About the team
Meet the Outreach Team
We are committed to offering the best possible advice and guidance to prospective students.
Peter Dolan
Outreach Manager
Peter manages the Outreach Team and is responsible for implementing LJMU’s student recruitment and widening access strategy, specifically activity working with partner schools and colleges. Peter also co-ordinates LJMU’s attendance at UCAS Higher Education Exhibitions and is the institutional contact for schools and colleges in the Belfast and Newry areas of Northern Ireland. Peter is LJMU’s primary contact for the Higher Education Liaison Officers Association (HELOA).
Carolyne Berry
Account Manager
Carolyne works with FE colleges to raise awareness of and support progression to higher education. Specifically she provides support to students studying vocational and non-traditional routes into higher education such as BTEC/OCR and Access to Higher Education qualifications. Carolyne also works with careers advisors, subject tutors and student services within FE in order to assist them in their roles supporting students. Carolyne also delivers drop-ins and online chats within LJMU for students over the age of 21 in order to support their needs.
Andrew Cooper
Account Manager
Andrew supports activities with sixth forms across the country and delivers sessions to engage and raise the aspirations of students, both on-site and at schools/colleges. Andrew works with schools/colleges across Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Halton, Midlands, North East, South West Northern Ireland, St Helens and Staffordshire. In addition, Andrew organises our residential for Northern Ireland students.
Karen Forman
Account Manager
Karen works with a selection of local schools in relation to widening participation. This includes visits into the University and at schools. In addition, Karen is one of the managers of the Student Advocates, who support outreach activity, and provides guidance and training for students. As Karen also works with the LJMU Careers Team, she brings her valuable knowledge and experience to her outreach role.
Chris Prescott
Account Manager
Supports sixth form colleges in Sefton, Lancashire, Cumbria, parts of Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire in order to raise aspiration through outreach activity such as on campus visits and talks in schools. Chris also supports LJMU’s Schools of Education and Sports, Leisure and Nutrition in promoting programmes in this area to prospective students.
Chris has further responsibilities for organising volunteering activity within local schools for LJMU staff and students as well as organising activity to increase promotion to mature students. Additionally, Chris has a focus on outreach for primary schools in Merseyside providing campus visits for year 5's or year 6's.
Chris also recruits and helps to manage our Student Advocate cohort of over 100 students who are trained and able to deliver activity in schools across the region.
Sharon Roden
Account Manager
Sharon has taken the lead in the recruitment of Northern Irish students to the University for the past 17 years. Building up strong relationships with teachers in NI schools and colleges across the province has resulted in LJMU continuing to recruit more NI students than any other university in England, Scotland or Wales. Sharon regularly visits schools and colleges around Northern Ireland, attends Careers Teacher NISCA events, manages the annual large-scale Applicant Day event in Belfast, and bespoke events at LJMU for Northern Irish teachers and careers staff.
Additionally, Sharon manages a number of schools across Merseyside as part of the widening participation programme. This structured programme of activities aims to raise the aspirations of young people throughout their secondary school journey with activities both on-site at LJMU and at school.
Catherine Shillito
Account Manager
Catherine takes a lead on widening participation activity, offering young people who are under-represented in higher education the opportunity to engage and experience what university has to offer. The largest of our widening participation programmes is the Dream Plan Achieve Programme aimed at raising the aspirations of young people across schools/colleges in Greater Merseyside.
Catherine also runs a number of innovative projects and residentials which specifically target, looked after children, young adult carers and those who are first in their family to enter higher education. In addition to this, Catherine runs a mentoring programme: ‘Mentor ME’ and offers bespoke events for both BAME and disabled students.
Ben Kibble Smith
Account Manager
Ben supports sixth form colleges in Liverpool in order to raise aspiration through outreach activity, on-site experience days and induction events. Ben also works with schools and colleges across Manchester, North Wales, North West NI (Derry), Isle of Man and Shropshire delivering workshop sessions to years 12 and 13 students. Ben is an active lead in the Summer Residentials, which has over 250 students attending from across the country in July, and acts as the Faculty of Science representative for LJMU.
Hannah Williams
Shaping Futures Project Officer
Hannah works in collaboration with Shaping Futures (part of the Uni-Connect programme) to promote higher education to widening participation students in Liverpool. Hannah’s focus is on the creation and delivery of mentoring programmes, aiming to raise aspirations. Hannah also works closely with the Shaping Futures central team and the other university partners to deliver collaborative outreach programmes. Hannah recently graduated from LJMU in business studies and completed her sandwich year (industrial placement) working as part of LJMU’s outreach team.
Sarah Lake
Outreach Assistant
Sarah provides administrative support to the team with a particular focus on coordinating Student Advocates.
Student Advocates
The Outreach Team are supported by current students who help deliver some of our key programmes and are fully-trained and DBS-checked, find out more about our Advocates.
Contact us:
Please get in touch for further information about LJMU's outreach offer.
Email: outreach@ljmu.ac.uk
Tel: 0151 904 6384
Twitter: @LJMUOutreach