Policy & Advisory Group
The Policy and Strategy Advisory Group lends its expertise and knowledge to guide and inform YoungMinds policy and campaigns. Its main role is to provide advice to the Board of Trustees on matters related to government policy about children and adolescent mental health and consultations which affect the work of YoungMinds.
Michael Kerman – represents Assoc of Child Psychotherapists
Trained at the British Association of Psychotherapists (BAP) and qualified as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in October 2003. He was the Deputy Team Manager in the Children Looked After Mental Health Service (CLAMHS) in Lambeth until June 2008. CLAMHS is part of the South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust where he is now involved in a research project at the Institute of Psychiatry looking into attachment representation in fostered children using the Child Attachment Interview. Currently Michael is enrolled on a doctorate programme run by Kent Institute of Medicine and Health Science at Kent University. He is the Clinical Director at Kids Company where he started to work as a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in July 2008. He originally trained as a psychiatric nurse in Vienna/Austria. He holds degrees in Psychology (BSc Hons), MSc in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology (UCL/Anna Feud Centre) and MSc in Theoretical Psychoanalytic Studies (non-clinical, UCL). He is a member of the Executive Committee and the office liaison officer at the Association of Child Psychotherapists and monitors the day to day operation of the ACP office and line manages the ACP office administrator.
Judy Furnivall – represents The Scottish Institute for Residential Child Care (SIRCC)
My areas of particular expertise/ interest that are relevant to YoungMinds include residential child care and in particular the mental health and education of looked after children. I also have a particular interest in therapeutic communities for children and young people. These are my core professional interests but I also think that my background in higher education and my geographical location in Scotland add an important perspective .
Peter Wilson - Member representative
Peter Wilson is a child psychotherapist who trained at the Anna Freud Centre in the late sixties. He has practiced in a number of child and adolescent mental health settings in the London area, providing individual and family therapy, consultation, supervision and training. His positions of seniority have included Principal Child Psychotherapist, Camberwell Health Authority; Senior Clinical Tutor, Institute of Psychiatry; Director of the Brandon Centre (a psychotherapy and counselling centre for young people); Consultant Child Psychotherapist, Peper Harow Therapeutic Community; and Co- Founder and Director of YoungMinds ( 1992 -2004).
He has served on numerous committees and enquiries in relation to national developments in child and adolescent mental health service provision. He has written many chapters on subjects relating to child and adolescent psychotherapy and is the author of Young Minds in our Schools
Following his retirement from Young Minds, he has taken an increasingly active role as the Clinical Adviser to the Place2Be, a national voluntary organisation providing a comprehensive counselling service in primary schools
Joan Fogel - Member Rep since 2003
Formerly: Teacher, including of adolescents with emotional problems - in education, in special units; Childline Counsellor (www.childline.org.uk); Trainer - teachers, adolescent mental health workers (including www.friendsunitednetwork.org.uk).
Currently: Advocate for looked-after young people(Voice www.voiceyp.org); CBT-type group Trainer for adults with mental ill-health; Group-Analytic Psychotherapist (www.wpf.org.uk ,due to qualify this year).
Dominique Christy-Evans – represents British Association of Psychotherapists
Dominique is a Senior Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist at the Milton Keynes Specialist Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service. Dominique trained in Child and Adolescent Psychotherapy at the BAP, qualifying in July 2003. She is also a member of the Association of Child Psychotherapists.
Dominique has worked within the Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services for twenty one years. Previous to this she also worked in the adult mental health services. Dominique originally trained as a Psychiatric Social Worker.
Dominique has substantial experience in working with children who have been traumatised through abuse. She and a colleague also currently run a foster carers support service.
John Cross represents The Planned Environment Therapy Trust
John Cross trained as a psychotherapist and teacher. He began his professional career in residential work with emotionally deprived and disturbed children and young people at Bodenham Manor School with David Wills. Following a period as deputy head of a Centre working with delinquent boys, he became head of a Children's Observation and Assessment Centre in Liverpool. In 1965 he was co-founder and appointed Principal of a therapeutic community for both boys and girls. For over forty years he has served on the Council of the AWMC, now SEBDA (Social, Emotional and Behavioural Difficulties Association), formerly being its General Secretary, and now a Vice President. He is Consultant in the residential treatment of emotionally and psychologically damaged and deprived children and young people.
Alongside his work and involvement with children with special needs, he has a lifetime interest in penal affairs. As a Quaker, he served on the Friends' Penal Affairs Committee, and was co-author of the ground-breaking monograph "Six Quakers Look at Crime and Punishment". For many years he served as a magistrate, and in this capacity was Chairman of the Youth and Family Courts, and Vice Chairman of the Gloucestershire Probation Committee.
John Cross was a member of the founding group of Young Minds, serving on its first management committee, and currently is a member of the Policy and Strategy Advisory Group. Among his other current commitments, he is Executive Director of the Planned Environment Therapy Trust, and serves on the Councils of the Association of Therapeutic Communities and the Charterhouse Group of Therapeutic Communities. He is also a member of the Community of Communities Children and Young Persons' Advisory Group, and serves as the Treasurer for the Child Care History Network, as well as on the Management Committee of the Institute for the History and Work of Therapeutic Environments.
Robin Balbernie represents Assoc for Infant MH
I am currently Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist in Gloucestershire CAMHS. For four days a week I work with the Children’s Centres in the county as lead of the team providing an Infant Mental Health Service, known locally as ‘Secure Start’. This has recently been expanded. I am also involved in work with the Intensive Baby Care Unit at Gloucester Royal Hospital and have been running supervision groups for Health Visitors for over 20 years. I developed a special interest in early interventions, originally arising from work with adopted children, and I am on the committee of the Association of Infant Mental Health (UK) as Treasurer. Several years ago I was awarded a Winston Churchill Memorial Trust Travelling Fellowship to look at Infant Mental Health projects in America. I have published papers in many journals, including Young Minds, the Infant Mental Health Journal and the Journal of Child Psychotherapy.
Dr Duncan Law represents The British Psychological Society
Chair of the Children and Young Peoples Faculty BPS/DCP
Interim Professional Lead for CAMHS Psychology
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Specialist CAMHS - East Herts
Joan Pritchard - represents Sebda
I began my working life as a teacher in a secondary school in Manchester. I moved into special education in 1969, eventually becoming the head of a day special school for children labelled at that time as ‘maladjusted’ in 1979.
My qualifications are – Teaching Certificate, Advanced Diploma in the Education of Maladjusted Children and a MEd in Educational Psychology.
I have been a member of the association now entitled Sebda (originally AWMC and the AWCEBD) since 1977, a member of their National Council since 1981 and the national chairman for the last seven years. I hand over to a new chairman in June this year.
I am the Course Co-ordinator for the Post Graduate and Foundation degree level courses run by the Association and validated by the University of Leicester. These cover the topics – Understanding and Managing Children with SEBD and Mental Health Problems in children with SEBD.
Mary Dean represents The Division of Educational and Child Psychologists a branch of the British Psychological Society
Biography to follow.
Ingrid King represents The Association for Child and Adolescent Mental Health
Biography to follow.
Steve Isaacs - Assoc for Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy
Biography to follow.
Ray McMorrow – represents the Royal College of Nursing
Biography to follow.
Sean O'Donoghue represents Association of Educational Psychologists
He is the President of AEP.