Jacky Clift (teacher, community activist)
Jacky Clift was born Jacky Wood in Plymouth in 1949. She went to Plympton Grammar School and then to the University of East Anglia to study English. She became a trainee reporter on the Wokingham Times and moved to London to work as a researcher for Asahi Shimbun, the leading Japanese newspaper. Time living on a houseboat on the Thames was fun but Plymouth called and she returned home and became a teacher. Her second child James suffered brain damage at birth and this experience led her to what then became her ‘vocation’ of finding ways of making the voices of people who use health and social care services heard in their planning and delivery. She co-founded with other women the Plymouth Parents’ Pressure Group, which went on to make some significant changes in care provided for children with special needs. The Link Family scheme for short term relief care for children was one thing it set up and it was instrumental in starting the Martinsgate ATC. She chaired the Plymouth Community Health Council, the voice of patients in the health service, for three years at a time when ‘community care’ was being set up.
Years teaching and voluntary work round the country were followed by a second return to her home city, where she was Head of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at City College. When she left she returned to her drive to make people’s voices heard in designing the services they and the city need. She worked for the Zebra Collective and set up Plymouth Octopus Project (POP) to support the community and voluntary sector to work together to meet those needs and to use their expert experience of what is happening to people in the city to direct and co-design services. Jacky led POP for five years before her retirement, and it continues to flourish as a force in the voluntary sector and the city.