Jess Deighton
Jess is Director of Research at Anna Freud, Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit and Professor in Child Mental Health and Wellbeing at UCL. Her expertise focuses on the evaluation of programmes to support children’s mental wellbeing, factors that promote resilience and the interplay between mental wellbeing and educational outcomes.
Julian Edbrooke-Childs
Julian is Director of the Evidence Based Practice Unit. He is Head of Evaluation in the Applied Research and Evaluation Division at Anna Freud and Professor in Evidence-Based Child and Adolescent Mental Health at UCL. Julian’s research focuses on empowering young people to actively manage their mental wellbeing and mental health care, with an emphasis on social inequalities.
Rachel McGuire
Rachel is a Research Officer and Patient and Public Involvement and Engagement (PPIE) Co-lead at Anna Freud for the NIHR-funded National Start for Life Evaluation. Rachel is also a member of the NIHR RSS Lived Experience Advisory Panel and PPIE Lead/Expert by Experience for Oxford University projects. With a particular interest in inclusive engagement, she translates lived experience into actionable research. With two decades of digital development experience, Rachel takes an empathetic solution-centred approach to supporting others.
Georgie Parker
Georgie is a final-year PhD student within the Evidence Based Practice Unit at UCL and Anna Freud. She is a mixed-methods researcher, and her PhD focuses on understanding how physical activity in secondary schools impacts young people’s mental health and wellbeing.
Skye Reynolds
Skye is a Peer Researcher and Parent Participation Programme Assistant at Anna Freud. As a neurodivergent mother, she brings lived experience of parenting to her work and is committed to ensuring that research meaningfully reflects the voices and experiences of families. Her work focuses on participation and advocacy through rights-based approaches, including practice informed by the Lundy Model of child participation.
Lorna Crossan
Lorna works in the Participation team at Anna Freud. Sharing insights, ideas and perspectives based on very diverse and challenging real-life experience. Participation follows the Lundy framework which is comprised of: space, voice, influence and audience. This helps to increase knowledge and understanding. The ethos really struck a chord in light of Lorna’s values of equality, inclusiveness, understanding and love of making a positive difference. Lorna has worked in various projects including the Start for Life Evaluation and Early Years in Mind being a speaker at the Birth Trauma in the Early Years and Workforce wellbeing in the Early Years.
