MEET OUR TEAM
BARBARA SHAW
TRUSTEE & CHAIR
Barbara worked for over 25 years in the charity sector. She initially trained as a caseworker helping clients with long term health issues providing advice, information and support to ensure they could access all their rights and entitlements.
She became a manager and Chief Executive within local Citizens Advice. She was then appointed to serve as a trustee on the national board of Citizens Advice, one of the largest charities in England and Wales. Barbara is experienced in both charity governance and management, as well as service delivery, having established and managed multiple projects to support people with long term health problems and disabilities.
Barbara is a co-opted member of her local County Council Health Overview and Scrutiny Committee and is involved in patient participation, scrutiny and oversight of health services.
Barbara has spent much of her life helping people to get the advice and information they need as well as advocating for change.
In 2014, Barbara was rushed into hospital with an acute cardiac event and, following an angiogram, was diagnosed with Takotsubo Syndrome. She had no prior risk for heart disease and to the surprise of her doctors there had been no preceding stressful event. Barbara was told she was lucky and would recover in a couple of weeks. However, this was not the case and her own experience of having to persistently advocate on her own behalf to get a diagnosis and treatment for coronary microvascular ischemia showed her how little knowledge and information is available to help women struggling with heart problems. Barbara decided to use her skills and experience to help other women and their families and joined with Caron and Melanie to set up Women's Heartbeat.
Barbara is passionate about ensuring every woman knows the risks and identifiers of heart disease and how to get a clear diagnosis and the best treatment available.
CARON CURRAGH
TRUSTEE
After a long career in dance, Caron trained as a movement specialist and subsequently qualified as a specialist back pain practitioner to work with people in chronic pain. Noting a strong relationship between the mind and the body she then trained and qualified as a Psychotherapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist and MBCT teacher to help her clients improve their lives.
After unexpectedly suffering nearly fatal heart failure in 2013 and post-discharge from hospital having to search for a specialist who understood her condition and the ongoing legacies of her heart failure, in 2016 she founded the Takotsubo Support Group, which currently has over 3,000 members worldwide. Her aim was and continues to be to support other Takotsubo heart failure patients in their journey; to provide information with regards the latest research to help patients to understand the disease and receive better access to care. She helped to create the Takotsubo.net website – a platform to educate both patients and clinicians about this unusual heart condition. Caron is a co-author of Takotsubo syndrome: voices to be heard which was published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing in 2019. She has organised patient awareness days and online seminars with experts in heart disease and is a trained volunteer with Cardiomyopathy UK in supporting patients. She has worked on many occasions with the British Heart Foundation to help spread awareness of Takotsubo Cardiomyopathy and has a passion for helping patients with heart problems and is dedicated to working towards filling the gap and closing disparities with regards to women's heart health. After hearing so many stories from other women regarding their own struggles to get correct cardiac care, the concept of creating a new heart charity with Melanie and Barbara, resonated so strongly and a new journey began with the creation of Women's Heartbeat.
MELANIE REIN
TRUSTEE
Melanie Rein (PhD) is an Analytical Psychologist, social scientist, and
former Deputy Director of the NIHR Research Design Service for the East of England. Her research and consultation work took her to South Africa and Zambia and to countries in Central and Eastern Europe. In her early career, Melanie trained and practised as a Psychiatric Social Worker, working with individuals, children and families.
In 2018, Melanie developed a serious heart condition. From the various kinds and varying qualities of treatment she received, she became increasingly aware of the inadequacy of knowledge, information and understanding of heart disease in women, not only among many health professionals, including some cardiologists, but therefore also, understandably, the general public. From her professional and personal experience, Melanie's understanding of biases, both conscious and unconscious, and assumptions, especially as to how they affect the medical treatment of women, has led her to join with Caron Curragh and Barbara Shaw in establishing the new charity, Women's Heartbeat.
Melanie not only brings her professional knowledge and experience to the role of trustee of Women’s Heartbeat but also her personal experience as a woman living with a complex heart condition. She has co-authored the paper, Takotsubo syndrome: voices to be heard published in the European Journal of Cardiovascular Nursing in 2019.