Kersten chairs the Yorkshire and Humber Chief Executive’s Board and is the lead Chief Executive for the Yorkshire Leaders’ Board. She leads on innovation, business growth and the digital agenda within the West Yorkshire Combined Authority. Kersten is a trustee of the Young Foundation whose mission is to develop better connected and more sustainable communities across the UK. She is also a member of the Council of the University of Bradford, a member of the advisory board of the Bradford Literature Festival and a lay canon of Bradford Cathedral. Kersten’s career has included work in the higher education, central government (as Director of Local Government for Yorkshire and the Humber) and the voluntary sector as well as 30 years in local government. She was previously Chief Executive of the City of York for six years. She is passionate about building resilient and confident communities, supporting local democracy and sustainable urban growth. Despite her Edinburgh accent she regards herself as a bona fide Bradfordian and Yorkshire woman, having lived and worked in Yorkshire for most of her adult life and bringing her children up in the great city of Bradford. Kersten was made a CBE in the 2020 New Year’s honours list for her services to the communities and economy of Bradford.

Jackie has been a police officer in West Yorkshire Police for over 27 years, working in supervisory roles for 19 years across various ranks. As well as all the neighbourhood policing teams across Leeds, her portfolio also included a number of multi-agency teams, for example the City centre street support team, the managed area multi-agency team and the Early help partnership hubs. She has extensive experience in local policing and strategic partnerships and had been working in this area across Leeds District for five years prior to joining the VRU. In that role, Jackie worked with strategic partners, third sector, community leaders and volunteers to make communities safe.

Having such a broad partnership portfolio means Jackie has been part of a number of partnership boards in Leeds, Children and Adults Safeguarding boards, Health and Wellbeing board and the Community Safety Partnerships. This has given her a great deal of experience and understanding of partnership structures and arrangements and the great benefits of collaboration.

In relation to Jackie’s experience with the Violence Reduction agenda, prior to the VRU arrangements she set up and led a strategic partnership group in Leeds to reduce violence and in particularly youth violence given the challenges. She has seen first-hand the impacts of violence on families and communities and is very pleased to have such an opportunity to make a difference through the VRU.

During recent years, Mark has been active within the Association of Police and Crime Commissioners (APCC) on their Executive Board, and during 2018/19 he was elected national Chair of the APCC working closely with ministers, Home Office and the NPCC. Mark has taken lead roles driving work around tackling Modern Slavery and Human Trafficking, representing all PCCs. He has been the Chair of the National Police Air Service Board (NPAS) since its formation in 2013 and also chairs the West Yorkshire Local Criminal Justice Board (LCJB). He is also the National PCC lead around tackling Serious Violence and chairs the APCC Serious Violence Portfolio Group. Mark has had a varied career regionally and nationally spanning the public, private and voluntary sectors of more than 30 years.

Rob is also Lead Chief Executive for the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership (Integrated Care System).
This sees him bringing together West Yorkshire and Harrogate health and care leaders, organisations and communities to develop ambitious plans for improved health, care and finances for 2.7 million people. Rob is an active member of the NHS Assembly and leads a number of national programmes.

Rob has worked in healthcare since 1990, taking on national leadership roles in the Department of Health on policy, transformation and delivery. He has been a director for both the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit in the Cabinet Office and a national public/private partnership.

He has been a successful Chief Executive in the NHS for over a decade, running both commissioning organisations and providers of NHS services. He has chaired formal cancer, primary care, and community trust and learning disability networks. He was Chief Executive of the NHS Confederation between 2014 and 2016.

Rob is defined by a values based approach to leadership. He is a visiting Professor at Leeds Beckett University and was proud to be made a Fellow of the Queen’s Nursing Institute in 2014. In May 2016, Rob became an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners.

As Health Minister, Norman worked to reform the care system and led the drive to integrate health and social care, with a greater focus on preventing ill health. He also challenged the NHS to ensure that mental health was treated with the same priority as physical health, including the introduction of access and waiting standards in mental health for the first time. He was the Liberal Democrat Health spokesperson between 2015 and 2017 and Chair of the Science and Technology Select Committee between 2017 and 2019.

In March 2019, Norman became Chair of the Advisory Board of Kooth, the longest established digital mental health provider in the UK. In the Queen’s 2019 Birthday Honours, Norman received a knighthood with the citation noting in particular his mental health campaigning, with Norman also establishing a mental health and wellbeing fund in Norfolk after standing down from Parliament in 2019.

Norman has more recently taken on the role of Chair of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust and Chair of the Children’s and Young People’s Mental Health Coalition.

Warren went on to lead one of the two national centres of excellence in psychological care for psychosis – chosen to share and disseminate innovative practice in first episode psychosis services (FEP). This initiative contributed to a case for change which led to increased funding and the introduction of the two-week referral to treatment time in FEP services in England.

Warren then spent five years as Network Clinical Director, responsible for Children and Families Services across Lancashire. Warren was responsible for the quality and safety of care and for research and innovation. This experience led to Warren’s passion for public health and prevention work. Warren is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and is also Visiting Professor at Sunderland University where he is working with the Faculty of Health Sciences and Wellbeing, to develop their research programme and training curricula for a broad range of health care professionals.

Warren completed a two-year tenure as the Clinical Lead for the Department of Health Adverse Childhood Experiences programme and is now working with NHS Health Scotland to implement routine ACE enquiry in GP practices in some of the most deprived areas in Scotland. He has a long-standing interest in the relationships between childhood adversity and outcomes later in life and has published numerous research articles on the topic of adverse childhood experiences, trauma and psychosis and published an edited book in 2006 (now commissioned for a second edition) exploring this theme.

Warren has also been involved in policy development and has acted as an advisor to a number of UK and foreign government agencies. He was a member of the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Services National Task Force, the NICE expert reference group on first episode psychosis, the ‘Tackling Child Sexual Exploitation’ advisory group and was a contributing author of the recently published Personality ‘Disorder’ Consensus Statement. He is currently supporting UNICEF in the Western Balkans to develop trauma-informed policy and practice.

Warren developed the routine enquiry about adversity in childhood (REACh) approach as a way of assisting organisations to become more trauma-informed and to train professionals to ask routinely about adversity in their everyday practice. He is currently writing a book about trauma, adversity, and resilience and why we urgently need to focus on prevention in order to improve health and wellbeing for future generations. Warren grew up in Wigan, left school with a poor level of educational attainment and suffers from intermittent imposter syndrome.

Richard has written four books. The story of his journey was a Times No1 Bestseller, selling almost half a million copies and has now been translated into 11 languages. He is the founder of the iCan Academy, inspiring audiences across the globe as far and wide as Iran, Malaysia, Italy, Germany, Canada and many more. He’s an award winning speaker and a Fellow of The Professional Speaking Association and in 2019 was awarded the PSAE (Professional Speaking Award for Excellence). In this virtual seminar, Richard will share not only his story but the strategies that helped him not just survive but thrive because of his adversity. It will be a presentation you will remember for many years to come.

She is a UKCP accredited Child and Adult Trauma Psychotherapist (MSc), A Director for Privacy4 Ltd providing training to professionals about legal, ethical and safeguarding practice online, a Director and Mental Health Consultant to Gamers Beat Cancer CIC. Catherine is blogger, vlogger and podcaster. She has a book coming out later this year with Routledge entitled: Human Development, Behaviour and Technology; the ‘what’ the ‘why’ and how to help.

For over twenty years, her career has been spent working with service users who have been marginalised and excluded from services, and with whom services have often struggled to provide accessible and acceptable services. Her practice has been informed by understanding the impact of trauma on an individual’s development, however, this personal and professional understanding has not always aligned with practice in mental health, so it is with great relief and hope that trauma informed practice is increasing in prominence.

Sharon is passionate about the importance of psychologically informed mental health care, and how both psychological and social models can be employed to improve service user carer and staff experience.

Rob is particularly interested in collaborative, non-pathologising ways of working with people.

After gaining her PGD in Public Health and Health Promotion in 2007, Emmerline joined the Public Health Team in Kirklees as a Public Health Specialist. In this role, Emmerline led on a range of Public Health portfolios, including commissioning Sexual Health Services for Children and Young people, Commissioning Maternity Services and 0-19 services.  During her time in Kirklees, Emmerline’s role also included workforce development and social marketing and engagement.

Between 2014 and 2018 she worked at NHS England, as a Quality Improvement Lead for the Children Young People’s and Maternity Networks bringing partners together across Yorkshire and the Humber to improve outcomes for women, children and families.

In 2018 Emmerline joined the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership as Manager for Improving Population Health, this role includes leading on prevention across the partnership including, maternity, reducing serious violence to improve outcomes and reducing health inequalities for the population across West Yorkshire and Harrogate.

Following her roles at LYPFT Carrie moved onto the NHS Trust Development Authority as a Delivery and Development Manager, supporting NHS Trusts across North of England in the journey to becoming Foundation Trusts. Carrie joined NHS England Mental Health Programmes for Yorkshire and the Humber in 2016. In her role as Programme Manager Carrie was leading programmes of work for all age mental health across Y&H. During this role Carrie supported West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership with the delivery of their mental health, Learning Disabilities and Autism programme.

In 2020 Carrie joined the West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health and Care Partnership as Manager for Children Young People and Families, Carrie is leading on programmes of prevention including Reducing Obesity in children and young people, Family Resilience and Early Years. During her time at the Partnership Carrie has develop programmes around CYP and diabetes, Epilepsy and has established the WY&H Young People’s Board, to ensure the voices of young people are at the heart of all decision making.

Sohail is also a GP partner in Bradford city and a GP with special interest in diabetes. As the chair of the ICS Health Inequalities Prevention Network, he is passionate about system working and harnessing the strength of communities in order to reduce the health inequalities and improve the health and wellbeing of people living in West Yorkshire.

Prior to beginning her placement in the team, she also conducted an evaluation of the service’s training strand which she will be presenting.

He has also worked with individuals who have been radicalised by far-right and extreme-right ideology and has worked with ‘Exit’ Sweden on their disengagement programme as well as collaborating with ‘Life after Hate’ and ‘Exit USA’.

Alyas was Co-Director of STREET UK 2009-2011 (Strategy to reach, educate and empower teenagers) a specialist violence prevention intervention provider working with young people who are at risk of criminality, gang involvement, sexual violence, social exclusion and violent extremism; recognised as an exemplar of best practice in the UK and working in both South London and West Yorkshire. He has over 29 years of work experience in the Public Sector across a range of policy areas specialising in Equality and Diversity and was former head of Race Equality for the Welsh Assembly Government 2004.

Alyas is currently a consultant for Sharing Voices-Bradford, an award winning BME mental health support project funded by the CCG and delivering early intervention mental health support based on a trans-cultural model. He has been a passionate advocate for mental health services and BME communities for over 25 years.

He has a breadth of experience in working with people who have mental health problems at both an operational and strategic level, working in the public, voluntary and regulatory sectors.

Jim is a qualified social worker, and has supported individuals and families through challenges, adopting a strength based and inclusive approach. He has managed significant transformation projects, including the implementation of the Care Act, Personalisation and integration in management roles with local authorities. He has led on developing co-production at Touchstone, and with partners across Leeds; including organising annual conferences and promotes inclusion and user involvement.

Jim is the lead for safeguarding in the organisation, and has worked with teams to develop safe working practices. He also leads on quality assurance to promote personal and team responsibility, and to ensure learning and continuous improvement.

Anna subsequently worked for Leeds Primary Care Trust (PCT) as the link between the VCS, council and the NHS. She trained for five years to become a Consultant in Public Health including stints in the West Yorkshire Police, Department of Health and Public Health England.

Anna is passionate about social justice and the role of communities in creating health and wellbeing. She is a Fellow of the Forward Institute.

He was his Party’s Spokesperson in Parliament in eight different policy fields, and served in Government as Whip to the Deputy Prime Minister and then to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, positions he held for five years. He says he is “a recovering whip, taking one day at a time”.

Graham’s ambition is to turn the UK into a modern democracy. He has written ‘Reinventing Democracy’ and ‘The last Prime Minister; being honest about the UK Presidency’, and in 2010 was elected by Parliamentary colleagues in a secret ballot to be the Chair of the new Political and Constitutional Reform Select Committee. It worked cross party to produce a raft of reports on redeveloping a modern democracy including Devolution, independence for Local Government, improving voter engagement, a Citizens Constitutional Convention for the UK, and, culminating in 2015, produced a Written Constitution for the UK-the first ever to be published by Parliament.

Damned as “very independent minded” by Blair’s No.10, he proved it in opposing the war in Iraq by helping to organise the two biggest parliamentary rebellions within a governing party in UK’s political history. Prime Ministerial preferment being unlikely thereafter he became a hyper-active backbench MP on behalf of his constituency. He firstly took on the executive role of Chair of Nottingham’s Local Strategic Partnership in 2005 which he renamed One Nottingham and set it the mission of making Nottingham the first “Early Intervention City”.

In 2007 he wrote with Iain Duncan-Smith the seminal ‘Early Intervention: good parents, great kids, better citizens’ underlining his reputation for getting things done by working cross party. In July 2010, the Conservative Prime Minister requested he carry out an Independent Review of Early Intervention for Her Majesty’s Government. He produced two influential reports, the first, ‘Early Intervention: the next steps’ published January 2011, and the second of which, ‘Early Intervention: Smart Investment, Massive Savings’, was published in July 2011. He then set about building and funding a national Early Intervention Foundation (the first of the UK’s ‘What Works’ centres) to implement the findings of the reports. The EIF opened for business in February 2013 and he chaired it unpaid. http://grahamallenmp.co.uk/campaigns/early_intervention As a ‘serial political entrepreneur’ in 2014 he created, founded and became the unpaid Chair of the Charity ‘Rebalancing the Outer Estates’ a unique initiative and structure to facilitate, convene and build local and national partnerships in order to tackle outer city deprivation and replicate effective practise nationwide on jobs, skills, community and public health issues. The Charity, with its high powered Board and connectivity, has built an impressive list of achievements to date and has an ambitious future programme. He convened Parliament’s ‘20 most deprived constituencies’ group.

Graham stepped down from Parliament in 2017 to focus his convening power on Early Intervention and on the creation of a Citizens Convention on UK democracy. The Convention was fully funded in its preparation year, and produced its prospectus on how to build an evolved, sustainable democracy. It helped win all the main political parties to election manifesto commitments to set up a review of UK Democracy and the UK government is now taking this forward under a Commission.

Graham is working with all interested parties to deliver a Citizens’ engagement phase for the Commission with the ambition to engage 10 million founding mothers and fathers to create a fit-for-purpose UK democracy. He now sometimes only works six rather than seven days a week for the issues and people he cares about. He is married to Allyson, a Californian, and they have an artist and historian 23-year-old daughter Grace.

As Co-production Co-ordinator for Leeds Mental Wellbeing Service (formerly Leeds IAPT), Sarah has built the Co-production team from the ground up, working with clients, citizens and colleagues to improve access, experience and outcomes for service users.

As a Touchstone employee, Sarah is an advocate of sharing power through coproduction to tackle health inequalities and improve quality of life for the diverse communities of Leeds.

Darren grew up in Pollok on the south side of Glasgow and has lived through extreme poverty, addiction and homelessness. Between 2004 and 2006 he wrote and presented eight programmes on social deprivation for BBC Radio Scotland. Since then he has been a regular contributor to the BBC, STV and other national media, and currently has a weekly column in The Scotsman.

Darren has a certificate of excellence for his voluntary work with young people. In 2009, he founded Volition Scotland, an organisation that was designed and run by the young people who used it. He was part of the Poverty Truth Commission that was hosted in Glasgow in the same year. He became the Violence Reduction Unit’s first ever ‘Rapper-in Residence’ in 2015 and continues to work across Scotland in some of its most challenged communities.

In November 2017 his first book ‘Poverty Safari’ was published, and was an instant bestseller and critical hit, making the Sunday Times top ten bestseller lists and receiving plaudits from national newspapers and magazines. He won the prestigious ‘Orwell Book Prize’ in June 2018 leading to an upsurge in media requests and appearances. He has performed at the Edinburgh fringe to rave reviews. In 2021, Darren’s new four part BBC documentary series ‘Darren McGarvey’s Class wars’ is set to air where he delves into the British class system and how social class shapes a person’s identity.

WY-FI is part of the national Fulfilling Lives programme funded by the National Lottery Community Fund and between 2014 and 2020, successfully supported more than 800 people facing multiple disadvantages to have a settled home, positive health and wellbeing, pathways to employment and a positive future. WY-FI’s belief is that people with multiple needs:

• are supported by ‘Navigators’ who have the time to build trusting relationships and who are service neutral;
• receive person-centred, multi-agency support to achieve their hopes and aspirations; and
• are able to inform future delivery models and innovation.

Sue has been with WY-FI from the beginning, leading the original funding application and co-ordinating the development of the Core Partnership Management Board, Locality Groups and Multi-Agency Review Boards As Programme Manager, Sue manages the strategy, planning, delivery and evaluation of the project, as well as being passionate about the voice of lived experience and co-production. Sue also represents the project locally, regionally and nationally to influence and advocate for system change.

Mark has also been responsible for managing the external evaluation of WY-FI and the cost Effectiveness Analysis (by CRESR, Sheffield Hallam University) and supporting West Yorkshire’s contribution to The National Lottery Community Fund’s national evaluation and learning from all 12 Fulfilling Lives programmes.

Mark was also involved in the development of the fulfilling Lives programmes in Birmingham and Manchester and prior to that worked in a number of regional and national third sector organisations in a development and a research role including an ESRC post-doctoral Fellowship at Sheffield Hallam University.

He has (co-)authored a number of substantial reports and briefings for WY-FI.

Robert has spent the last 21 years working in cross-sector contexts with psychologically distressed groups, including those affected by acquired brain injury, ‘schizophrenia’, personality ‘disorder’ and sexual violence. He has commissioned and co-authored academic papers, articles and reports looking at the service needs of sexual violence survivors since the mid-2000s.

Robert was an expert advisor to the Department of Health’s (2006) exploration of sexual violence service best practice, including its routine disclosure pilot. He holds an honorary teacher and supervisor contract at the University of Liverpool’s Clinical Psychology Department – focus Post Traumatic Growth research. He obtained his BSc Psychology in his early 50s and is currently studying for an MSc.

Robert is a survivor of CSA and the ‘looked after care’ system of the 1970s. He recently co-authored a paper for the British Journal of Social Work that explores co-production with survivors of sexual violence which was the editor’s choice.

The ROCU and NCLCC work with a number of local, regional and national partners to safeguard young and vulnerable persons and to disrupt organised criminal networks that exploit them and sell them illicit drugs. Mark is a nationally accredited Homicide and Major Crime Senior Investigating Officer (SIO) and he has lead a number of complex safeguarding and exploitation investigations over the last 15 years. He holds a Master’s Degree in Police Leadership.

Iain’s governance experience includes being the lead safeguarding governor for two junior schools, he currently hold this position at Crofton Junior School and is the parent representative governor at Crofton Academy.

Her role includes developing perinatal mental health service pathways and provision across services, supporting and training staff, delivering therapy, in particular parent-infant therapy, and sharing information with families and communities so they can increase their understanding of mental health. The service’s aims are to help mothers have as positive experience as possible, to help families, including babies, to get the best start in life, and to facilitate families to build fulfilling relationships with one another. Lisa is currently researching mothers’ experiences of the mother and infant relationship.

Forget Me Not is the only children’s hospice in the UK to have a dedicated support worker for those families whose child has just died, suddenly and unexpectedly. Supporting them in whatever way they need, whether that’s spending time with their child in the Snowflake Suite, or getting practical help and emotional support.

The hospice has a dedicated perinatal service and was the first children’s hospice in Europe to employ a midwife. It supports families from as early as the 20-week scan, helping them grasp the meaning of the diagnosis, make difficult decisions and prepare for whatever lies ahead, including subsequent pregnancies.

Everything Forget Me Not does is underpinned by the potential for trauma and the impact this can have for all family members. Its services are holistic and recognise that deep level of complex need.

She is a mental health nurse with a thirty year career in Child and Adolescent Mental Health, having spent most of her working life as a practitioner/manager in specialist mental health services including eating disorders, adolescent assertive outreach and Multi Systemic Therapy (MST).

Emma has a particular interest in evidence-based practice and Implementation Science and is a Board Trustee in the role of Scientific Advisor for the UK Implementation Society. She is the lead developer in several positively-evaluated DFE Innovation Fund initiatives in Leeds Children Social Care including MST FIT, the Leeds Practice Model, the Rethink Model, Restorative Early Support and Futures (working with young parents who have experienced the removal of an infant through proceedings). The Futures team was awarded Gold for Creativity and Innovation in the national Social work awards 2019

Prior to this he was Associate Professor in the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Warwick, UK (1999-2008) where he completed his PhD (1992-1996). His specialist area of interest is the impact of mentoring relationships on marginalised and vulnerable young people.

The organisation works across the north of England delivering criminal justice interventions to women with vulnerable multiple complex needs and was recently awarded the Butler Trust award that recognises outstanding contributions to resettling women leaving custodial establishments.

Previously, Rokaiya has worked in the charity sector in both domestic abuse and sexual violence services across the country. Her work continues to be guided by her values of feminism, sustainability and collaboration, striving to achieve transformational and substantive equality for women.

A keen Liverpool FC supporter, she enjoys watching her team play with her 19-year-old son.

StreetGames work includes building evidence and understanding of how sport and physical activity can play a more effective role in tackling youth violence, crime and anti-social behaviour. Kelly Burdett is a regional tutor based within the award winning StreetGames Training Academy. Graham Helm has a national role working on programmes connecting sport and the serious youth violence agenda through programmes that enhance positive outcomes for vulnerable young people.

He is the thematic lead for ACEs within the West Midlands Violence Reduction Unit and leads the Trauma-Informed: From awareness to implementation project that the West Mids VRU has commissioned from Barnardo’s. The project offers a comprehensive trauma training programme, as well as follow-up support and consultancy for assisting organisations in embedding learning from trauma-informed training into the culture of the organisation.

Ben has been in his current role with Barnardo’s since early 2019. Prior to this, he worked in Education for ten years as a teacher of history, as a pastoral lead, and achieved a Masters in Educational Innovation at the University of Warwick.

His specific areas of focus include the social prescribing provision across the city of Sheffield, covering six Primary Care Networks, and the service’s youth work projects, involving youth club activities and a group of Young Advisors.

She has worked in public health intelligence since PHE was set up in 2013. Before that, Ceri worked in similar roles for Yorkshire and Humber Public Health Observatory and other NHS organisations.

She has lots of knowledge about building public health intelligence from analysing and generally making sense of public health data and tools. For Ceri, the most interesting side of her role is transferring that knowledge and helping to tell a story – through imparting and disseminating the intelligence created from the data, pulling it together with the evidence and including local knowledge to help make decisions that improve the health and wellbeing of the population.

Nikki now works back with the NHS in the mental health crisis team, which she loves, and is faced daily with individuals who have experienced trauma and the effects this has.

She became a board member for the charity ‘Who dares cares’ four years ago. This is an area she’s interested in with her passion for helping and the chance to work with a team that mostly included people who had been in the military themselves, and often had personal experience of the effects of trauma and PTSD.

‘Who dares cares’ is a non-profit charity and everyone involved is involved with a passion to help and hopefully change lives of veterans for the better. The charity was founded by two veterans – Calum MacLeod (KOSB) and Colin Maclachlan (22 SAS) who have both experienced PTSD and trauma on a personal note, have lived the effects that this can have on lives and lost close friends due to this. They wanted to create a community that could help veterans and personnel of blue light services, who have experienced traumatic events, provide support, community events, practical help and guidance on treatment for mental health, whilst providing a support group and ‘Buddy buddy’ system. This was to help avoid veterans losing hope whilst waiting on much needed treatment.

Core board team members at present are Calum, Colin, Lynne Crawford, Billy Anderson, Steve Hardie and Theo Jaeger. The team are in the latter stages of also creating an app that will allow veterans to access and highlight if they are in need of support or help.

Nikki is humbled to participate in this workshop, on behalf of ‘Who dares cares’, to highlight some understanding around trauma experienced by veterans and some understanding how to assist in this area.

Passionate about peer support and mental health, Heather has since been on the HEE Task and Finish Group, and subsequent Implementation Group, for Peer Support as an Emerging Role. Heather is now working with HEE on the Peer Support Apprenticeships Trailblazer.

David Grant-Roberts has a BA Hons in History and joined The Cellar Trust in 2019 having previously had a background in marketing/leadership, and having run his own successful SME (small and medium-sized enterprises) for 12 years. He is trained to Diploma level in Counselling and is currently studying for an additional Level 4 qualification in Counselling and Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT).

Having managed the Haven Crisis Service for two years, David is now working as a Peer Support Lead, taking operational management across the organisation for all things related to peer support. He is on the Steering Group for Leeds Peer Support Network, and is also now working with HEE on the Peer Support Apprenticeships Trailblazer.

. Ellie has a background in community development work and is passionate about mental health, having grown up in a family affected by many challenges around this. She is from Hull where she learnt the value of solidarity, care and kindness from a church community. Her Mum is her main inspiration in life.

She leads two research projects focused on serious violence and exploitation of young people in West Yorkshire – one examining the impact of health inequalities and the other investigates the role of educational inclusion.

Previously, Jessica worked as an Intelligence Analyst within the Serious and Organised Crime team at The Metropolitan Police and she holds an MSc in Politics from the University of Oxford.

Currently, Madeline is working on two research projects focused on addressing youth safety – one in the London borough of Newham and the other in West Yorkshire. In both of these projects, Madeline has concentrated on youth engagement to ensure that the voices of young people are captured in the research and recommendations. Madeline holds a dual Law degree from King’s College London in English Law with American Law.

Jane’s previous roles as a Specialist Breast Feeding Midwife and a Health Visitor specialising in Maternal and Infant Mental Health and the Parent Infant Relationship form the backdrop to her current position.

Jane’s passion lies with supporting parents/main carers to see how amazing their babies really are, enabling parents to notice and gain confidence responding to their babies, and find moments of shared joy. She is equally committed to supporting professionals grow in confidence and knowledge in this field, through developing training, resources and consultation. Ideally – enabling the voice of the infant to be heard; for babies to be seen as people.

Her doctoral thesis explored the way in which art is used therapeutically in schools. Emily has a strong interest in the use of story and narrative in her work. She is an accredited trainer in Therapeutic Story Writing Groups and has completed additional training n Narrative Therapy.

Emily believes that stories are central to the way we understand and evaluate our lives and it is these stories which shape our identities. She is interested in exploring and understanding the stories which are told about our lives and using connection to sustain our preferred identities.

She has experience of working as a therapist and social worker in Norway and studied social work with a comparative perspective at Nord University, Bodø. Nikki is interested in trauma informed, infused and responsive practice promoting a culture of safety, empowerment and healing.

Sue is creator of the innovative and award-winning trauma informed Resilience Passport programme for primary schools featuring the Engage Together system of wellbeing batteries, offering a whole school approach to fostering resilience. She is passionate about co-production to achieve the vision of prevention pathways and a parity of esteem between mental health treatment and recovery/prevention for life’s journey.

Kate has worked for CHFT for 12 years, initially part of the ‘Eden Midwifery team case-loading vulnerable pregnant women with complex social issues. She is currently the lead for a range of public health issues relating to pregnancy; smoking, maternal obesity, immunisation; parent education.

Louise has a strong passion for Trauma Informed Practice within schools.

Little Minds Matter is a Better Start Bradford project that promotes healthy early relationships by supporting families from conception to age two and the practitioners that work with them.

From April, Jane will be the Children’s Partnership Development Lead (joint appointment Leeds CCG and Leeds City Council).