Hear from our team
Alexander Chidgey
Head of Older People and Disabilities
Alex has responsibility for operational services for older people and people with disabilities. This includes the Adult Social Care front-door, hospital discharge, Reablement, occupational therapy, neighbourhood teams and safeguarding.
Alex is a registered Social Worker and is committed to supporting people to live independently, with dignity, connected to their local communities. Alex is passionate about supporting staff to use their professional skills in strengths-based approaches to understand what matters to people and how the best possible outcomes can be achieved.
Sissi Mylona
Head of Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Safeguarding Adults and Independent Living
Sissi has held various leadership positions before joining Newham in 2019. She leads the Mental Health, Learning Disabilities, Autism and Safeguarding Services and is committed to providing the best possible care and support to Newham residents.
Sissi is driven by her desire to make a positive difference, and her approach to service delivery is firmly rooted in the belief that there are always ways to improve outcomes for residents, promote their independence, keep them safe and create positive experiences.
Erika Natale 
Principal Social Worker, Adults Services
As the Principal Social Worker, Erika’s vision is to create a culture of learning, development and wellbeing for the Social Care Practitioners in Adult Services. She is keen to ensure that staff are equipped with opportunities to grow and develop their expertise, knowledge, skills and practice alongside their professional judgement.
Erika is committed to staff career development and recognises that our Social Workers need a pathway to progress in their profession and reach their full potential from the point of entering the organisation to the point of stepping up to more senior professional and social work leadership roles in their career.
Sarah Forshaw
Principal Occupational Therapist, Adults Services
Sarah has responsibility for the delivery of the Occupational Therapy service for adults with disabilities. Occupational Therapists (OTs) work with residents and their family members who may be carers too. They will work with them to identify ways of doing every day activities as independently as possible where these may be difficult. OTs may provide ideas for doing things in a different way to make the activity easier, or they may suggest using items of equipment or even recommend adaptations to your home.
Newham Adult Services support OTs to develop their practice by offering monthly one to one supervision with an OT Practice Manager. Newham Adult Services also hold monthly OT Peer Learning which is a supportive forum enabling OTs to share and learn together with their peers. The sessions cover a diverse range of topics, and involve small group supervision for deep dives into cases.
"I am passionate about helping individuals to engage in the everyday occupations that are important to them. I love my role as it is so rewarding to hear how we are making a positive difference to the lives of those we support."
