster University.
Siobhan O'Neill
Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland
Siobhan O’Neill is a Professor of Mental Health Sciences at Ulster University, and Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland. Her research programmes focus on trauma mental illness and suicidal behaviour in Northern Ireland, and the transgenerational transmission of trauma.
She is now on a mission as the Mental Health Champion to improve the mental health of the people of NI by promoting evidence-based services and care for those who suffer from mental illness and suicidal thoughts.
As Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland, she advises and assists in the promotion of mental health and wellbeing though all policies and services throughout the province. Her role is as a public advocate for mental health, and to be a voice for those otherwise voiceless. Her goal is to communicate the collective voices of people with lived experience and their families and carers, and to advocate for communities impacted by mental health inequalities.
