FPSA Trustees

We are a charitable funding organisation run by our trustees, who come from a variety of mental health backgrounds, including nursing, occupational therapy and psychiatry. Here you can find out about our current trustees and the depth of their knowledge and experience. 

Become a trustee for FPSA

We are also looking for people with relevant experience to help the FPSA continue its work to support those working in mental health services for adolescents. For full details please click here or email secretariat@foundationpsa.org.uk

Neil Hemstock (Chair)

Neil has been involved with our organisation since 1984, when we were known as the Association for the Psychiatric Study of Adolescence. He has served as the Local Secretary and Chair and was elected to the National Executive in 1986.

Since qualifying as a nurse in mental health and learning disability, in 1982, Neil has worked in the Leicestershire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS). He was a senior nurse in both community and in-patient settings and is now Lead Nurse for the Families Young People and Children’s Division of Leicestershire Partnership Trust.

Neil is particularly interested in working with psychosis and has completed the Diploma in Medical Health Sciences (Psycho-social interventions) at Sheffield University.

Commenting on his involvement with FPSA, Neil says he is very proud to provide support to improve the care of young people. He looks forward to FPSA’s future with great anticipation and excitement.

Ron Symington (Honorary Treasurer)

Ron has been involved with our organisation since 1991, both as a member and now as a trustee.

Ron is a registered mental health nurse and has worked in a variety of CAMHS Tier 3 and Tier 4 since 1976. Although Ron retired from full-time work in 2007, he is now working in a part-time post in CAMHS Tier 3, in Bangor, North Wales. Ron’s main interests and expertise are in:

  •     in-patient CAMHS Tier 4
  •     the law relating to children and young people
  •     clinical supervision

Dr Alan Cockett (Trustee)

For much of his extensive career, Alan was an in-patient consultant and had a special interest in eating disorders. He is also experienced in CAMHS Tier 3 and had a particular interest in dissociative disorders and self-harm.

Alan is a past editor of the European Journal of Eating Disorders, (now the European Eating Disorders Review) and was a regular attendee at the international European Council on Eating Disorders’ conference . Until recently Alan has been member of the South West Regional Governance Committee of Rethink Mental Illness and has also worked with this charity at national level. He was also a director of the Eating Disorders Association (now called Beat). He has published papers on eating disorders and on self-harm and has presented nationally and internationally on these subjects. He has also had experience in working with the media including program making in his areas of interest.

Alan’s main therapeutic interests are in the field of systemic therapies and he has been involved as a family therapy trainer. His teaching experience includes training medical students, postgraduates in psychiatry and psychology and trainees in nursing and social work.
Alan sees his role as an FPSA trustee as a natural extension of his skills and knowledge. It gives him, he says, an opportunity to help fellow professionals through assessing training opportunities and applications for funding. He also feels that it gives him an opportunity to make some use of his background in academic publishing.

Leighton Chipperfield (Trustee)

Leighton Chipperfield is a senior non-profit association leader with a background in publishing, learned societies and policy, education and advocacy work. After a 13-year period in international academic publishing, he spent 5 years as Commercial Director at the Microbiology Society before joining the Royal Economic Society as Chief Executive in 2017. Since 2017 the RES has undergone a rapid modernisation process with a new strategy, a campaign launched to improve diversity in the discipline and the introduction of modern governance, communications and operations that befit one of the UK’s major learned societies.

He is currently Treasurer of the Evidence Quarter – a hub for What Works Centres in the UK - and has previously served as a trustee for a children’s mental health charity and for a membership institute in clinical medicine.

A Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Leighton holds a Postgraduate Diploma in Voluntary Sector Management from Cass Business School and a Diploma in Charity Management from the Institute of Chartered Secretaries and Administrators. 

Graham Head (Trustee)

Graham joined the FPSA as a Trustee in August 2019. 

Graham worked in Information Management and Technology within the NHS and the wider health and care sector for over 30 years.  This included a spell as Director of IM&T in a teaching hospital in West London, while over the last ten years he has been working on Population Health Management whilst CIO at the Sollis Partnership.  In this latter role he worked with GP practices, commissioners and multidisciplinary teams to identify opportunities for improving the care of specific patient cohorts and individuals.  This particularly focused on the impact of co-morbidities, including the interactions of a wide range of mental and physical conditions.

Graham also worked as Head of Information Services at the British Museum, and was responsible for the delivery of systems as part of the Great Court Millennium project in 2000.  

He was previously a Trustee of Eduserv, a charity providing specialised information and technology services to higher education, local authorities and the charity sector.

Graham has now retired, and undertakes a number of voluntary roles, including as deputy chair of his local Healthwatch organisation.

Paul Mitchell PhD (Trustee)

Paul is a mental health nurse with over thirty years experience in the NHS, primarily within young people’s services in the North West.  For most of his career he has worked with young people within secure services and within offender pathways.  Paul worked as a senior clinician and a service manager while also pursuing a career in research.  He has published and presented research on screening, pathways and interventions for young people in offender pathways; he was awarded his Doctorate in 2009.

Paul worked for three years as Clinical Lead for the National Secure Forensic Mental Health Service for Young People.  He has also worked on two NICE Guideline Development Groups and was also a member of the Department of Health CAMHS Taskforce and the Clinical Reference Group for Secure Services for Young People.

Since leaving the NHS four years ago Paul has worked as an independent consultant, both in the UK and internationally, primarily focussing on pathways and service development.  His main areas of interest are the development of interagency pathways and innovative models of service delivery that actively involve both young people and their carers.

Claire Moran (Trustee)

Claire Moran (Trustee) has specialised in child and adolescent mental health for over a decade. Claire is a Lecturer at the UEA, teaching on graduate and post-graduate courses. She holds a clinical role in the NHS, as a psychotherapist in HM Prisons. Claire also provides private consultancy to external agencies in frontline child and adolescent mental health services. Claire is an active researcher and writer, with a special interest in social inequalities, adverse childhood experiences (ACEs), and psychoanalytic/ relational theory.

Alia Mumtaz (Trustee)

I have worked in health & social care since 2005, starting as support worker, where I worked with adults with a mental health diagnosis. Since this time, I have mainly worked for social care providers. As part of all my roles, I have worked with adults with a mental health diagnosis who have received mental health services in their adolescence, I have also supported adolescents to transition into adult services. This has led me to have a keen interest in the support children and adolescents receive in these formative years, which can have a significant impact in their adult life.  I am currently Head of Service Innovation for one of the largest health and social care charities, where we support people with a variety of care needs.  This is my first Trustee position and I am delighted to be part of FPSA, to be able to support professionals to gain access to funding for additional training & research, which will improve services for adolescents, which in turn will have a positive impact on adult services and the quality of life individuals with a mental health diagnosis can lead in adulthood.

Janine Smith (Trustee)

Janine Smith has been involved with our organisation for many years, both locally and at a national level, serving as a trustee and a director. She was involved in the strategic development of our transformation from a membership organisation to a grant giving foundation. This led to our successful change to the FPSA in 2011.

Since Janine qualified as a nurse in mental health in 1991, she has worked in Nottingham CAMHS (in-patient/Tier 4) as a senior nurse. She is still with Nottingham CAMHS, working as a Clinical Nurse Specialist in the CAMHS Crisis Team.

Janine is particularly interested in adolescents and self-harm, and delivering evidence-based practice interventions. She is keen to explore how systems outside the health arena and multi-agency and inter-agency working can be developed to work in the best interests of young people.

Janine is passionate about her involvement with the FPSA. She is proud to represent the organisation and communicate its aims and objects at national conferences and forums.

Keith Wilshere (Trustee)

Keith has been involved with all three iterations of the organisation since 1989, when he joined the South Yorkshire group, serving initially as Treasurer, and then the National Executive, in 1990.

Initially working as a banker and computer systems operator, since qualifying as an occupational therapist in the late 1980’s, Keith has spent various points of his career working in Derby, Kingston on Thames, Richmond, Sheffield, Hull and East Yorkshire, East Sussex, North London, Nottingham and the East Midlands and latterly in the Black Country.

Keith retired from the NHS in 2014 from the position of Deputy Director of Integrated Governance and Trust Lead Allied Healthcare Professional (AHP) due to personal circumstances. Since then he has formed his own company and has gone on the work in health service interim lead clinical and corporate governance roles for acute trusts, ambulance trusts, clinical commissioning groups as well as being a part-time clinician, videographer and musician.

Keith has remained interested in and committed to the FPSA, previously editing both the practice magazine Rapport, for over 13 years, and some of the more recent FPSA Briefings. He has been the Chair of a school governing body and remains proud and dedicated to supporting young people in general and particularly those in the care systems who work with them.

Applying for Funding

The Foundation for Professionals in Services to Adolescents (FPSA) offers funding for relevant courses, conferences and training. Find out who can apply now. FPSA do not provide retrospective funding, if you have already paid for a course, training or conference you cannot apply for funding. Please check the deadlines for applications before you submit.

Apply now