Trustee, Most Mira
Kirsteen is currently a trustee (formerly chair) of Most Mira, a charity that provides arts-based opportunities jointly for Serb and Bosnian young people to promote peace in post conflict Prijedor in NW Bosnia, and of Men for Tomorrow (previously Hera Trust), a charity that grew out of research originally undertaken under the umbrella of the Institute of Community Studies. It examines the work/family life balance that mothers with children really want, and how young under-performing white working class males can play a part in that.
She helped to set up the Paul Hamlyn Foundation-supported Options Fund for young undocumented migrants, commissioned its research, and advised on the funding programme launched under their Social Welfare programme.
In recent years she has worked on refugee and asylum issues, setting up the Information Centre about Asylum and Refugees (ICAR) at Kings College London in 2000, and provided consultancy on a number of refugee projects. Kirsteen also worked with Michael Young on a range of social welfare projects including Open School, the National Association for the Education of Sick Children, of which she was founder director, and the School of Social Entrepreneurs.
After university, she entered the administrative grade of the civil service, and during the years in which she lived abroad as the wife of a diplomat, worked as an educational, historical and market researcher.