Meet the staff
Andrew Willetts, Principal Director
Andrew Willetts is the Principal Director of Oasis Restore, the first secure school. Andrew has previously worked in Education, Public Health, Local Authority and the NHS (Clinical Commissioning Group). He has extensive knowledge and experience in child and family work, across design, delivery and commissioning. He has led some of the top-performing programmes in the country, including those evidenced as national best practice such as ‘Child First’.
Andrew’s extensive experience in inspections has helped to improve service delivery from inadequate to good and he has received positive personal feedback from Joint Targeted Area Inspections (JTAI), Ofsted and Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) services for his leadership.
Andrew is relentlessly aspirational for children and has dedicated his life to improving outcomes specifically for those with complex vulnerabilities, behaviours and needs. He has transformed and developed children and family hubs, health and wellbeing centres and youth provision in challenging circumstances and in areas of significant deprivation, where families and children were in need of support.
Andrew has chaired regional boards in youth justice and family work for the YJB (Youth Justice Board) and the DfE (Department for Education), spoken at national conferences and influenced national change. Andrew has expertise in youth justice and was part of the original international task group considering the birth of the secure school.
Dr Celia Sadie, Director of Care & Wellbeing
Dr Celia Sadie is the Director of Care and Wellbeing at Oasis Restore. She is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and a specialist in adolescent mental health and psychological therapies. Her career has spanned adolescent in-patient and youth custody settings as well as work in private practice and as an expert witness.
Celia has led the implementation of ‘SECURE STAIRS’– the new national approach to creating integrated and effective care for children and young people in secure accommodation – at Cookham Wood Young Offenders’ Institution, as part of her role as Consultant Psychologist there. She is passionate about creating the space for children in trouble with the justice system to find help, safety and understanding.
Core to Celia’s commitment to Oasis Restore is a deep awareness of the struggles experienced by those caring for children in secure care: families, carers, professionals, and staff. Celia brings this expertise to Oasis Restore, with the responsibility of designing and nurturing a caring and reflective environment for our staff and children alike.
Celia’s practice is guided by a belief in the redemptive power of human connection, the capacity for reconciliation and the restoration of dignity and hope, alongside the realism gained from her wealth of experience in NHS and custodial settings, responding to acute and changing needs.
Celia has trained, published, and presented her work widely at national and international conferences, including contributing to the Lammy Review (2017), Youth Justice Conventions in 2017 and 2018, and Offender Health (2021). Much of her work has focused on the development of trauma-responsive services, and on the particular challenges faced by adolescents in custody and those who work with them.
Cara Beckett, Director of Learning & Enrichment
Cara Beckett is the Director of Learning and Enrichment at Oasis Restore and has worked for Oasis for the last seven years in education as a curriculum leader, ITT/NQT coordinator, and a passionate science teacher. She is dedicated to improving the quality of teaching, learning and outcomes for young people. Cara was previously an integral part of the Oasis National School Improvement Team, focusing on meeting the learning and development needs of children in the Oasis family of schools.
Cara has a wide-ranging knowledge of the educational and personal development needs of young people, as well as an unwavering commitment to improving outcomes of the most disadvantaged children across the country. She is a passionate advocate for trauma informed practice and has developed rigorous training programmes to support the training and improvement of teachers practice meeting the needs of the community.
As a champion of diversity, Cara is acutely aware of the opportunity to turn aspiration into successful outcomes for young people. She and her team had been praised for their work to create an innovative and balanced curriculum that supports the most disengaged learners within a classroom. Her commitment to staff development, in line with the latest psychological advances in the way children learn, has brought about marked improvement in outcomes across Oasis schools nationally.
Cara has an intrinsic commitment to support the most vulnerable children and a lifelong interest with unique educational needs. Through this, Cara has become a champion for those who are overlooked through understanding their traumas and challenges and creating collective commitment to support their success.