James Partridge OBE, DSc (Hon), FDSRCSEd (Hon)

Changing Faces is now a £1m pa charity supporting and representing the interest of people with disfigurements to the face, hands and body (whether from birth, accidents, cancer, paralysis or skin conditions). It employs a 20-person team specialising in the psychological and social aspects of disfigurements, offering direct help to children/families and adults with disfigurements, advocating for effective health/social care, education and employment, and promoting equal opportunities, rights and public awareness about disfigurement.

The major achievements of Changing Faces include

• developing a new ‘disfigurement life-skills programme'
• pioneering new ways for the NHS and education to meet psycho-social needs
• raising public awareness about disfigurement (eg: in media and advertising)
• achieving legal protection for people with disifgurements under the DDA 1995.

The charity has, from the outset, been underpinned and informed by academic evidence and research. It partnered the University of the West of England, Bristol, in setting up the first Centre for Appearance Research in 1998, which is now a fully-fledged research centre with 28 attached academics. The University recognised James' contribution to academic research by granting him an Honorary Doctorate of Science in 1999. He is regularly invited to speak at international conferences - in 2005, for example, in Chicago and Cape Town, and in 2006, in Washington and Brazil.

As well as directing Changing Faces, James has served on many committees and panels bringing disability, human rights, user, consumer and lay perspectives to bear on a range of subjects. A long-time Associate of the Employers' Forum on Disability, James is also a founding partner of Dining with a Difference, which aims to challenge and change the way chief executives/directors of private and public organisations address disability as a strategic business issue. Dining has made major impact on the thinking of organisations such as the Royal Mail, Barclays and Jobcentre Plus. He is now establishing the inclusion company, The All Inclusive Dining Club. In 2003, he was given a Lifetime Achievement Human Rights Award at RADAR's People of the Year.

A recognised public face, he has been involved with major documentaries on TV and radio and is a respected voice on equality, disability and disfigurement in the UK and internationally. In 2007, he was heavily involved in debates about face transplantation and was interviewed, inter alia, by Guardian Society and by Libby Purvis on Midweek, BBC R4.

Before setting up Changing Faces in 1992, James worked in health economics and public health in the NHS (1975-79), and ran a dairy farm business for 12 years in Guernsey (1979-91) where he also taught A Level economics, served on the Guernsey States Agricultural and Milk Marketing Board, the Board of Health's Ethics Committee - and he had his own radio show - "down on the farm with..."!

Married with three ‘grown-up' children, James was appointed an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Golden Jubilee Birthday Honours in June 2002 for services to disabled people. In 2005, he was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburgh and an Honorary Doctor of Science from the University of Bristol.