Coram International is made up of a dedicated team of lawyers, socio-legal researchers and project management experts. Our specialist consultants have a wide range of professional backgrounds, bringing diverse expertise and critical skill sets to our projects. Our team has worked across the globe on numerous child rights projects with our consultants having acted as trusted advisors to governments, development agencies, communities and non-government organisations.
The Coram International team also work with a number of associated consultants who are current or former practitioners, and experts in their respective fields. These consultants include judges, prosecutors, social workers, police officers and prison officers.
Coram also has an extensive pool of national consultants around the world that we collaborate with for our projects. These dedicated consultants provide additional in-depth local and regional knowledge to each project we work on.
Professor Dame Carolyn Hamilton
Director
Carolyn Hamilton is a Professor Emeritus of Law at the University of Essex and a Fellow of the Human Rights Centre. She was the Senior Legal Adviser to the Children’s Commissioner and served as the Children and Families Commissioner to the Legal Services Commission. She qualified at the Bar and practised in the English courts as a child lawyer, taking cases on children’s rights to the Supreme Court.
Professor Hamilton is an internationally known human rights and child rights lawyer who has published widely on issues of children’s rights, including juvenile justice; children in armed conflict; violence against children; children and counter-terrorism; child protection, children and education and child labour; child marriage; gender-based violence; child exploitation; trafficking; refugee and asylum seeking children and administrative justice. Her report on Legal Protection from Violence: Analysis of Domestic Law relating to Violence against Children in ASEAN Member States was chosen as one of UNICEF’s best research projects in 2015.
She specialises in systems reform, covering research, policy, legal and practice reform. She also has a strong record in quantitative and qualitative research projects and evaluation, as well as legal drafting, the development of children’s courts and legal aid. She has a particular interest in religious courts. In addition, she has established child rights centres, legal aid services and diversion projects in a number of States. She has worked across Africa, Asia, Europe, Central Asia, the Caribbean and the Middle East. Professor Hamilton is very experienced managing large EU Projects, for example our project Unlocking Children’s Rights with 11 partners.
Professor Hamilton was awarded the Sigrid Rausing prize for inspirational leadership in 2005 and the Children’s Legal Centre, of which she is Director, was awarded the Gandhi Peace Prize in October 2009 for its work with refugee and asylum seeking children in England and its project for sexually exploited and trafficked girls in Tajikistan. Furthermore, Professor Hamilton has been granted the award of Dame Commander of the British Empire (DBE) for Services to Children’s Rights and Education in the 2017 Queen’s Birthday Honours List.
Awaz Raoof
Deputy Director
Awaz Raoof is a UK-qualified lawyer, technical consultant and researcher with over 10 years’ professional experience in public international law, development and child rights. Awaz has a LLB (Law) and LLM (Public International Law) from the London School of Economics, where she was awarded the Higgins Lauterpacht Prize in Public International Law 2005. She has a Postgraduate Diploma in Legal Practice (Distinction).
Awaz specialises in providing technical and research expertise to Governments, UN bodies and (I)NGOs to develop laws, policies and system-wide reforms in line with international child rights standards. Her work includes: developing and delivering capacity-building trainings to civil servants, professionals and practitioners on children’s rights; and designing, monitoring and evaluating community-based programmes and services.
Awaz works on a broad range of thematic areas, including child protection, access to justice, combating violence against children, and monitoring children’s rights. Awaz has worked on projects in a range of countries including Bangladesh, Belize, Germany, Kazakhstan, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Libya, Moldova, Montenegro, Nigeria, the Pacific Island Countries and Territories, Timor-Leste, the UAE, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia.
Awaz completed her legal training at a leading international law firm. Her experience includes providing legal support for human rights cases before the African Commission/Court on Human and People’s Rights and European Court of Human Rights.
Kirsten Anderson
Principal Research and Policy Advisor
Kirsten Anderson is a lawyer, social researcher and policy analyst with 17 years’ experience in researching, assessing and providing technical assistance to support the implementation of children’s rights and to strengthen systems of protection for children. She also has extensive experience in gender analysis and adolescent and youth development and participation. Kirsten has worked for UNICEF, UN Women, UNFPA, UNDP, Save the Children, Plan International and the International Planned Parenthood Federation on projects in over 40 countries across South-East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.
Kirsten has a strong record of success in leading in the design and implementation of social and legal research projects, including large global and multi-country projects involving a range of quantitative and qualitative methods on child protection, child justice, access to justice, violence against children, gender-based violence, sexual and reproductive health, harmful practices, children affected by migration and a range of other issues. She also has extensive experience developing monitoring and evaluation frameworks and tools; completing programme assessments and evaluations, including large, multi-component country programmes; carrying out situational analysis of children, women and youth in a range of contexts; and providing technical assistance and capacity development to governments and (I)NGOs on child protection, child justice and access to justice systems strengthening, including through the development of national policies, strategies and action plans.
She holds a Masters in Public and International Law (University of Melbourne), a Bachelor of Laws and Bachelor of Arts (Cultural Studies) (Griffith University), and has completed a range of courses on quantitative, qualitative and participatory social research methods. Before joining Coram International, she held legal and research positions, including as a research fellow at the University of Melbourne Law School and as a legal advisor at the Department of Justice and Attorney General in Queensland. She has published numerous reports, papers, policy documents and articles on a variety of child rights, child protection and child justice issues.
Kara Apland
Senior Research and Child Protection Advisor
Kara Apland is a social researcher and policy analyst with over 10 years of experience working in applied research in international development, specialising in child protection. Over the course of her career, Kara has led and managed numerous research and evaluation consultancies for UNICEF and other UN agencies, government bodies and (I)NGOs on a range of topics in child protection and social policy. She has extensive experience designing quantitative and qualitative research methodologies, leading evaluations, designing theories of change and monitoring frameworks, drafting analytical reports and developing recommendations for policy and programming. Kara has worked in over twenty countries, including Bangladesh, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cambodia, El Salvador, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Kenya, Lao PDR, Liberia, Moldova, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Nigeria, Pakistan, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka, South Africa, Switzerland, Tanzania, Thailand, Tunisia, the United Kingdom, Vietnam and Zimbabwe.
Kara holds an MSc in Human Rights Law and Sociology from the London School of Economics and Political Science and a BA in Political Science and Economics from Brown University. Kara is currently a part-time PhD candidate at Oxford University’s Centre for Socio-legal Studies, studying the influence of law on social norms, attitudes and practices relating to early marriage and teenage pregnancy in Sri Lanka. She has completed post-graduate work in statistical analysis at the London School of Economics and Political Science, and undertaken coursework on social protection at the Institute for Development Studies, University of Sussex. Before joining Coram International, Kara completed research fellowships from Brown University and Yale Law School, as well as a Fulbright scholarship at the London School of Economics and Political Science.
Kara has drafted and edited numerous analytical reports, policy papers, technical documents, presentations and articles in a range of formats and tailored to different audiences, including for presentation to the highest levels of government, UN personnel and development partners, and for wider publication. Her recent evaluation report, Formative Evaluation of the Be a Change Agent Project (B-Cap), was rated as one of UNICEF’s 13 best evaluation reports in 2018 and her Final evaluation of the Justice for Every Child Project in Bosnia and Herzegovina was rated as one of UNICEF’s 13 best evaluation reports in 2017. Kara has also co-authored several peer reviewed academic articles.
Dr Amelia Smith
Research Manager
Amelia holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Sussex. Amelia specialises in longitudinal research and quantitative and qualitative research techniques, with particular expertise in social influences on child mental health and related outcomes. She has over six years’ experience of leading child-focused research and evaluations to inform intervention and prevention practice and policy across academic, public health, government and charity sectors. Amelia’s research has been centred on interrelated social and familial risk factors for children and young people, including poverty, intimate partner violence, child abuse and neglect and broader parenting practices. Amelia has vast experience in developing quantitative and qualitative research methods and tools, including questionnaires, interviews, focus groups and participatory research across a range of research topics. She is skilled in conducting complex statistical analysis, including structural equation modelling, loglinear modelling and multilevel modelling, as well as other inferential statistics such as regression analyses and ANOVA.
Amelia joined Coram the team in July 2021, and supports the team throughout all stages of the design and implementation of social and legal research projects, particularly with the design of quantitative and qualitative research tools and quantitative data analysis. She is currently working alongside Professor Hamilton on a multi-country situation analysis of children affected by migration in the ASEAN States, and an update on the situation of children in Pacific Island Countries.
Prior to working at Coram International, Amelia held positions as Impact and Evaluation Manager at Buttle UK, a charity supporting children in poverty, and as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in Adverse Childhood Experiences with the University of Sussex and Public Health Wales. Amelia has also conducted multiple evaluations and research projects for the UK government, produced UK government policy evidence resources, and published research in multiple peer-reviewed journal articles.
Katie Burke
Senior Research and Child Participation Officer
Katie holds an honours degree in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and an MA. in Human Rights with Distinction from the University of Minnesota, where she was a Hubert H. Humphrey Fulbright Scholar. In her final year in Minnesota Katie was awarded the Student Leader of the Year Award and the Diversity Paper of the Year Award for her qualitative research on the impact of Covid-19 on immigrant communities in Minneapolis.
Katie served as a Member of the Scottish Youth Parliament for six years. In 2015, Katie was elected as the Vice Chairperson of the Scottish Youth Parliament, and went on to become the charities Chairperson. As a part of this work, Katie was heavily involved in the UK’s 2016 review by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and gave evidence in Geneva on behalf of Scottish young people. Katie was also selected to sit on the Scottish Parliament’s Commission on Parliamentary Reform, whose report transformed the workings of the Parliamentary system in Scotland. In recognition of this, Katie has been named the as one of the ’30 under 30’ most inspirational young women in Scotland. After leaving the Youth Parliament Katie has worked for a variety of children’s rights charities. Before joining Coram, Katie worked for Together: The Scottish Alliance for Children’s Rights to research the charities 2019 State of Children’s Rights Report.
Since joining Coram International Katie has worked on a broad range of thematic areas, including child protection, access to justice, combating violence against children and gender-based violence. Katie has worked on projects in a range of countries including Burundi, Cambodia, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Laos PDR, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Tanzania, Thailand and Vietnam. Outside of her role at Coram International Katie is also currently a Trustee of the British Youth Council and a member of the UK’s National Youth Advisory Board.
Katie joined Coram International in June 2020 and supports Coram’s work as an International Research Officer.
Farah Elhouni
International Research Officer
Farah Elhouni holds an LLB in Law with Politics and an LLM in Public International Law with Distinction from the University of Manchester. Farah has also studied a semester of Law at Tripoli University, looking at principles of Libyan law.
Farah joined Coram International in February 2021 and supports the team as a Junior International Research Officer. She is currently working on a number of projects including Coram International’s institutional contract with UNICEF Libya, which includes supporting the Ministry of Social Affairs to map and strengthen the child protection system and the social service workforce; and the strengthening of the juvenile justice system.
Before joining Coram, Farah completed a legal research internship with the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, researching MENA approaches to international law; and an internship with the International Bar Association. Farah is fluent in Arabic and has excellent experience working in a legal capacity in both English and Arabic.
Ramyah Harrichandiran
International Research Officer
Ramyah holds a first-class LLB in International Law and Globalisation from the University of Birmingham, as well as an LLM in International Law with distinction from the University College London. Through her academia, Ramyah specialised in TWAIL perspectives on international human rights law and humanitarian matters.
Ramyah joined Coram International in June 2021 and supports the team in the implementation of social and legal research projects. She has contributed to the team’s qualitative research, analysis and report writing, and has helped in the coordination of large-scale research projects, the most recent of which involved producing 14 country reports, and a regional report, on the situation of children in the Pacific Island Countries. She is currently part of the team of lawyers and researchers from Coram International who are developing a global legislative guide on how to best tackle the online sexual abuse and exploitation of children.
Sihana Bina
International Research Officer
Sihana holds an MA in Human Rights Policy and Practice from the University of Gothenburg, Sweden, where she cultivated her analytical skills and expertise in human rights perspectives, contexts, organisations, policy-making and practice.
At Coram, Sihana is currently involved in assisting the implementation of a multi-country evaluation project across eight countries in Europe and Central Asia. The focus of the project is on deinstitutionalization and child care reforms initiated by national governments and UNICEF’s efforts from 2009 to the end of 2022. In this capacity, she is actively involved in research analysis and drafting using OECD criteria, conducting literature reviews, managing data collection, and presenting findings.
Before joining Coram, Sihana was part of the Access to Justice and Rule of Law team for UNDP Kosovo. Her responsibilities included supporting the team through research, preparing project documentation, coordinating activities with relevant international and national stakeholders such as the UNICEF office, the National Agency for Free Legal Aid, and relevant ministries. She was also directly involved with beneficiaries supported by the project.
Freya Allery
Mixed Methods Research Officer
Freya Allery holds a first-class MEng Engineering Science degree from the University of Oxford and a Master’s of Research degree with distinction from University College London, where she specialised in the application of data science to public health settings. Through her diverse set of research experiences, she has developed proficiency in a wide range of quantitative and qualitative methodologies.
Freya joined Coram International in October 2023 and supports the team as a Mixed Methods Research Officer, particularly with quantitative data analysis. She is currently part of the team working on a UNICEF ROSA project aiming to capture learning on effective interventions to prevent child marriage in South Asian countries through a meta-synthesis and meta-analysis of evidence.
Prior to working at Coram International, Freya was a Visiting Researcher for Health Data Research UK’s CVD-COVID-UK consortium. Utilizing data wrangling methods, she synthesized demographic and longitudinal health data for fifty-seven million individuals and employed advanced quantitative techniques to explore health inequalities in ethnic minority populations. She has supported all stages of project design and implementation, co-authored peer-reviewed articles and presented her work at international conferences. In addition to her research experiences, Freya has worked with children and young people in various environments. As part of a community revitalisation project in Peru, she has used her Spanish proficiency to run educational workshops for secondary-school-aged children. Within the UK, she has worked with young people as part of various outreach initiatives to widen access to higher education for under-represented groups.
Rebecca Sykes
Research Assistant
Rebecca holds a First Class Honours in BA History from University College London, as well as an MA Conflict Resolution in Divided Societies with Distinction from King’s College London. During her masters, she specialised in human rights in complex protracted conflicts, hybrid governance and post-conflict contexts.
Rebecca joined Coram in March 2024 as a research assistant and is currently involved in a consultancy conducting a situational analysis of Türkiye, undertaking desk research and report writing. She is also a research assistant on a project for UNICEF HQ evaluating UNICEF’s ‘Reimagining Justice’ agenda on juvenile justice reform.
Before joining Coram Rebecca worked as a casework and research coordinator at Asylum Links. She worked with a remote team responding to case queries from asylum seekers across the globe, undertaking context specific research, liaising with UNHCR offices, and providing signposting to legal services. Rebecca has also worked on a research project on migrant access to healthcare in the UK for Citizens UK and Doctors of the World. The role included undertaking a desk review, report writing, conducting interviews with asylum seekers and migrants, and presenting findings to stakeholders.
Adam Cunliffe
Project Manager and Researcher
Adam holds an MA in Social Anthropology from the University of Sussex and a BA in Social and Political Sciences from the University of Cambridge.
Adam joined Coram International in June 2022 and is a member of the Project Management team, supporting the planning and implementation of projects, coordination and collaboration with partners and external consultants, and reporting to donors and partners.
Prior to working at Coram International, Adam was a Project Support Officer for the Lambeth Early Action Partnership programme run by the National Children’s Bureau (NCB). At NCB, he supported public health and maternity projects, working with NHS trusts, local authorities and civil society organisations to improve the health and wellbeing of young families.
Madison Charlton
Project Management Officer
Madison holds an MSc in Global Mental Health and Society from the University of Edinburgh and a BA in Psychology from New York University.
Madison joined Coram International in May 2023 and is a member of the Project Management team, supporting the planning and implementation of projects, coordination and collaboration with partners and external consultants, and reporting to donors and partners.
Prior to working at Coram International, Madison was a Programme Lead for Power2, a youth charity based in London and Manchester. At Power2, she was responsible for delivering early intervention programmes in schools throughout London, and delivered work on behalf of the SAFE Taskforce and Violence Reduction Unit to improve outcomes for vulnerable young people.