Deborah is a co-founder of this innovative micro social enterprise set up in 2019 with the aim of providing work experience and life skills for young people with professional tradespeople in community settings. She sees this as an example of the ECLIPSE approach.
Deborah created and piloted the ECLIPSE (European Centre for Life-style Illness Prevention and Social Economy) model, which aimed to improve health, social and economic opportunities for communities by levering and connecting existing resources more imaginatively. An example of this approach is the award-winning Therapeutic Care Volunteers community which she initiated in 2011 when she was Chair of South Tees Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and is now running effectively throughout the Trust. ECLIPSE builds on themes of deprivation, regeneration, and connectivity which have been important strands in Deborah’s work for the last thirty years.