Board and staff

Board, staff, and advisory council.

The board is responsible for strategy and oversight, while the Executive Director manages day-to-day operations. The advisory council (fagráð) acts as an advisory body, reviewing publications and analysis of the system. This page describes the three governance units.

The board

How the board is elected.

The board has up to eleven members: five in open seats and up to six nominated by the youth wings of political parties holding seats in Alþingi (the Icelandic parliament). The open seats have been filled by the annual general meeting; invitations to nominate are being sent to the youth wings, and new board members will be introduced here as nominations come in.

5 open seats

Expertise and stability

Elected by the annual general meeting. Individuals and representatives of organizations working on children's issues can stand for election. The aim is to keep deep professional knowledge and experience permanently on the board, regardless of the political currents of the day.

Up to 6 nominated seats

A forum for future politicians

Nominated by the youth wings of parties with seats in Alþingi that have joined the organization. This secures cross-party collaboration and builds knowledge of the field among young people in politics.

Alternates

Continuity of operations

General alternates from the open seats stand in for general board members. Nominated alternates only stand in for representatives of their own party, so that no party ever has two representatives at the same board meeting. Alternates step in when needed.

Open seats

Members in open seats.

Members in open seats, elected by the annual general meeting.

Board members

Pétur Guðmundur Broddason

Chair of the board

Pétur Guðmundur Broddason holds a BA in psychology and a diploma in child well-being (farsæld barna). He is a well-being case manager (málstjóri farsældar) at the City of Reykjavík and knows how the Child Well-being Act is implemented from his daily work. Before that, for fourteen years he ran the residential treatment home at Laugaland in Eyjafjarðarsveit, which housed girls aged thirteen to eighteen facing complex difficulties. He has implemented evidence-based treatments and worked with the main institutions of the child protection system.

Lilja Björk Guðrúnardóttir

Board member

Lilja Björk Guðrúnardóttir is a social worker with a diploma in alcohol and substance abuse issues. She leads the treatment team at the child protection services of Kópavogur and sits on the service's management team. She has nine years of experience in child protection, first at Barnavernd Reykjavíkur (Reykjavík Child Protection) and, since 2021, in Kópavogur. She has worked especially with adolescents engaging in risk behavior, supporting the adolescents themselves, their families, and the services available to them.

Sigrún Sigurðardóttir

Board member

Sigrún Sigurðardóttir holds a doctorate in nursing. She is an associate professor at the School of Health Sciences of the University of Akureyri, researches how violence in childhood affects health and life in adulthood, and oversees master's-level courses on psychological trauma and trauma-informed care. Earlier she worked as a police officer and a nurse, among other roles. She has been involved with organizations such as Gæfuspor, the Research Center Against Violence at the University of Akureyri, Bergið headspace, Geðhjálp, and Bjarmahlíð, as a founder or on their boards and advisory councils.

Guðmundur Fylkisson

Board member

Guðmundur Fylkisson is a police officer with forty years of service. He has specialized in finding missing children for over eleven years and handled nearly four hundred search requests in 2025. He has served on the board of Bergið headspace since its founding. Through his work he has come to know how the school system, the healthcare system, child protection, and social services interact, and the flaws that lie between them.

Berglind Gunnarsdóttir Strandberg

Board member

Berglind Gunnarsdóttir Strandberg holds a Cand.Pæd.Psych. degree from Danmarks Pædagogiske Universitet and a diploma in cognitive behavioral therapy. She is Executive Director of Foreldrahús and has held that role since the start of 2019. Before that she was board chair of Vímulaus æska-Foreldrahús and a mediator and specialist in children's affairs at the office of the District Commissioner of the capital area. She has long experience working with children and adolescents of school age facing personal or social difficulties, and advising parents and professionals.

General alternates

General alternates stand in for general board members when needed.

Anton Stefánsson

Alternate

Anton Stefánsson grew up in Djúpivogur and comes to the work with the experience of a parent who has had to seek services and support from a range of institutions. Through that experience he has seen first-hand how the system can genuinely help people, but also how complicated and heavy it can become when cooperation and the flow of information between parties fall short.

He cares especially about individuals and families getting support earlier, about simpler access to services, and about institutions working better together. Anton believes the experience of people who go through the system should carry more weight when services are developed and decisions are made that affect their lives.

Two more general alternates will be introduced once they have been elected.

Nominated seats

Youth wings of parties in Alþingi.

Nominations from the youth wings of political parties holding seats in Alþingi are in progress and will be published once they come in.

Up to 6 seats, nominated by the youth wings of parties with seats in Alþingi. The youth wings of governing parties have priority, and remaining seats are offered to the youth wings of opposition parties in proportion to their parent parties' parliamentary seats. The organization has been entered in the public-benefit registry, invitations to nominate are being sent to the youth wings, and the outcome will be announced publicly once it is in.

Nominated alternates: up to 6

Nominated alternates only stand in for representatives of their own party, so that no party ever has two representatives at the same board meeting. Nominations are in progress.

Internal organization

Board offices.

At its first meeting after the annual general meeting, the board elects the following offices from among its members:

Chair: From among the open-seat members.
Vice-chair: No seat restriction.
Secretary: No seat restriction.
Treasurer: From among the open-seat members.

Board composition and rationale

A two-part board.

The board of Hagsmunasamtök Æskunnar has up to eleven members in two groups. This composition is designed to secure professional stability on one hand and cross-party breadth on the other.

The purpose of the nominated seats is neither party-political nor to support individual parties; it is educational and societal. Those active in youth wings are, more often than not, future members of parliament, ministers, and municipal councillors. Membership gives them a forum to deepen their knowledge of children's and youth issues. That kind of background, grounded in evidence-based knowledge, has a positive effect on the future debate about children's welfare in Icelandic society, regardless of party-political ties.

The seats are open to the youth wings of all political parties with seats in Alþingi, with the youth wings of governing parties having priority. Remaining seats are offered to the youth wings of opposition parties in proportion to their parent parties' parliamentary seats. If an offer of a seat is declined or goes unanswered, the seat remains vacant.

Board members' independence

All board members serve as independent representatives of the organization under Art. 15 of its statutes, and are accountable for making the decisions that best serve the interests of children and young people, free of outside interests. Youth-wing representatives are not bound by their parties' positions at board meetings; their role, under the statutes, is to serve children's interests. More in the organization's statutes (A2.1, PDF in Icelandic) and conflict-of-interest policy (A2.4, PDF in Icelandic).

Areas of responsibility

The board's remit.

Strategy

The board sets the organization's overall strategy, approves the work plan and budget, and evaluates the results of the work.

Oversight

The board oversees day-to-day operations, reviews the Executive Director's monthly reports, and is responsible for ensuring the work complies with law and the statutes.

Finances

The board approves the budget, monitors the financial position, and ensures the annual accounts are examined and published.

Ethical standards

The board is responsible for the code of conduct and complaint procedures, and handles reports concerning staff and board members.

Board meetings are held at least six times a year. The Executive Director delivers a monthly operations report. The document A2.2 · Roles and duties of the board and committees (PDF in Icelandic) defines the full scope of responsibility.

Executive Director

Managing day-to-day operations.

The Executive Director handles day-to-day operations, contact with the media and external parties, and other matters that do not specifically fall to the board. The role is defined in the organization's statutes along with the decision-making framework (A2.3, PDF in Icelandic).

To keep a clear separation between daily operations and the board's oversight, the Executive Director does not hold a vote on the board. He does, however, have the right to attend and address all board meetings, to ensure good information flow and consultation.

Alexander Gunnarsson

Executive Director

Alexander Gunnarsson is the Executive Director of HÆ. He has worked helping people in disputes, with the public sector but also with employers and others, both in Iceland and in Denmark: helping them find their way through the administration, see where their rights lie, and choose the most sensible route to them. From that work he knows first-hand how much persistence achieves. He has also been involved in founding companies, worked as an advisor to political parties on data gathering and election campaigns.

He lost his sister, seventeen years old, in a system that failed to catch her. That experience is why he set this work in motion.

alexander@hagsmunasamtokaeskunnar.is

Advisory council

An advisory body for publications and systems analysis.

The advisory council (fagráð) is an advisory group of specialists from public administration, academia, law, and, not least, people who work with children on the ground. There is room for everyone who can meaningfully help us deepen our understanding of the system and identify where it fails. The council reviews reports and publications before release. Membership is volunteer work and carries no decision-making power over the organization's strategy.

More about the advisory council →