Chris has broad experience with a variety of health services research methods applied in child health and disability research. He has a keen interest in evaluating parent carer-focused interventions. He led development of the Healthy Parent Carers programme 

Rachel is an occupational therapist with over 20 years of clinical experience in the UK and Uganda. She is based in Uganda and has been living and working there for 10 years. She has worked on the Baby Ubuntu programme since its inception in 2015, supporting its design, training programmes, pilot and implementation in Uganda and Rwanda.

Ola's research focuses on using qualitative methods and behaviour change psychology to design, implement and evaluate interventions to promote health. This includes a range of interventions, e.g., to promote lifestyle-related behaviour changes, and behaviour changes related to preventing and managing common infections. She has a particular interest in group-based interventions, social processes, and adapting interventions to increase their uptake and implementation. She is on the Healthy Parent Carers programme team. 

Tracey is a physiotherapist with clinical experience developing, co-ordinating and delivering rehabilitation interventions and health worker training interventions in Australia, Brazil, countries in sub-Saharan Africa and the UK. She specialised in paediatric care, and her main work is with children with neurodevelopmental disorders and their families. Her research focus has been on the development of interventions to improve the quality of life of carers of children with multiple complex impairments, and in the design and analysis of before-after trials, cohort studies and cross sectional studies

Phill is a specialist paediatric physiotherapist with experience and research interest in parental partnership in early intervention for infants with neurodisability. He is currently working on:

1. Healthy Parent Carers (HPC) research into exploring meaningful outcomes of parent carer health and wellbeing and accessibility of HPC through an equity orientation. 

2. Seen and Be Heard Study - exploring children and young people with/without learning disability and or who are autistic and experience of cancer care services through an equity lens (again)

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Rachel has been involved in local SEND advocacy within the East London Borough of Newham for several years. Her son was diagnosed with Cerebral Palsy in 2013, and it became evident to her that SEND health, social care, and educational provisions were insufficient. 

Unfortunately, Rachel struggled for many years to get community SEND support services to engage properly and provide the correct support for her son. These challenges sparked her particular interest in 'Inclusion' and 'Ableism', and she began to use her lived experience to participate in local SEND quality improvement projects, sharing her experience of childrens SEND health and social care services to effect change. 

Through her involvement with the Specialist Childrens and Young People's Services (SCYPS) People Participation Team, Rachel contributed to the initial Encompass study consultation in 2019, asserting that if such a programme was avaliable after her child had been diagnosed, she would have been better equipped to navigate her earlier journey as a parent-carer. Rachel strongly believes that providing parents and carers with holistic support, knowledge, and practical skills will not only empower them to navigate services, but also ensure they can meet their children's needs, and reduce associated depression and anxiety.

Today, Rachel works for SCYPS as a People Participation Worker, working closely with service users and their families to ensure their voices are heard in the planning and delivery of the service. 

I am a mother of a child with complex needs, my daughter is 12 years old and we live in Tower Hamlets. When my daughter was younger, I trained to be a befriender through SCOPE charity. This helped me to share my journey with other parents, carers and professionals and was a starting point for me wanting to help others. I have presented at a few conferences at Mile End Hospital and the British Library on ‘Learning through doing’. One was the Royal College of Occupational Therapist's Children and Young People Specialist Section conference.  Because mine is a lived experience, it comes from the heart and that is very powerful. I learnt about Person-Centred Active Support (PCAS) when I was invited to attend a workshop. PCAS means for me and my family that my child with a disability can do things that are part of everyday life. I've been Co-trained to deliver PCAS, which was a new experience that I really enjoyed, I felt connected to other parents because I am coming from a parents point of view. 

Cally is a South African-born, British-trained neonatologist, an Associate Professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Honorary Principal Scientist at the MRC/UVRI & LSHTM Uganda Research Unit in Entebbe. Her research work focuses on global neonatal health and early childhood outcomes and interventions. She has a particular interest in perinatal brain health, neurodevelopmental outcomes, and early intervention for children with developmental disabilities, particularly in Africa. She is the founder of the Baby Ubuntu programme, a participatory community-based parenting programme for young children less than 3 years of age with developmental disabilities in low resource settings. The Baby Ubuntu programme sits under the ‘Ubuntu- Hub’, a not-for-profit education and research hub at the International Centre for Evidence in Disability at LSHTM. She is on the coordinating committee of the International Society of Early Intervention and provides technical expertise to the World Health Organization in adapting the programme for global reach.