Meet Our Team
We are a team of healthcare professionals, parents and young people with lived experience of self-harm and youth mental health.
Claire Sutton
Content Development Director
Claire is the Co-Founder of the Youth Mental Health Foundation. She is a mother of three. Her lived experience of guiding her own teenage daughter’s recovery from years of self-harm led to her creating the methodology used in this course. She now coaches groups of parents around the world.
Calvin Malcom
Lead Physiotherapist
He currently teaches on the Foundation Course to Family Therapy at Plymouth University, supervises trainee Systemic Practitioners on the CYP IAPT Course at the University of Exeter and held an honorary tutor post in the teaching of Systemic Family Therapy on the Post Grad Doctorate Clinical Psychology Course at Leicester University.
Calvin has trained many family therapists to become qualified family therapists and as a qualified Systemic Family Therapy Supervisor has supervised many others.
Dr Lynn Suter
Clinical Director
BA (Hons.) BSc. (Hons), MSc, DPsych, CPsychol (Chartered Psychologist) and AFBPsS (Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society)
Dr Lynn Suter originally trained as an occupational psychologist, specialising latterly in learning and development. She then retrained and achieved her Doctorate in Psychotherapy and practiced as a counselling psychologist. She has worked in the NHS, in both primary and secondary care. In addition she has worked as Clinical Director of a 3rd sector counselling agency and in counselling for students
Jade Sutton
Youth Lead
Jade is 20 years old and has spoken to over 35,000 young people about mental health, visiting over 70 schools.
She won The BBC Make A Difference Award in 2022 and has been interviewed several times on the national TV news and radio about teen mental health. She was shortlisted for a National Diversity Award 2018 as a ‘Positive Role Model For Young People’.
She is dedicated to destigmatising the issue of youth mental health and encouraging other young people with her recovery story.
Joel Sutton
Commercial & Partnerships
Joel is a serial entrepreneur, father and co-founder of The Youth Mental Health Foundation.
He is passionate about sharing a father’s perspective on the issue of child self-harm, coaching parents to play a key role in their child’s healing and promoting awareness of the Horizon Plan to parents and healthcare professionals globally.
Dr. Pia Pechtel
Research Director
MPhil, PhD in Psychology, Registered Clinical Psychologist (HCPC), Wellcome Trust Research Fellow.
Pia received her PhD in Psychology in New Zealand where she helped to develop national therapy guidelines for sexual abuse. She then joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School in the US to study the impact of trauma on the brain before completing her Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of Exeter.
She is a registered Clinical Psychologist who specialises in working with young people who experienced trauma and who find self-harm helpful. She has worked in Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services and currently volunteers her time in a NHS specialist service for sexual abuse.
Pia also runs a research programme at the University of Exeter funded by the Wellcome Trust. Her research combines clinical psychology and developmental neuroscience to understand the neural mechanisms of self-harm and how this could help to develop better support for young people and families.
Rebecca Garrard
Grant & Project Manager / Graphic Designer & Illustrator
Rebecca is an artist with a BA (Hons.) in Philosophy. She is dedicated to using her lived experience of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety to help increase awareness and empathy for those living with mental health issues.
Rebecca works alongside the team to edit and develop content for the Youth Mental Health Foundation. By developing online resources, she aims to provide young people and parents with the knowledge, support, and guidance they need to navigate through the process of self-awareness and recovery.
Natalie
Workshop Leader
Hi, I’m Natalie,
Chester
Virtual Assistant
Chester lives and works from the Philapines, she is mother of 3 children Rebecca is an artist with a BA (Hons.) in Philosophy. She is dedicated to using her lived experience of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, and anxiety to help increase awareness and empathy for those living with mental health issues.
Natalie
Workshop Leader
Hi, I’m Natalie,