Dr Maggie Ellis MBE
Dr Maggie Ellis MBE is a Senior Lecturer in Psychology at the School of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of St Andrews where she develops teaching, training and consultancy in dementia care, based on her own research. Maggie has been working with and researching the lives and experiences of people with dementia, their family members and professional caregivers for twenty years. Her research portfolio includes the development of positive interventions to support people to live well with dementia and to maintain and create relationships. Maggie’s main research focus is on identifying and utilising the spared communication skills in people at very advanced stages of dementia. As such, she worked with collaborator Professor Arlene Astell, to develop Adaptive Interaction, a method of supporting meaningful communication between caregivers and people with very advanced dementia. Adaptive Interaction is a nonverbal technique that supports the building of interpersonal connections and relationships using movements, sounds and eye gaze. This work has generated much interest in the fields of both dementia research and care. Maggie has received personal invitations from the editors of the Journal of Dementia Care and the Journal of Counselling and Healthcare to write articles on this research. She has also given invited talks to multidisciplinary audiences from Dublin to Toronto. She has recently co-authored a book on Adaptive Interaction.
Dr Sara Ireland
Sara has an extensive qualification background including BA Hons Psych, MSc Psych , PD Psychotherapy, Dip counselling, Advanced Dip CBT, Systemic Practice post grad certificate, Advanced Dip Primary Care Mental Health, EMDR,CIPD,HCPC,BPS Chartered Occupational Psychologist, Chartered Coaching Psychologist and Psychotherapist.
She has worked in mental health, wellbeing and counselling in the NHS, Adult and Children's services in Local government for over 30 years with periods also working in contractor companies and occupational wellbeing as a consultant. In Local Government, she worked as a regional lead, clinical supervisor and clinician in social care, early intervention and disability services and offered Life Story work trainings too. She was nominated for a UK award for innovation for her local government clinical work twice and was runner up for her work into self harm in 2017. Sara is CEO and Clinical Lead of one of our partner companies Atrium Clinic, which provides therapeutic services, including clinical supervision and training to Local Government and community agencies, NHS, forensic settings, workplaces and schools.
Dr Angela Bowen
Angela is a Consultant Haematologist in the United Kingdom.
She has been in her current post for 18 years. She trained in South London and Surrey and is originally from London. In her current post, Angela treats patients with the full range of haematological diseases, both benign and malignant. Many of these conditions are chronic and, as a result, she has known some of her patients and their families for almost 18 years too. She is passionate about the care of patients with haematological cancer, from the start of their cancer journey to the end. She believes in treating the whole patient as an individual and not just the disease.
Death is a part of this journey and we are fortunately much more open in our discussions about death today than in her early medical career and sees this as a great advance in managing patients and their families. Equally, for those patients fortunate to have been successfully treated, survivorship and getting back to a healthy life is key to a full recovery both physically and mentally.
She loves the countryside, travel, running and yoga and is shortly embarking on Yoga Teacher Training, which she hopes to bring to cancer patients in the NHS in the future.
Tommy Dunne BEM - Patient Advocate
With over 40 years in the Rail transport industry, starting as a Trainee Train Driver, then a Train Driver, then an Instructor Driver, Driver Manager, before becoming the Train Operator Interface Manager for Network Rail. His final position was as Rail Compliance Manager at Mersey travel. Tommy is now a Director of thredCiC Community interest Company.
After being misdiagnosed with bipolar, he was finally diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s in December 2011. Since his diagnosis he's been: Chair of the Service Users Reference Forum (SURF) Board member of the Nation Dementia Action Alliance (DAA) Member of the 3 Nations Dementia Working Group (3NDWG) A member of Everton pass on the memories group and he is also Vice Chair of the Liverpool DAA Transport Group.
In 2013 he won at the NHS Positively Awards the Recovery Champion and the Winner of Winners award. In 2014 he won the Innovate Dementia Award and he was awarded British Empire Medal June 2016 for work for People living with Dementia.
His goal in life is to help his Peers and their family Carers understand that you can still live a happy and productive life after a diagnoses and to take the fear and stigma out of dementia.
Gemma Allen
Gemma Allen is the Palliative Care Inclusion and Community Partnerships Lead at The Mary Stevens Hospice, Stourbridge where she has worked for nine years and the Chair and trustee of the Palliative Care for People with Learning Disabilities (PCPLD) Network. Her passion for equitable palliative and end of life care has resulted in numerous projects working with and alongside underserved communities, enabling access and increasing awareness of palliative and end of life care. Gemma has a keen interest in public health approaches to palliative care, research, education and advance care planning and is highly experienced in developing equitable and inclusive projects within palliative and end of life, including the award-winning 'No Barriers Here' programme.
https://www.marystevenshospice.co.uk/no-barriers-here
Roberta Roccella Askew
Until recently, Roberta (Robi) was the Head of Quality of Life at HC-One, one of the largest health and social care providers in the UK. She has 20 years’ experience within operational and quality related roles in the sector. Robi studied economic history and psychology in Italy and relocated to the UK in 2003 to set up an advocacy project for people with profound disabilities, which received formal recognition from HRH the Countess of Wessex for empowering people with profound disabilities to have a voice in decisions relating to their lives and the care that they receive.
She has committed her career to promoting personalised care and advocates for people receiving care to be recognised as individuals and to have control over the choices regarding their care and quality of life.
She is extremely passionate about value-based technology that can drive better outcomes for people receiving care.
Caroline Southgate MCSP - UK
Caroline is a physiotherapist and founder of Doris Jones Ltd. Named after her Grandmother, Doris Jones is an Outstanding rated home care provider in Essex. Caroline has a Fellowship with NICE 2021-2023 with a focus on the implementation of guidance for people who receive care at home, particularly when they have support with medications. As a business leader Caroline is keen to promote the home care sector as a solution to living well into old age, or with illness, supported and surrounded by the familiar comforts of home. Caroline has authored a book called Cooking for Carers to help support nutrition and hydration as part of great care and will be launching an exciting new training and development programme on this subject in 2022. With a focus on home care, physiotherapy and wellbeing of both paid and unpaid carers, Caroline brings to the advisory board an experience of many years working with families to support end of life care. Her approach to care is to promote dignity, humour and kindness to meet the needs of everyone involved in this important stage of life.
Rev. Ashley Liddington - UK
Having worked in ministry for over 20 years and now specialising as a Chaplain in older persons care, Ashley is a passionate advocate for Spiritual, Pastoral and End of Life Care within healthcare settings. He now oversees the Spiritual and Pastoral needs of the Luxury Care Group (service users and staff), the delivery and maintenance of the end of life pathway within the company along with many other responsibilities.
Holding qualifications in many areas including, Community Chaplaincy, Grief and Bereavement Counselling, End of Life Care, Spiritual Care, activities planning along with being a qualified Soul Midwife and a Mental Health First aider he works hard on ensuring that people get the best support available. He is member of The Collage of Healthcare Chaplains and in 2020 was made a Fellow at the Society of Bereavement Practitioners for his dedication and commitment to the work of End of Life Ministry.
Lisa Doherty - UK
Lisa is Co-founder Dementia Support Services and is an experienced senior Occupational Therapist. She has gained a wealth of experience working within the National Health Service, Social Services and Private Sector. Part of her role involves post diagnostic counselling and is a trained Dementia Care Mapper, an observational tool which identifies the level of well-being in people living with any form of dementia.
Jane Duncan Rogers - UK
Award winning coach Jane was devastated when her husband died in 2011. Little did she know that 3 years on she would have founded Before I Go Solutions®, a not-for-profit organisation that provides education, products and programmes to help people create their end of life plans, with the latest product being the End of Life Planning card deck. Her TEDx talk, How to Do A Good Death, was given in 2017 and in 2018 her second book, ‘Before I Go: The Essential Guide to Creating A Good End of Life Plan’ was published. The Before I Go Academy was also started in 2018, enabling lay people and professionals to become licensed End of Life Plan Facilitators. Jane’s background of 25+ years in the world of personal development, training and consulting enables her to bring several different perspectives to a subject that many find hard to talk about. She lives in the north of Scotland, and has a new husband with whom she is building not only a new life but a new eco-house together.