Senior Policy Officer: Carlene Firmin.
Carlene Firmin is a Senior Policy Officer, currently coordinating ROTA's work on serious youth violence. She leads the Female Voice in Violence research programme, which assesses the impact of gangs and serious youth violence on women and girls. Carlene previously led ROTA's youth-led, research into weapon carrying in London, Building Bridges, for which she received a London Peace Award in 2008.
Carlene is also the founder of the GAG project. GAG (Gendered Action on Gangs/Girls Against Gangs/Girls Affected by Gangs), empowers gang-affected young women to apply the gender duty in their local areas, and act as local advisors of gender and youth violence issues. This programme has been picked up in other European countries and global forums.
She is committed to addressing inequality and is especially interested in policy and discrimination regarding mental health, education, criminal justice, gender and cross-equalities issues, preparing consultation responses and briefings on a range of social policy issues for both central and regional government. Carlene presented on the issue of gender and gangs at the United Nations 54th Convention on the Status of Women in New York in March 2010.
Carlene currently sits on the Women's National Commissions Violence Against Women Working Group and UN Advisory Group, Youth Justice Board's Regional Gangs Forum, the GLA Violence Against Women and Girls Panel, and the MPS Sapphire Reference Group, amongst others, and works with young people across London to inform her policy work.
She has an MSc in Social Policy and Planning from the London School of Economics and a degree in Philosophy from Cambridge University. Prior to working at ROTA, Carlene had articles published in the Guardian, Pride Magazine, the New Editor and the Voice Newspaper.
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