Our story

Professor Barnes has devoted her professional life to research designed to improve experiences and developmental outcomes for children and parents from deprived or challenging backgrounds. Her research interests include early intervention, childcare, parenting, the relevance of the neighbourhood and community for parents and children, and evaluation methodology.

She has held a variety of advisory roles in the UK for organisations including: the Health Advisory Service (HAS); the National Children’s Bureau; the Academy of Medical Sciences Working Party on Brain Science, Addiction and Drugs; the National Institute of Clinical Excellence’s (NICE) Guidance on Promoting the Social and Emotional Wellbeing of vulnerable children in early years; the Department of Health, Expert Group for the Healthy Child Programme (HCP); the Department of Health Outcome Measures Project Group for child development at 2 to 2 ½, for the Public Health Outcomes Framework; and the Early Intervention Foundation.

Kathryn Boulton has over 37 years’ experience working in education and children’s services, over twenty of which have been in senior roles in Local Authorities. Until recently, Kathryn was Executive Director for Children and Families in Redcar and Cleveland and held this role for almost five years.

Driven by social justice and a passion to make a positive difference to children’s outcomes and life chances, Kathryn has led local authority services that deliver across the spectrum of children’s services. Kathryn is keen to continue to contribute to the sector and works on a freelance basis providing executive coaching and leadership consultancy.

After an early career in the voluntary sector, in 1999 Naomi became the first Director of the Sure Start Unit. The Unit was responsible for delivering the British Government’s commitment to free nursery education places for all three and four year olds, and Sure Start, a major programme aiming to reduce the gap in outcomes between children living in disadvantaged areas and the wider child population. After Sure Start, Naomi spent 3 years as the Director of the Social Exclusion Task Force working across government to identify and promote policies to address the needs of traditionally excluded groups.

Since retiring from the Civil Service, Naomi has chaired the Camden Equalities Commission, the Milton Keynes Child Poverty Commission and served as Poverty advisor to the First Minister of Scotland. She has also been an Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Oxford and the London School of Economics. Naomi has published 2 books and several articles relevant to child development and child poverty.

Pasco is a developmental and clinical psychologist doing world-leading research on child development and children’s mental health. Previously Joint-director of UCL’s Clinical Psychology Course for 10 years, he is Director of the Children of the 2020s Study, a nationally representative birth cohort study funded by the Department of Education, and a co-director of the Early Life Cohort Feasibility Study, funded by the ESRC.

Pasco works internationally, with key collaborations in the USA, Netherlands, Canada, South Africa, Ghana, Burkina Faso, Kenya and Lebanon. He is also closely involved in children’s mental health policy, through his work at the Anna Freud Centre and as a trustee of the charity Foundation Years Information Research.

Former Chair now Honorary President of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, for 25 years Alain has been an NHS Consultant specialising in mother and baby psychiatry and an Honorary Senior Lecturer. He set up the Hampshire Specialist Perinatal Mental Health Service and specialist Mother and Baby Mental Health Unit, for women with severe mental health problems in pregnancy and postnatally.

He and his team have won Hospital Doctor of the Year and Psychiatric Team of the Year Awards. He has written research papers various aspects of medicine and contributed to the development of policy, guidance and clinical services in the UK and abroad.

Jean was formerly England’s Communication Champion for children. She has frequently acted in an advisory capacity to government on early years, wellbeing and special educational needs policy, including the language and self-regulation elements of Early Years Foundation Stage guidance .

She has been a teacher, an educational psychologist, head of children’s services in a local authority and a visiting or associate fellow at three universities . She the author of numerous articles and best-selling books on children’s issues and co-authored the Education Endowment Foundation/ Early Intervention Foundation guidance report Improving social and emotional learning in primary schools (2019).

Sally is Senior Policy Fellow at the Centre for Research on Play in Education, Development, and Learning (PEDAL) based in the Faculty of Education at the University of Cambridge.

She has had a varied career in charities and national and local governments, leading teams to develop and implement interventions for families in the early years, and campaigning successfully to drive policy change. Sally joined PEDAL from the Parent-Infant Foundation, where she was Deputy CEO and the creator and first chair of the First 1001 Days Movement, a campaigning alliance of over 200 charities and professional bodies.

Prior to this, Sally’s roles included Strategic Lead at the Maternal Health Alliance, Senior Commissioner in a Local Authority, and Development Manager for Children Under One at the NSPCC.

Alison Morton joined the Institute as Director of Policy and Quality in 2019 to strengthen its work in Policy, delivering ‘Health Visiting in England: A Vision for the Future’. She transitioned to become Acting Executive Director in January 2021 and was appointed as the CEO in April 2021.

After training as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London, Alison worked for less than a year at the Evelina Children’s hospital before following her dream to become a health visitor. Following completion of the 3-year Community Nursing degree programme at King’s College London, she graduated with a combined qualification in health visiting and district nursing in 1993. With an extensive background in health visiting, having held senior roles across national policy, 0-19 public health operational delivery and quality improvement, alongside teaching and research.

Previously Alison worked as a Professional Advisor for Health Visiting in the Chief Nursing Directorate at the Department of Health from 2014 and then as the Best Start in Life Programme Manager at Public Health England (PHE), where she managed several national programmes of work for children aged 0 – 5 years, including developing a cross-government partnership as part of the Social Mobility Action Plan and led the first PHE Taxpayer Best Value Review of the Family Nurse Partnership national unit. She was previously the Head of Nursing in Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and an NIHR Clinical Academic at the University of Southampton. Alison is also an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Child Health at UCL and her work has been recognised through numerous national awards.

With more than 20 years’ experience within the of social research in the voluntary sector in the UK and at research institutions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Germany and China, Gayle’s fields of research experience include migration and trafficking, homelessness, children and families, drug and alcohol services, and special educational needs and disabilities.

Previously Head of Research and Evidence for the National Children’s Bureau and led the research team at The Salvation Army. She has previously taught and run training modules in qualitative methods and research governance.

Liz drives community change through collective impact and collaborative leadership and through the institute focuses primarily on vulnerable individuals, families and communities in deprived rural or peri-urban areas and from Indigenous or immigrant backgrounds, with the bold vision of ending poverty in Canada. Prior to her current role, Liz led the Vibrant Communities Canada team and has worked at the community level as the Director for the Hamilton.

A recognized thought leader, she has authored numerous papers on complex community change issues.