Sonu Fakiha PhD Researcher, Newcastle University
Sonu Fakiha is a PhD student at Newcastle University. Her project explores tangible media designs for and co-designing with neurodivergent girls aged 9-12 years. She is in the initial stages of her research, where she has interviewed stakeholders working with neurodivergent children or parents of neurodivergent children. She has conducted a scoping review on interactive systems designed for children.
She aims to carry out an ethnographic study with girls and co-design with them personalised/contextual technologies that contribute to their wellbeing in family home settings.
Jan Forshaw MBE Coram SCARF Policy & Research Manager, Coram
Jan leads the Policy and Research work of Coram Life Education, the largest charity provider of children’s PSHE education in primary schools in the UK and part of Coram group.
She has also overseen the efficacy and quality of Coram Life Education’s educational programmes, including a comprehensive health and wellbeing curriculum, SCARF, which has over 50000 school subscribers in the UK and globally.
Through collaboration with Coram’s academic partner, Newcastle University, and key stakeholders, Jan leads the learning, policy and practice in relation to effective PSHE education, including a recent increased focus on the impact of digital technology on children and young people’s whole health: their physical, mental, cognitive and social development.
For the last 18 months, this work has included collaborating with Newcastle University on EPSRC-funded research programmes, exploring the impact of internet-enabled digital technology on children age 9-11 years old, including those with SEND, which is being further explored in the work of Newcastle University PhD student, Sonu Fakiha, under the direction of Professor Abigail Durrant.
Personal website: www.coramlifeeducation.org.uk
Laura Fox Lecturer in Psychology in Education, University of York
Laura is a lecturer in Psychology in Education at the University of York and deputy research lead for the Psychology in Education Research Centre within the Department of Education. Her research explores the experiences of neurodivergent children and young people, as well as those with additional learning needs, regarding their educational experiences, social relationships, and well-being. She is particularly interested in co-production, and has a strong track record of co-producing with stakeholders from various communities, including those in the Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) sector—working with young people with SEND—and in mental health research, collaborating with young people facing mental health challenges, mental health practitioners, and other key stakeholders. The broad aims of her research are to amplify the voices of individuals who are more frequently excluded from research and decision-making processes on topics that affect them or might affect them in the future.
Most recently, Laura has focused on co-producing, adapting, and designing new methods to make research inclusive of those who use different methods to communicate and has worked with colleagues at the University of York and partners at Mencap to develop ADLib, an open-access, evidence-informed library of accessible data collection tools.
Laura recently supported the co-production of York's All Age Autism and ADHD strategy and continues to sit on the strategy reference group.
Research group/project website: https://sites.google.com/york.ac.uk/goalslab
Victoria Gray Consultant Clinical Psychologist/Reader in Mental Health, Alder Hey Children's NHS Foundation Trust
Victoria has worked as a Clinical Psychologist for over 20 years, delivering mental health care and leading teams. She has a clinical focus on young people with physical health conditions, including those with neurological presentations.
Victoria is a Reader in Clinical Psychology/Mental Health with a focus on emotional wellbeing in physical health, neuropsychological outcomes, and community interventions. She has had the privilege to work with many young people with SEND and their families and is committed to improving care for this population, particularly in relation to neurocognitive outcomes and mental wellbeing.
Kara Gray-Burrows Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences & Complex Intervention Methodology, University of Leeds
Dr Kara Gray-Burrows is a Lecturer in Behavioural Sciences & Complex Intervention Methodology in the School of Dentistry at the University of Leeds, UK. She is a Chartered psychologist working in both research and teaching. The key focus of her research is in improving population health, particularly the health of children and young people. Her main research interests are in behaviour change, the development and evaluation of complex interventions, with further interests in implementation science, systems approaches/complexity science, and patient and public involvement and engagement in research. Kara works with a range of stakeholders, including health professionals, early-years workers, charities, government bodies, and commercial companies, to develop and evaluate preventive interventions to improve the oral health of young children.
Outside of dentistry, she has also undertaken research evaluating adaptable implementation packages targeting 'high impact' clinical practice recommendations in general practice (ASPIRE), an intervention to reduce sedentary behaviour in stroke survivors (ADAPT), children and young people’s use of health technology in the management of long term health conditions (TECH-Y) and using consensus methods co-developed recommendations for patient and public involvement and engagement in implementation research.
Kara has a passion for involving patients and the public in research, with a keen focus on supporting families and children with SEND, including using creative methods to actively engage children in research and working on a project developing a support package for families with autistic children to support their oral health; to produce high-quality needs-led research that can inform policy and practice.
Research group/project website: https://linktr.ee/leedspaeddent
Alice Green Senior Designer and Doer, Capacity
Alice is a strategic leader with a background in public service transformation. With experience across local government, the charity sector and consultancy, she brings a blend of project delivery expertise, systems thinking and a people-centred approach to her work.
As Senior Designer and Doer at Capacity, Alice leads a range of projects that support public sector commissioners to redesign services and improve outcomes for families and communities. Across local authority and grant-funded contracts, she works closely with external partners across sectors to design and implement new systems and ways of working. Her focus is always to make sure that services are shaped by real people’s lived experiences, as well as insights from professional teams.
Her recent work includes the design and launch of Branch in Wirral (https://branch-wirral.co.uk/). She is currently leading two change projects in different local authority areas, one focused on embedding co-production approaches in SEND service delivery and the other on recruiting and retaining foster carers.
Alongside her professional work, Alice is deeply committed to inclusion, equity and community voice. She is also a foster carer – a role that keeps her motivated in the day job, to create systems that are just, kind, and work for those who need them most.
Dougal Hargreaves Professor of Paediatrics & Population Health, Imperial College London
Dougal is an Honorary Consultant Paediatrician at Imperial College Healthcare Trust and Professor of Paediatrics & Population Health in the School of Public Health at Imperial College London. He has a long-standing interest in promoting the voices of children and young people and in joining up data, services, and policies for CYP across physical and mental health, education, social care and other sectors. Dougal was previously Clinical Advisor to the Chief Medical Officer (2009-11) and Deputy Chief Scientific Advisor at the Department for Education (2020-21).
Research group/project website: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/a-z-research/mohn-centre-child-health/
Helen Honour Postgraduate Researcher, Lancaster University
Helen Honour is a PhD researcher at Lancaster University exploring the relationship between working memory and learning in pupils with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). With a previous career at the Department for Education, Helen has commissioned best practice research in relation to SEND for schools and policy makers, secured funding for school improvement organisations and developed policy and guidance. As a parent of two children with SEN, Helen is driven to ensure policy change is rooted in evidence and understanding of children’s needs and recently provided personal case studies for publications including The Secret Life of SENCOs (Boddison and O’Neill, 2025) and the Child of the North’s plan for addressing the SEND assessment and support crisis (2024).
Helen is carrying out her PhD in partnership with the James Montgomery Academy Trust (JMAT), in collaboration with Fusion SEND Hub. JMAT, which is made up of 20 primary schools in South Yorkshire, serves over 4,500 young people, from contrasting localities, many with high deprivation. Fusion SEND Hub are a support service based at Talbot Specialist School, working with education providers across Sheffield and neighbouring regions. The PhD research partnership is exploring how working memory impacts learning in children with ADHD, compared to those without, to inform inclusive pedagogical practice through:
• Primary experimental research to explore the storage and processing functions of working memory in children with, and without, ADHD.
• Secondary data analysis of the Millennium Cohort to better understand how working memory impacts the educational attainment of young people with and without ADHD.
• Evaluation of specific education interventions for children with ADHD.
Helen Howlett Head of Community and CYP, NENC ICB
Helen is the Head of Community and CYP at the North East and North Cumbria Integrated Care Board. She provides operational and strategic leadership to deliver place-based priorities that improve population health, tackle inequalities, enhance value for money, and support wider social and economic development across the North of England.
Helen's role spans integrated commissioning across the life course, with a strong focus on children and young people, SEND-relevant pathways, maternity, and women’s health. She leads a partnership working across health, education, local authorities and the voluntary sector, ensuring national and local policy priorities are translated into effective, evidence-informed service design and delivery. Helen uses connected data, local intelligence and quality improvement methodologies to identify unmet needs, improve pathways, and measure impact against system and national objectives.
Helen is a registered Nurse and Midwife with a PhD focused on antenatal alcohol screening and prevention. She is a founding member of the UK FASD Research Collaboration and a nationally recognised expert in prenatal alcohol exposure and Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder (FASD), a significant and often under-identified contributor to SEND. Her work has informed NICE guidance, national public health policy, and regional service development, including the recognition FASD in the Neurodevelopmental pathway and establishing a Women’s Health Hub in Cumbria.
Helen brings extensive experience spanning NHS commissioning, clinical research leadership, academia, and clinical practice. She collaborates with stakeholders to translate robust evidence into real-world decision-making, intending to give every child the best start in life and improve outcomes for children and young people with SEND.
Mairi Jeffery PhD Researcher, #BeeWell
Mairi is a PhD researcher at UCL and Anna Freud. Her research focuses on wellbeing measurement of young people with Special Educational Needs (SEN) in non-mainstream settings (special schools/alternative provision). She has recently completed a mixed-methods Delphi study looking at priorities for improving wellbeing measurement in non-mainstream settings, with participants including school staff, researchers, and educational psychologists. In addition, Mairi conducted a qualitative study with young people with SEN, investigating their views on being asked to complete mental health and wellbeing surveys in school. and their feelings on wellbeing support offered to them at school.
Research group/project website: https://beewellprogramme.org/
Other: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/brain-sciences/evidence-based-practice-unit