Meet the Team

The Dumfries and Galloway Educational Visitor (EV) Service invites you to get to know the team a little better.

Pam Abraham

Pam has been part of the EV Team for a number of years and is at present the Principal Teacher for the Educational Visitors. She is also a Video Interactive Guidance Practitioner (VIG) working towards being an Advanced Practitioner. Previously, Pam worked as a class teacher at Noblehill Primary School.

Pam is passionate about health and wellbeing. She is dedicated to promoting relationship-based approaches through VIG and developing projects with nursery settings to support and enhance better outcomes for children.
Pam considers early intervention as key to improve the quality of home life for children, increase educational attainment, build family relationships and to develop the skills for children to live happy, healthy and successful lives.
Pam loves spending time with her family and friends. She enjoys walking, cycling and cold-water swimming regardless of our Scottish weather.

Alison Reid

Alison joined the Educational Visitor Service in 2015 having previously been a nursery teacher for 3 years.

Alison trained as a Primary School Teacher at Jordanhill College of Education, Glasgow, and has a PGC in Inclusive Education. She has taught in a number of schools in Dumfries and Galloway, since 1985.
Alison has a real passion for her job as an EV. She sees the positive impact that the service has on supporting children with additional needs, their families and other professionals. She values working as part of a larger team and sees her job as being a great privilege; she never gets a ‘Sunday night feeling’!
Alison enjoys spending time with her husband, three grown up children, her little ‘Scruffy’ dog (Emmy) and family and friends. She enjoys music, walking, cycling, running (at times) and her latest venture is learning to speak Scottish Gaelic.

Angela Anderson

Angela Anderson is part of the West Team and, having started teaching in 2001, has over 20 years teaching experience.

Angela is a Mum of 3, one of whom has additional support needs. Since a very young age she has been passionate about understanding young people’s support needs. This then developed all through school, further education and then into the early years of her teaching career and has finally led her to working with the Educational Visitor Service.
Over the years Angela has worked closely with Young People and their families to find and access the most helpful advice, strategies, and support networks. She continues to be passionate about supporting families and professionals together.
Angela’s hobbies include singing, playing music, walking her dog, and jewellery making – whenever she gets a chance!

Claire Bryce

Claire Bryce is an Educational Visitor in the Central area of the region.

She has always had an interest in working with young people. This began very early on while still in primary herself when she volunteered in the Learning Centre attached to her school. After leaving school, Claire decided to postpone teacher training in order to become a qualified Orthoptist. This experience allowed her to travel and train in a variety of settings, assessing and supporting young people and families in a different way. It also gave her an insight into the challenges of sensory impairment.
While raising her own three children, Claire worked for several years as a Support for Learning Assistant, gaining experience of supporting children in Nursery, Primary, Secondary and Learning Centres. She then completed her teacher training and spent most of her teaching career in the same rural primary. Having had responsibility for organising transition from nursery into primary, Claire is aware of the importance of having a smooth and positive experience. She remains passionate about supporting young people and working collaboratively to remove barriers to learning.

Elise McNay

Elise is a new member of the Educational Visitor team.

Elise has worked in education for over 10 years and has predominantly been teaching at Early Level. She has a real passion for early years and is looking forward to being part of the Educational Visitors team.

Before beginning to work as a teacher, Elise was as a support worker for children with additional support needs.

Elise is a busy mum of two young children. She enjoys spending time with her family and friends exploring new places.

Fiona Welsh

Fiona Welsh is part of the EV team in the East.

Fiona has been teaching for 13 years however has worked in education for the past 20 years, originally as a Learning Assistant and Nursery Nurse.
Fiona chose to complete teacher training to work specifically with children with additional needs. Over her career she has taught in a number of learning centres throughout the region as well as supporting children in mainstream school as a Support for learning teacher.

Jill Cummings

Jill has been an Educational Visitor for many years.

Before Jill joined the team in the East, she had taught in Primary, Secondary and Further Education in various parts of Scotland, England and in Bermuda but when she became an Educational Visitor, she felt she had come home.
Jill enjoys the varied nature of Educational Visitor work – the privilege of getting to know and be part of the lives of the young people and their families, easing their passage from home into education, meeting and learning from professionals who work in different fields and the constant challenge of making sure these very important young people are able to access the best experience they can.
Jill has a particular interest and has trained in language development and Autism.
Jill has grown-up children who have provided her with the opportunity to be a grandparent, which is very different from being a parent and is great fun!
Jill is a member of a local women’s Samba band in her spare time and enjoys playing for community events, both locally and further afield.

Kathleen Symington

Kathleen Symington is part of the Dumfries Team.

Kathleen came to teaching later in life, retraining after a career in a totally unrelated field. Education had always been of interest, amongst other things, having worked on a voluntary basis in adult literacy.
Upon re-qualification & when the opportunity arose to work in Learning Centres and in supporting young people with ASN this was the chance to develop into an area which had been the primary reason for retraining. A move was subsequently made to Educational Visitor.
Practical, on the job experience was enhanced by further postgraduate study in Inclusive Education.
In the role of EV “Everyday is certainly a school day” with no two days ever the same.

Laura Gallagher

Laura is a new member of the educational visiting team and works 4 days a week as part of the Dumfries team.

Laura has been a Primary Teacher for 17 years and has experience of both small and large schools, teaching at all stages. Latterly Laura has also been an Additional Support for Learning teacher where she enjoyed building closer relationships with the children and families and being on hand to support them and identify specific barriers to learning.
Laura understands the anxiety parents can face when it comes to getting it right for their child and enjoys working with parents, children, families and settings to break down barriers to learning. Laura believes this is built upon early intervention, relationships, communication and good wellbeing and likes to work collaboratively to ensure these are sustained and needs are met.
In her spare time Laura likes to spend time with her boys, travel and explore new places and countries, go to the gym, listen to music and make memories with family and friends.

Marion Linwood

Marion is one of the EVs based in the East of the region.

Marion has been an Educational Visitor since 2016, previously working as a class teacher in early years classes and in early education and childcare before that.
Marion’s professional qualifications include Post Graduate Certificate in Inclusive Education, Post Graduate Diploma in Education (Primary) and BA Childhood Studies.
Marion has completed initial training in Video Interaction Guidance (VIG), which will enable her to use VIG as part of her EV role.

Rosi McQuarrie-Parkes

Rosi has been an Educational Visitor in Dumfries and Galloway for several years. 

Rosi has previously been a class teacher, Nursery teacher and teacher for Additional Support for Learning.
When not at work, Rosi is a busy mum of three. She has recently become a granny!

Sam Rushton

Sam has been an Educational Visitor for several years and works Monday to Friday.

Sam has enjoyed a varied career teaching in nurseries, primary and secondary schools in England and Dumfries and Galloway.
Sam loves her job and feels passionate and very privileged to be able to work with families and professionals in supporting children and removing barriers learning.
When not working, Sam loves dancing, open water swimming, paddleboarding, cycling, and exploring places in her campervan.

Vicki Dunlop

Vicki is a recent recruit to the Educational Visiting service.

After 24 years of primary classroom teaching, and Additional Support for Learning teaching, Vicki made the move into the EV team in 2024.
She is committed to playing her part in making sure every child has the chance to thrive and reach their full potential. She places a high value on building and maintaining positive and trusting relationships with children, staff, parents/carers and professionals.
In her spare time, Vicki- who is mum to twin teenage girls- enjoys swimming (both wild and pool!), socialising, and entertaining friends and family.

Wendy Kirk

Wendy is an Educational Visitor in the Central part of the region.

Wendy Kirk has been a Primary Teacher for the last 16 years. Although she has taught in all stages, her passion lies in working with children in the early years, where she has worked for over 6 years of her career.
Wendy is passionate about working closely with families and professionals to ensure children’s needs are met in order for them to reach their full potential.
Wendy is a Mum herself and she feels this helps her to see things from a parent’s perspective, therefore helping to form relationships of mutual trust, respect and empathy with the families she is working with.