Mental Health and Wellbeing Leadership - Digital - Speakers

Kimberley Evans, Founder, Nourish the Workplace

Kimberley gives schools the tools to identify how to improve the wellbeing of their staff. Having worked in education for more than 20 years as a teacher and TA, Kimberley set up Nourish the Workplace two years ago to make a positive difference to the profession that she loves. She recently co-edited and contributed to The Big Book of Whole School Wellbeing which is out now.  

Sam Garner, Mental Health & Inclusion Consultant

A renowned speaker, training and author on mental health and SEN. Sam was a SENCo in a large secondary schools, is a qualified CBT Therapist, Child and Adolescent Counsellor, and CBT Coach. Sam regularly speaks at conferences, provides consultancy and training for organisations both nationally and internationally. Lauded for her humour and 'tell it like it is' approach to mental health and inclusion, Sam has also written a range of CBT resources which are used by staff in school to support student mental health. 

Kelly Hannaghan, Mental Health Champion, Writer, Speaker and Consultant

Kelly is a Mental Health and Wellbeing Consultant for The Education People and has spent her professional career passionately focussing on enhancing the opportunities and life chances of people in education.  Through the power of her mental health training and therapeutic relationship skills, she has successfully led a school on the Wellbeing Award for Schools process, resulting in the school being the first nationally to achieve this.  Kelly is an active speaker, blogger and active writer of wellbeing in education and is passionate about creating the conditions under which teachers and pupils and families flourish.  Her approaches in leading school development processes have created outstanding outcomes.

Robert Morrissey FCCT, Former Executive Headteacher and NLE

Rob is a long standing school leader, having served as a headteacher and executive head teacher for almost 17 years. He has led a school to outstanding and supported other schools and leaders as an NLE. He was executive headteacher of two federated schools in Solihull in the West Midlands. He is also a mentor to new headteachers for the local authority and diocese. Rob is a member of the Chartered College and has graduated as a Chartered Teacher (Leadership Status) and as a coach having just completed an ILM accredited coaching course with the British School of Coaching..

Kemi Omijeh, MBACP Therapist, Consultant and Trainer

Kemi Omijeh is a registered child and adolescent Therapist and former Teacher with extensive experience in primary and secondary education. As well as her private practice, Kemi currently works as Director of wellbeing at an independent school. Kemi has spent her career working in a variety of settings, championing the voice of the child and advocating for a child centred approach. Kemi believes when children feel safe, connected, and emotionally regulated, they can access their learning in a meaningful way and thrive. Kemi is an experienced trainer who brings with her, her in depth psychological insights of child development, her background in education and her experience running school-based wellbeing service.   Kemi facilitates safe and reflective spaces that enables school staff to think holistically about the child and their wellbeing needs.  She offers tangible and practical strategies to embed and prioritise pupil wellbeing.

Dr Asha Patel, Clinical Psychologist and CEO

Dr Asha Patel (founder of Innovating Minds) is a registered Clinical Psychologist and developed the Healing Together facilitators programme. The programme that is supporting children, young people and adults nationally access early trauma informed help within community settings. This is the first trauma informed programme that upskills front line practitioners that are not clinically trained with the knowledge and resources they need to provide early trauma informed interventions. Dr Patel is also the mastermind behind EduPod, the online platform that provides training for designated mental health leads that are implementing a whole school approach to mental health. Her clinical expertise and contribution to developing sustainable intervention models has enabled her to support children, young people and adults nationally..

Amy Sayer FCCT, Mental Health Trainer and Content Writer

Amy had previously been a school leader for a number of years and used this experience to understand how much of a need there was to support mental heath in schools. Amy wrote a book called 'Supporting staff mental heath in your school' and as a result is now a free-lance mental health trainer for schools. Amy also works for West Sussex Mind as a content writer and trainer and this role enables them to provide workshops for parents of children who are struggling with their mental health. Amy is also a Leading Diversity Advisor and content writer for the Chartered College of Teaching.

Rachel Tomlinson, Headteacher, Barrowford Primary School

As Headteacher at Barrowford, Rachel has developed an ethos that has the wellbeing of staff and students as the centre of everything they do. This is heavily based on restorative principles and has a reward-free and sanction-free approach to relationship management. To support this, there is a range of personnel available to provide diverse services to enable staff and students thrive.