Ben Whalley

Ben has been a trustee of the Brunswick Centre since 2013, and has a passion for the VCSE sector, charities in particular! He’s also been a trustee of other charities for around fifteen years.

Ben is a qualified and registered social worker, having many years’ experience working in local, regional, and national charities in diverse areas including Mental Health, Housing, Multiple & Complex Needs and HIV support & prevention.

He is a member of the Institute of Leadership and Management (Level 5) and is currently in the process of completing his Level 7 ILM qualification in Strategic Leadership.

Ben is currently on a four-day week secondment into the Greater Manchester Integrated Care Board (ICB) as the Regional Mental Health System Influencing Adviser on behalf of the VCSE sector, and his one day per week is back at one of Greater Manchester’s oldest charity, Gaddum, in his substantive post as Deputy Chief Executive.

He is Vice Chair of the Board of Directors at the Brunswick Centre and is also a trustee at Salford CVS, Salford’s city-wide infrastructure organisation for the voluntary, community and social enterprise sector which provides specialist information, advice, development support, strategic influencing and collaboration.

Ben has specialist interest, skills and experience in safeguarding, equalities, co production, health and social care, project management, policy development, HR and is well versed in charity compliance. He has been instrumental in developing, deploying and managing services and has also led on numerous strategic change programs.

He's also a qualified trainer and Social Work Practice Educator.

Ben tries to bring his mantra, “no decision about me, without me” to everything he leads on, believing that the solutions to our problems lie within our diverse communities and that a more collaborative approach between ‘decision makers’ and the people will always be the most innovative, simple and powerful solution to issues we face.