Dr Caroline Zwierzchowska-Dod

.Career Profile

A former teacher and headteacher, Caroline has had a long career in public service, leading schools in challenging circumstances.  Caroline was involved with the implementation of development and improvement plans within the education sector, leading areas as diverse as special needs, culture and literacy alongside managing budgets of over £2,000,000.

Caroline moved into supporting families through pregnancy and parenting. Here she developed her understanding of the central role of service user engagement within public services, where she brought her lived experience of supporting families through labour and the perinatal period to effect positive change within maternity services. Caroline developed evidence-based training approaches for a variety of organisations, combining her many years in education with her research skills to write and deliver training to childcare and health professionals on child development and care.

During this period, Caroline completed a doctorate in the field of early education with a focus on parental engagement. Here she developed her research skills in a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, conducting the largest-scale research of its kind in the UK to date.