To mark the completion of ACAMH’s mental health in schools initiative in collaboration with The Chartered College of Teaching and Coram Life Education, we invite you to attend a special roundtable event, where we will share key learnings and insights from our programme and discuss future directions. We believe this will provide a great opportunity to drive momentum for future mental health initiatives in schools by providing a reflective space for professionals to connect and celebrate successes and consider challenges.
About the speakers
Professor Mina Fazel is a Professor of Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Oxford and a consultant child and adolescent psychiatrist in the Department of Children’s Psychological Medicine at the Oxford Children’s Hospital. She has been working for two decades on how to improve mental health services for vulnerable and hard to reach populations which has led to an interest in school-based mental health services. She has worked with local CAMHS services to change how they interface with education. She also conducts the OxWell Student Survey which in 2021 had responses from over 30,000 students from 180 schools, guiding our understanding of what school-aged students say they want and need. Her other main interest is in improving access to evidence-based trauma therapies, especially for young people suffering from PTSD, having worked with refugee populations for many years. In her clinical work, she is part of a team helping children and young people with chronic health difficulties and pain.
Professor Barry Carpenter
Barry Carpenter has a career spanning over 40 years. His appointments include Professor of Mental Health in Education to Oxford Brookes University, and Honorary Professorships at universities in Ireland, Germany and Australia, as well as Principal, Chief Executive, and National Director for Complex Needs at the Government Department for Education. He has been a Fellow of the University of Oxford, and speaks and publishes internationally on special needs issues including “Girls and Autism” and ” Engaging Learners with Complex Needs”. He recently became a Patron for the ADHD Foundation, and is a Fellow of the Chartered College of Teaching . He serves as a Trustee on the Board of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health, ( ACAMH).
Professor Dame Alison Peacock is Chief Executive of the Chartered College of Teaching, a new Professional Body that seeks to raise our status through celebrating, supporting and connecting teachers to provide expert teaching and leadership. Prior to joining the Chartered College, Dame Alison was Executive Headteacher of The Wroxham School in Hertfordshire. Her career to date has spanned primary, secondary and advisory roles. She is an Honorary Fellow of Queens College Cambridge, Hughes Hall Cambridge and UCL, a Visiting Professor of both the University of Hertfordshire and Glyndŵr University and a trustee for Big Change. Her research is published in a series of books about Learning without Limits offering an alternative approach to inclusive school improvement. Image and bio via Chartered College of Teaching
Jan Forshaw, Head of Education, Coram Life Education– Jan began her career teaching across primary and middle schools, including senior leadership roles, in Bradford, West Yorkshire. Children’s wellbeing and mental health was always at the heart of her work as a teacher and influenced her move to children’s health and wellbeing charity Coram Life Education. She has been Head of Education at Coram Life Education since 2009, having been Director of Training and before that an educator and senior trainer. Jan oversees development of the diverse education programmes at Coram Life Education which include provision of high-quality education workshops in school and its acclaimed SCARF online PSHE (including statutory RSHE) curriculum. She understands that within education the teacher’s role is crucial in helping children to thrive – socially, physically, mentally and academically – and works hard to ensure that Coram Life Education’s ethos and practices prioritise relevant, practical and timely support for teachers, alongside the provision of the highest-quality, inspiring programmes and resources that children deserve and need, to be their best.