The Cedar Create Team brings a wealth of experience, knowledge and passion to the University of Exeter. Often starting as clinicians themselves, the team is driven to support healthcare professionals, develop services and improve the care of patients across the country. You can find out more about our core team below; we are also supported by an incredible team of associates and other team members from across the University of Exeter and beyond, our work would not be possible without them.
Our current collaborators include NHS England, Every Mind Matters, Uppsala University, Washington State, Maudsley Centre for Child and Adolescent Eating Disorders, the International Attachment Based Family Therapy Team and Emerging Minds (UKRI).
Our core team collaborates with colleagues from across the University of Exeter, healthcare services, external agencies, national bodies and international universities to provide the highest standard of work possible.
Director of Cedar Create
Jonathan Parker is the Director of Cedar Create and an Associate Professor at the University of Exeter. He is a co-director of the children and young Peoples training programmes within Cedar, has worked as a Clinical Advisor for NHS England and is a qualified CBT practitioner, psychotherapist, and clinical supervisor. He has specialist interest in clinical leadership, implementation and organisational development and provides support, guidance, and challenge to a range of NHS, Local Authority, and community sector organisations. Jonathan has led across a range of clinical leadership training programmes and has substantial experience of leadership coaching, mentoring, and facilitating group learning. He works closely with regional, national, and international partners in support of the development, implementation and evaluation of key health and education initiatives.
Director of Cedar
Catherine is a Clinical Psychologist, accredited CBT therapist and National Teaching Fellow. She is an Associate Professor at the University of Exeter and has worked in Clinical Practice Education since 2007. Catherine is the Director of Cedar and Clinical Training (Post Graduate Taught Programmes) overseeing the strategic direction and governance of Cedar and Cedar Create. Catherine is also the Co-Chair of the Psychological Professions Network – South West (PPN-SW) supporting and leading regional and national work with NHSE in relation to workforce strategy, training and implementation and supporting service effectiveness. Her clinical specialism is within Children and Young Peoples’ mental health.
Director of Research
Associate Professor Anna Adlam is a Chartered Clinical Psychologist (D.Clin.Psy.) and academic Neuropsychologist (Ph.D.), who specialises in working with individuals who have survived paediatric brain injury. Anna has worked as a post-doctoral researcher at the MRC-Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit, Clinical Lecturer/Senior Lecturer at the UEA, and Clinical Psychologist for the Cambridge Centre of Paediatric Neuropsychological Rehabilitation. Anna joined the University of Exeter as a Senior Lecturer in 2012 and is now the Co-Director of Postgraduate Research for Psychology. Anna is also the Research Lead for the Child and Adolescent Neuropsychology group and co-ordinates the Paediatric Neurocognitive Interventions Research Group.
Deputy Director of Cedar
Hannah is passionately committed to the delivery of excellent therapeutic services to young people, couples and their families. As an accredited Systemic Family Psychotherapist, Hannah has over 25 years’ of experience working within the mental health service; originally as a mental health nurse and then Systemic Family Psychotherapist, Co-Director of the Systemic Portfolio and now Deputy Director of PGT programmes at the University of Exeter. Hannah worked as Lead Family Therapist at an adolescent in-patient unit for nine years, and for the past 10 years worked at the University of Exeter in close collaboration with a Co-Director, to develop what has become the most prolific systemic training provider in the South West, and possibly the UK.
Low Intensity Director
Director of the Low-Intensity CBT (LICBT) clinical training portfolio within Cedar; Psychology, managing four programmes from Degree Level 6 to MSci associated with the role of Psychological Wellbeing Practitioner (PWP). This new psychological therapy role was established to support Low Intensity CBT (LICBT) interventions within the NHS England Improving Access to Psychological Therapies (IAPT – now NHS Talking Therapies for Anxiety and Depression) mental health programme for the treatment of common mental health problems.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Hollie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow and leads a team of researchers evaluating two low intensity mental health training programmes for children and young people in the South West: the Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP). Hollie has presented CWP and EMHP outcomes at national and international conferences to demonstrate the impact of routine outcome monitoring and promote the low intensity workforce. Hollie also leads on several research and evaluation projects for Cedar Create, including a HEE funded evaluation of the attrition, retention, and fidelity of Cedar training programmes.
Innovation and Partnerships Manager
In collaboration with the Cedar Create Team, Laura brings a focus to partnerships and collaborative working with both external academic collaborators and non-university partners to help drive innovation, research and evaluation, international ventures, educational partnerships, consultancy, leadership development and the expansion and commercialisation of Cedar’s executive education.
Laura’s previous experience includes Brand Management (B2B and B2C) within the EdTech sector and various project, marketing and communications roles with the South West Academic Health Science Network.
Operations Manager
Charlie manages the finances for Cedar with responsibility for business planning and budget monitoring. As part of his role Charlie helps with the costing of new projects and co-ordinating the staff recruitment to support the Cedar Create projects.
Co-director of CYP and Perinatal Portfolio
Alex is a Clinical Psychologist and accredited CBT therapist who has worked at the University of Exeter since 2012. She is the joint Director of Children and Young People’s Mental Health Training and the Director for Perinatal Training for Cedar. As part of this role, she oversees the delivery of the Children and Young People’s (CYP) IAPT courses and supports the south west community of practice in developing their workforce to support children, young people’s mental health. After 15 years working clinically in the NHS she now works in private practice with children, young people and families as well as providing supervision for colleagues working privately and within the NHS.
Co-director of Systemic Portfolio
Mark has worked as a family therapist and teacher of family therapy in a number of different services and universities. Primarily his clinical work has focused on ‘tier four’ services such as domestic violence, acute adolescent mental health and latterly adolescent sexually harmful behaviour. He has written widely on these themes. He is also co-author of three books: Family therapy in focus (with Eddy Street); Working with men in health and social care (with Brid Featherstone and Jonathan Scourfield); and Family therapy: 100 key points and techniques 2009 (with Eddy Street). His most recent research interest is the therapeutic alliance in couple and family therapy and especially how this is taught to students. He is also a story teller with a series of ‘shows’ which he has developed with a colleague (Steve Killick) in the last few years including Oedipus, The king and the Corpse and Buddhist wisdom stories. He is retiring Editor of the Journal of Family Therapy.
Director of Adult HI IAPT/CBT and SMHP Portfolios
Nicole is a Clinical Psychologist and accredited CBT therapist who has worked at the University of Exeter since 2013. She is the Director of Portfolio for High Intensity CBT, SMHP-CBT and MHWP training programmes within Cedar. She oversees the delivery of the High Intensity NHS Talking Therapies training courses, the CBT for Severe Mental Health training, and the Mental Health Wellbeing Practitioner training. Within her role, she also works regionally and nationally to support the MHWP training and workforce implementation. Nicole has 15 years of experience of working clinically within the NHS in mental health and physical health. In addition to her University role, she also works in private practice and provides supervision to colleagues working privately and within the NHS.
Associate Lecturer and Project Co-ordinator
Beth is an Associate Lecturer and Project Coordinator for the Children’s Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) programmes. In this role, Beth supports several Cedar Create projects including an evaluation project exploring retention and role sustainability in the CYP mental health workforce. Beth is a graduate of Cedar’s CWP programme and is particularly interested in projects that help to develop, support, and expand the Low Intensity offer in the South West.
Graduate Research Assistant
Nicola is a member of the Research and Evaluation Team at Cedar Create. The team analyse and report on children’s mental health data collected from Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) programmes. Nicola is currently involved in a HEE funded evaluation project exploring the Attrition, Retention and Role Fidelity of the Cedar CWP, EMHP and Recruit to Train (RtT) training programmes.
Postdoctoral Research Associate
As a member of the Research and Evaluation Team at Cedar Create, Melika is involved in many projects including Children Wellbeing Practitioners (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) programmes. As part of her role, she is involved in data collection, data analyses and preparing reports for both CWP and EMHP programmes. She also has been involved in other projects such as, Emerging Minds and Digital Poverty. Melika and Nick (as primary authors, along with the rest of the team) have collaborated on a research paper titled “Therapeutic Goal Types in Young People’s Mental Health Providers and Changes in Anxiety and Mood” which has been submitted for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.
Graduate Research Assistant
Nick is a member of the Research and Evaluation Team at Cedar Create and a PhD Researcher at the University of Exeter. Nick is involved in many projects such as evaluating the Children Wellbeing Practitioner (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioner (EMHP) programmes. As part of his role, he has coded and developed an innovative data collection and analysis tool for CWP and EMHP practitioners to use and regularly provides training and oversight of this system. He has been involved in various other projects such as Digital Poverty and has recently submitted a research paper alongside Melika and the rest of the team. Nick’s recent research interest is using novel data science approaches (such as psychometric network analysis and machine learning) to understand child and adolescent depression/anxiety and predict symptom improvement over time.
Graduate Research Assistant
Sam is a Graduate Research Assistant in the Research and Evaluation Team at Cedar Create, and joined the University in April 2021. With a background in project management, Sam has been involved in a range of projects focused on improving the quality of health and care in the region, and currently works on evaluation projects of a number of the University’s training programmes for Cedar Create, alongside a role with the Psychological Professions Network South West.
Graduate Research Assistant
Beth is a researcher in the Research and Evaluation Team. The Team collects, analyses and reports on children’s mental health data collected from Children’s Wellbeing Practitioners (CWP) and Education Mental Health Practitioners (EMHP) programmes. Beth has been involved in a number of Cedar Create projects including the evaluation of the new Youth Intensive Psychological Practitioner (YIPP) role and the creation of a CWP Regional Report. Beth’s recent research interest is investigating differences in anxiety and depression symptom severity, and intervention satisfaction in children and young people who had either remote, hybrid or face-to-face low intensity interventions.
