Our Trustees
Elaine Goodwin – Chair
Elaine Goodwin is Chair of Solace and a senior nurse leader with extensive experience in inclusion health, quality and healthcare for people facing significant disadvantage. She spent 10 years working in Leeds with people seeking asylum and refugees, before going on to lead homelessness and inclusion health work nationally for NHS England for four years. Elaine has also worked closely with the Home Office on asylum health and safeguarding, helping to shape national approaches to improving care and support. She remains passionate about reducing health inequalities and ensuring people affected by trauma, displacement and adversity receive compassionate, high-quality care.
Maria is an experienced charity professional currently working for a UK women’s employment charity.
Maria brings experience from across the UK voluntary and community sector, having worked in both paid and voluntary roles supporting vulnerable communities. Much of her previous work has focused on immigration and asylum, where she supported individuals navigating complex systems and significant life transitions. She has also worked closely with people experiencing mental health challenges, poverty, and social exclusion.
As a Trustee at Solace, Maria contributes her experience to support the organisation’s strategic direction. She is committed to good governance and to helping ensure services are effective, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of the communities they serve.
Natalie Moran
Pascale Gayford
Peter Coltman
Peter’s professional career was in educational television in which he worked both at home and abroad as a producer, director and editor.
In retirement, he helped to set up Solace and has worked with other charities as trustee, treasurer or chair including the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, Medical Justice and the York Travellers Trust. He was a volunteer adviser for Citizens Advice for over a decade.
Peter Dawson
Peter’s background has always involved health care. As a pharmacist registered in the UK and Canada, (countries in which he shares dual nationality) he held senior positions in teaching hospitals, along with cross appointments in academia.
In Canada, Peter obtained graduate qualifications in clinical epidemiology and biostatistics, from McMaster University , combining teaching with clinical research.
More recently, in England, for 5 years, he penned a monthly column for The Guardian , somewhat dramatically entitled Dispensing Truth. Relevance to my trustee work was the theme – namely the Social Determinants of Health. Concurrent to such writing he ran an award winning pharmacy in Sedbergh, Cumbria,
For the past 5 years, Peter has been a Solace volunteer, accepting referrals from therapists to address client issues around medication. It is a role in which he feels he is truly utilising a life times experience. It also provides an insight into how and why Solace operates, which in turn informs his trustee role.
It is fair to say that working with the clients and staff of Solace ranks as one of Peter’s most rewarding experiences, and he is happy to be contributing as a Trustee.