The Caribbean public health and advocacy community is mourning the loss of one of its most influential leaders, Tessa Chadderton-Shaw, a long-serving mental health and substance abuse educator who died Sunday at Queen Elizabeth Hospital following a short, unexpected illness.
Chadderton-Shaw leaves behind an unmatched legacy of public service spanning more than three decades, across roles in non-profit leadership, academia, and regional governance. Most notably, she helmed Barbados’ National Council on Substance Abuse (NCSA) for 14 years, serving as the organization’s manager from August 1996 through March 2010, guiding the body through critical expansion of its public education and prevention mandates.
Beyond her transformative work at NCSA, Chadderton-Shaw built a reputation as a dedicated educator and skilled project leader across multiple regional institutions. For over 13 years, she held a lectureship at the University of the West Indies’ Cave Hill campus, where she taught courses spanning business administration, project management, and language arts, shaping the careers of hundreds of emerging Caribbean professionals. Her resume also includes senior roles such as special projects coordinator at Barbados Conference Services Limited, project manager for the CARICOM Secretariat, and executive director of the Caribbean Regional Anti-Doping Organization (RADO), demonstrating her versatile ability to drive progress across diverse public sectors.
Current NCSA manager Betty Hunte, who began her career working under Chadderton-Shaw’s leadership, paid heartfelt tribute to her former mentor this week, highlighting her unyielding commitment to public service. Hunte described Chadderton-Shaw’s leadership style as defined by relentless tenacity and unshakable determination, noting that once the trailblazing leader set a goal, no obstacle could stop her from delivering results.
“When something was decided, we knew it would be done come hell or high water,” Hunte recalled, emphasizing that Chadderton-Shaw was the office’s go-to problem-solver, capable of steering even the most complex, high-stakes initiatives to success. One of her most enduring contributions to Barbados public health, Hunte shared, was a 1990s/2000s fundraising campaign to launch a groundbreaking school-based drug education program. Chadderton-Shaw led the drive to raise $250,000 for the initiative, which created a mobile drug education classroom housed in a converted bus that traveled to every primary school across Barbados. The program remains the only one of its kind in the country decades later, reaching generations of young Barbadians with life-saving prevention information.
Hunte also recalled Chadderton-Shaw’s relentless work ethic, noting that staff often received calls from her at all hours of the day and night as she clarified details, refined project documents, and pushed to advance the NCSA’s core mandate to reduce substance abuse across Barbados. Even after her retirement from the council, Chadderton-Shaw remained connected to the organization she built: when NCSA celebrated its 21st anniversary, she joined the festivities to be honored for her foundational contributions, an occasion current staff still cherish.
Chadderton-Shaw is survived by her husband Anthony Shaw and their two daughters, Miah and Haylee. Tributes continue to pour in from across the Caribbean public health and academic communities, honoring a leader whose work transformed substance abuse prevention and education across the region.