The Director for UK Development at Focus Consultancy Ltd. Dame Jocelyn was a founding member and General Secretary of CARD (Campaign Against Racial Discrimination), the organisation responsible for the Race Relations legislation of 1968. As a senior teacher, and later as a teacher-trainer, at Furzedown College and at the Institute of Education London University in the ’60s, she pioneered the introduction of multi-cultural education, stressing the needs of the various ethnic groups in the UK.
She was the first black woman Governor of the BBC and Founder and Deputy Chair of the Broadcasting Standards Council. Her equal opportunities and educational expertise is reflected in her many Government appointments to a variety of organisations and statutory bodies. Governor of the Commonwealth Institute for eight years, Council Member of Goldsmith’s College, University of London, Vice-president of the United Nations Association in the UK and Northern Ireland and Trustee to the Irene Taylor Trust providing Music in Prisons. She is National Vice-President of the Townswomen’s Guild and was instrumental in the establishment of the North Atlantic Slavery Gallery and the Maritime Museum in Liverpool.
She was a Trustee of the National Museums and Galleries on Merseyside and a Governor of the British Film Institute. In 1972 she was awarded the OBE for work in the field of education and community relations. In 1992 she received the DBE for her work in broadcasting and her contribution to the work of the European Union as the UK Member of the Social Economic Committee.
Dame Jocelyn Barrow chaired the Mayor’s Commission on African & Asian Heritage. The MCAAH was established in August 2003 to take forward recommendations in the Mayor’s culture strategy. The commission investigated the needs of Black and Asian community-based heritage organisations and assessed the priorities and working practices of key heritage institutions, such as museums and archives, to determine how they are serving the needs of African-Caribbean and Asian Londoners.