Jenn Lewis

CEO

Jenn has been the CEO of CEN since 2017. Prior to becoming CEO, Jenn had previously served as a member of the Management Committee and as Chair.

Having been in the field of education since 2004, focussing on behaviour management, peer education and parental engagement. Jenn was responsible for overseeing CEN’s change in focus, from responding to incidents of exclusion to focussing on early intervention, collaborating with schools, students, and parents to avert exclusion and encourage schools to include parents in all conversations pertaining to their children. 

Keen to ensure the future of the organisation, Jenn has overseen the development of CEN’s training to accreditation standard which will enable CEN to take its position as a lead organisation in the influencing of policy discussions about children’s educational experience.

Her tenure has also overseen the growth of CEN’s early intervention work and the establishment of the Parents Empowering Parents (PEP) programme, ensuring that parents know their rights and responsibilities in relation to their children’s education and are empowered to be proactive.

Since joining CEN, Jenn has also established successful partnerships with Action for Race Equality (ARE), with whom CEN has recently helped to strengthen ARE’s Routes2Success programme, and  alongside the Runnymede Trust, is overseeing a research project that will use the data collated from CENs advocacy casework, as well as from our early intervention programme, PEP, to evidence the impact of exclusion on already vulnerable communities.

The information gathered, will be used to contribute to CENs desire to affect policy decisions enabling us to ensure that all children remain in and derive the long-term benefits of their education.