National i-THRIVE Programme Team
Dr Rachel James
Rachel is the Clinical and Programme Director for the National i-THRIVE Programme and is responsible for supporting the national implementation of the THRIVE Framework. Rachel leads on the i-THRIVE Academy.
Rachel is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist and has over 25 years’ experience working with children, young people and their families across the health, social care, education and voluntary sectors, and she has led community, specialist and multi-agency child and adolescent mental health teams within the UK. She is currently the Clinical Director of the Child, Young Adult and Family Directorate at the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust. Rachel is a co-author of the THRIVE Framework for system change (Wolpert et al., 2019) and the Clinical and Programme Director for the National i-THRIVE Programme.
Rachel is committed to developing and delivering high-quality services that are evidence-informed, prevent and promote emotional health and wellbeing, and empower children, young people and their families to be actively involved in decisions about their care through shared decision making. Rachel integrates her learning from a UCLPartners Improvement Fellowship into developing ways to embed quality improvement within everyday practice to effect meaningful and sustainable change across systems.
Rose McCarthy
Rose is the Programme Trainer for the National i-THRIVE Programme and is responsible for coordinating the programme of training nationally. Rose is the lead for delivering the i-THRIVE Academy modules to localities across the UK and can develop bespoke packages of training to suit each locality’s needs.
Rose holds a BA Hons in Psychology, an MA in Social Work and she is also a trained Video-feedback intervention to promote positive parenting and sensitive discipline (VIPP-SD) practitioner with the Tavistock and Portman NHS Foundation Trust.
Rose’s background is in social care and she has over 15 years of experience working with children in need of protection and supporting children at every stage through their adoption journey. Rose has extensive experience of training and assessing prospective adopters and is passionate about improving outcomes for children, young people and their families.
Sophie Dunn
Sophie is the Assistant Psychologist within the National i-THRIVE team, and Associate Quality Improvement Lead within The Tavistock and Portman Trust. She also works part-time outside of the NHS in a specialist psychoanalytic playgroup for refugee and asylum-seeking families.
Following her BSc in Psychology, Sophie studied an MSC in Psychoanalytic Developmental Psychology at the Anna Freud Centre, in collaboration with UCL. Alongside her studies, Sophie worked as a youth participation worker and support worker in a residential home for individuals with autism, learning difficulties and mental health problems.
Within her Assistant Psychologist role, Sophie will assist with the implementation of the THRIVE framework, including facilitating the delivery of workshops and events across multi-agency sites. She is passionate about improving the quality and accessibility of person-centred and needs-focussed care, in order to improve outcomes for children, young people and their families.
As Associate QI lead, Sophie is supporting several QI projects within the Children, Young Adult and Family department, developing PDSA cycles and driving continuous improvement across the trust.
