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Andy Bell is Chair of the Mental Health Alliance. He was elected to the post in July 2006, after leading the Alliance's media work for three years. Andy is Director of Public Affairs at the Sainsbury Centre for Mental Health, a charity that works to improve the quality of life of people with mental health problems. The public affairs team is responsible for publications, events, the web site and media work.
Rowena Daw is Vice-Chair of the Alliance. The post was created in July 2006 to support the work of the Alliance Chair and to act as a strategy lead when the Bill is published. As Head of Policy at Mind Rowena was Chair of the Alliance's policy group from 2001 - 2005. She is a lawyer and in a former life worked as an academic and in law reform in UK and overseas. She specialises in mental health, disability and human rights and currently works as a consultant for the Royal College of Psychiatry, the Disability Rights Commission and the British Institute of Human Rights.
Jane Harris is Campaigns Manager for Rethink severe mental illness and is Chair of the Campaigns Group. Jane leads on a number of Rethink’s campaigns, such as the forthcoming Mental Health Bill, Incapacity Benefit, cannabis and physical health. She sits on a Department of Health advisory group and several Deparment of Work and Pensions groups. Jane has seen mental health services from a number of perspectives, having a close relative with mental illness.
Tim Spencer-Lane is co-chair of the Mental Health Alliance Policy Group with Alison Cobb. He works as the Policy Adviser on mental health and disability law for the Law Society, which is the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales. Tim's remit at the Law Society includes the law relating to mental health, mental capacity, disability discrimination, community care, vulnerable adults and special educational needs. He is also an Associate Lecturer with the Open University where he teaches social care law.
Alison Cobb has worked at Mind for many years as an information and then policy officer. Current policy issues she is working on are treatments, treatment safeguards and employment rights and support. An important strand in the work on treatments is people's experiences of trying to come off psychiatric drugs and the information and support needed to assist people who choose to do so.
Fran Gorman is Co-Media Lead for the Alliance and Public Relations Manager at the Mental Health Foundation, a charity that promotes survival, recovery and prevention. Equipped with a PR degree from Bournemouth University, Fran worked for three years in the private sector before gladly moving to the Mental Health Foundation in 2004.
Liz Nightingale is Co-Media Lead for the Alliance. She was awarded a Scott Trust bursary to study post-graduate newspaper journalism at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston. Since then, she has worked in magazine journalism and started work with Rethink in 2002 as the charity's media officer. In April 2005, Liz was appointed as Rethink's Media Volunteers Manager, which involves putting journalists and the media in touch with mental health service users and carers.