Request Expert

Expert has extensive experience in the fields of both substance misuse and its consequential effects on both those who misuse substances and their families; and on mental health difficulties and their consequential effects on families. This experience relates to a number of areas, including:
• research - he has conducted extensive research into, among other areas, the effects that problem drug-taking and alcohol misuse has on families,
and the impact of parental substance misuse on the children in these families; he has published very widely on this (and other) topics; he has also conducted research and published on the topic of parental mental ill health and the effects of this on their children; he has published 15 books on these and related topics, as well as more than 200 published refereed academic papers and scholarly chapters;
• child protection proceedings - Expert has served as an Expert Witness within the UK Court System in child protection cases relating to parental substance misuse or parental mental health problems on more than forty occasions over the past 20 years;
• clinical practice - he is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist with specific expertise in developing services to those with substance misuse problems and their families; and to those with mental health problems and their families;
• management - he was the founding Head of all of the statutory Addictions Services in the Bath Mental Health Care NHS Trust within the UK, until the foundation of the larger Avon & Wiltshire Mental Health Partnership NHS Trust in April 1999. These statutory Addictions Services included both the Somerset Drugs Service, covering all of Somerset, and the B&NES and Western Wiltshire Addictions Service. He was a member of the Trust Main Board for some years until November 2003, and was directly responsible for all the specialist drug & alcohol services across the Trust, for the Families and Psychosis Service (an NHS Beacon Site), as well as for all Trust-wide strategic and service developments;
• and national (and international) policy:
o Nationally, he helped in the early 1980s to establish Alcohol Concern, the national alcohol agency in England & Wales and served on its National Executive until 1991; in 1998 he was appointed by the Home Secretary to be a member of the Council of the Alcohol Education Research Council (AERC), and was re-appointed up to the maximum of 6 years. He has been an advisor to many UK Government bodies: the National Treatment Agency for Drug Misuse (NTA) in relation to their policies concerning families and family involvement in drug misuse treatment, the Home Office (with respect to drug prevention policy, especially as regards to the relationship between parents and drug misuse), the Department of Health (over a number of NHS matters relating to service development and performance monitoring), the Scottish Executive (on parental substance misuse), as well as being a member of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation’s Programme Advisory Board on Alcohol and Drugs and a member of the NSPCC External Expert Reference Group on their major project on ‘Physical abuse in high risk families’.
o Internationally, he has been an advisor to Governmental bodies in Australia, Mexico and Italy over the impact of substance misuse on children and families, has worked extensively with the European Union as an advisor over drug prevention, was a member of the 15-strong Scientific Committee for the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction (EMCDDA) for 6 years (2008-13), and is Senior Research Fellow in India [with the Sangath Community Health NGO], researching the use of community lay health workers to deliver psychological interventions to people with

Has served as an Expert Witness in child protection cases relating to parental substance misuse or parental mental health problems on more than forty occasions over the past 20 years. Helped in the early 1980's to establish Alcohol Concern, the national alcohol agency in England & Wales and served on its National Executive until 1991; in 1998 he was appointed by the Home Secretary to be a member of the Council of the Alcohol Education Research Council (AERC), and was re-appointed up to the maximum of 6 years. He is an advisor to the National Treatment Agency for Drug Misuse (NTA) in relation to their policies concerning families and family involvement in drug misuse treatment, and has been an adviser to the Home Office (with respect to drug prevention policy, especially as regards to the relationship between parents and drug misuse), to the Department of Health (over a number of NHS matters relating to service development and performance monitoring), and to the Scottish Executive (on parental substance misuse).Was a member of the 15-person EMCDDA’s Scientific Committee (2008-2013), has been an advisor to the European Union over drug prevention and as part of that have completed a major EU funded project involving me working part-time in Russia, developing drug prevention programmes utilizing the EU experience, has set up (in 2001) an EU-wide network concerned with developing resources to help professionals across the EU improve the help they offer to children in families affected by substance misuse (and he is currently ENCARE’s Vice President), and has advised Governmental bodies in Australia, Mexico and Italy over the impact of substance misuse on children and families.Is a Senior Research Fellow and Co-Director of the Addictions Research Group, in India [with the Sangath Community Health NGO, Goa, India] where he is developing and researching the use of community lay health workers and/or new technologies to deliver psychological interventions to people with severe depression, or serious alcohol problems, or in need of community detoxification, or to affected family members.