An Ideas Conference

Peter Fonagy is the chief executive of one of the world’s leading child mental health research, training and treatment centres in the Anna Freud Centre.

He is also head of the Division of Psychology and Language Studies at UCL and a senior national clinical adviser on children and young people’s mental health for NHS England.

Marc is the founder and director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and a Professor in the Child Study Centre of Yale University. 

He is also the lead developer of RULER – an evidence based approach to social and emotional learning that has been adopted by nearly 2,000 schools across the US and in other countries. Marc’s book ‘Permission To Feel’ was published in 2019 and is a valuable resource for leaders, educators, parents, students and researchers on making emotional intelligence come alive. The book draws on psychological research, educational practice and Marc’s own life experiences.

An internationally renowned child psychiatric epidemiologist, Tamsin Ford’s research focuses on the effectiveness of interventions and the interface between education and health systems.

Tamsin is also part of the Research Advisory Group at Place2Be and vice-chair of the Association of Child and Adolescent Mental Health.

Jonny Benjamin is an award-winning mental health campaigner and founder of youth mental health charity, Beyond.

Having been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder at the age of 20, he began sharing his story on YouTube and now speaks publicly about living with a mental illness.

Lakmini Harkus joined as headteacher of E-ACT Greenfield Academy in Bristol in 2020.

Growing up in Knowle, Bristol, our children face levels of deprivation among the highest in the country. Under Lakmini’s leadership, the academy has an unwavering focus on the wellbeing of staff and children no matter their backgrounds.

Claire Hughes has been Professor of Developmental Psychology at Cambridge since 2012.

She is Deputy Head for the Psychology Department at the University of Cambridge and Deputy Director of the Centre for Family Research. Claire’s research interest is in autism and hard-to-manage preschool children.

Helen is the commissioning editor for teaching and learning content at Tes Magazine. A household name in education, Tes is one of the largest professional communities in the world, connecting and supporting more than 13 million educators globally. 

With arguably the most active community of teachers in the world, Tes has been providing an invaluable service to schools for over 100 years.

Prior to joining Tes, Helen was a secondary English teacher at a Hertfordshire school.