Joy Lankester - IAG Officer

Joy is a qualified and experienced careers advisor who has worked with young people as well as participating in education business initiatives (which focus on guidance work with adults). Her clients have a wide variety of needs. They include students making the transition from study to work, parents, carers, travellers returning to work after a break, and those who want to explore changing their career or returning to academic study.

Joy runs her own careers consultancy in London known as InterChange. She also does consultancy work for the Open University and, for the past five years, she has been working for Sussex Careers and Sussex Downs College.

She is a member of the Institute of Careers Guidance, the British Psychology Association and the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development.

Andrea Purvis - IAG Officer

Andrea has worked within higher education for twelve years. She currently works within Student Services at the Open University in the South East where she has undertaken a number of roles working with enquirers, new students and continuing students. She has worked as a student services manager (Advice and Guidance) and a regional advisor and disability coordinator, leading a team to support the learning needs of approximately 800 students with disabilities. For the past two years she has worked as Regional Coordinator for the Southern Hub Openings Programme, within the Centre for Widening Participation at The Open University.

Maureen Stenning - IAG Officer

Maureen began work for the Open University in the South East twenty years ago, shortly after finishing postgraduate studies at Sussex University. During these years she has taught on a range of literature courses, currently The Nineteenth Century Novel and 20th Century Literature. For the last ten years she has also worked as an educational advisor, offering advice and guidance to students and enquirers, and managing a programme of induction and study skills events.

Liz Thackray - IAG Officer

Liz initially trained as a social worker – being a student on one of the early combined degree and professional training courses. After this she moved from social work into community development and voluntary sector management. After the birth of her son, she spent four years in Germany and, on returning to the UK, retrained in IT, working as a school network manager and an OU associate lecturer. Liz is also a consultant for the e-learning project.

Lynne Varney - IAG Officer

Lynne has 23 years' experience of working within the Information, Advice and Guidance sector. Her most recent role is as Advice and Guidance Services Delivery Manager for Sussex Careers Ltd. She manages the implementation and delivery of all adult advice and guidance in East Sussex and Brighton & Hove.

A major part of this role has been managing the Nextstep contract, providing IAG for people aged 20+. This involves managing a core team of guidance workers and managing contracts with twenty local delivery partners. Lynne has also worked as a careers advisor, assessor, internal verifier, educational researcher and trainer.

Andrea Dumbrell - IAG Officer

Andrea has worked in the Higher Education field since 1994 when she was completing her own post-graduate study. She has been an undergraduate tutor for both the University of Sussex and the Open University. She currently teaches the Humanities foundation course (A103) and the second level history course ‘Medieval to Modern’ (A200) for the Open University. Since 2005 she has also undertaken a range of outreach work in relation to Higher Education both for the Open University and for Aimhigher Sussex, focusing especially on Adult Learners and work with Parents and Carers.

She has undertaken a range of study, both academic and vocational, and is a member of the Higher Education Academy.

Maggie Allgrove - IAG Officer

Maggie worked at Chichester College for 33 years teaching mainly chemistry to both FE and HE (foundation year) students. As a tutor to A level students for many years she had experience in advising students about entry into higher education. She has been an Open University tutor on the Science Foundation Courses (currently S103) since 1976 and also tutored ST240 (Our Chemical Environment) for 10 years. Since leaving Chichester College in September 2006 she has been involved with several Open University projects, writing material for taster sessions, study skills tutorials and, currently, an Access to Chemistry Course.