Rachel Bannister – chair
Rachel co-founded Mental Health – Time for Action in 2017 following years of struggling to access appropriate mental health treatment for her then teenage daughter.
She is dedicated to ensuring mental health services move towards a compassionate, holistic and relational way of working and is currently completing a Post-Graduate Certificate in Peer-supported Open Dialogue, Social Network and Relationship Skills (POD). She strongly believes that the POD approach is the way forward for mental health services.
Rachel is also a strong advocate for a wider range of treatment approaches within the NHS Mental Health Services including access to therapies that work towards resolving past adverse experiences and trauma. This must include universal access to art, drama and somatic therapies, as well as trauma resolution therapies such as Eye Movement Reprocessing and Desensitisation (EMDR) and Parks Inner Child Therapy (PICT). Rachel has personally benefited from the both the therapeutic approaches PICT and EMDR which she believes have been instrumental in her recovery from benzodiazepine addiction.
You can read more about Rachel’s experience of addiction in her British Medical Journal (BMj) Opinion pieces here and here.
Rachel was the first Carer Representative on the Council of the Royal College of Psychiatrists (RCpsych) and also worked for 6 years as the Carer Representative on the RCpsych Trent Executive Committee. She is currently working as a carer rep. for the Quality Eating Disorders Network (QED) and a patient rep. on both the RCpsych General Adult Faculty and Addictions Faculty.
Rachel loves the natural world and spending time walking and listening to bird song. She believes in the restorative power of spending time in the natural world and is involved with the Green Walking Project.
She has recently started learning mindfulness as part of her POD training and also practises Transcendental Meditation (TM) and Yoga Nidra.
Rachel can also be found on X @lovebillybragg and LinkedIn
Tracy Lang – Ambassador
Tracy is trained in Peer Supported Open Dialogue (POD). She uses her lived experience of being a family member in driving change in Memtal Health Services to be compassionate & relational .
Tracy uses her teaching expertise in developing POD training in Devon having worked with one of ODDESSI and APOD research sites.
Tracy is keen to see Open Dialogue in schools and is currently exploring this nationally with the Chair Rachel Bannister and like minded Colleagues.
Caroline Aldridge – patron
‘If I could change one thing, it would be to increase kindness.’
Caroline is a social worker and independent trainer. She was a carer for her son, Tim, who had bipolar disorder and died in 2014. Her books, He Died Waiting: Learning the Lessons – a Bereaved Mother’s View of Mental Health Services (2020) and They Died Waiting: The Crisis in Mental Health Services – Stories of Loss and Stories of Hope (2023) which she co-edited with Emma Corlett, articulate the experiences of people with mental illness, their carers, and families. Caroline advocates for improved mental health services and support for bereaved relatives.
Caroline’s qualifications include a Social Work BA (First Class Hons), Advanced Social Work MA (distinction), a Diploma in Education and Training, and a Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy. She has over 30 years experience of working with children and families in a range of settings, and her lecturing experience includes social work, mental health and social care programmes.
Prof Russell Razzaque – patron
Prof Russell Razzaque is a Consultant Psychiatrist, Associate Medical Director, Clinical Director for Mental Health Transformation and Director of Research & Development at North East London NHS Foundation Trust (NELFT). He is also a mindfulness teacher and the Royal College of Psychiatrists Presidential lead for Compassionate and Relational care. Additionally, he is the Clinical & Strategic Director for the National Collaborating Centre for Mental Health.
Russell’s primary teaching and research interests are mindfulness, therapeutic
relationships and holistic models of care. He has published a range of papers in peer reviewed journals, written several books, implemented pilot teams in a range of NHS Trusts and he is currently clinical lead for a large NIHR funded, multi-centre randomised controlled trial, studying the implementation of a systemic, person-centred and holistic approach to mental healthcare in the NHS, known as Open Dialogue.
Dr Alex Serafimov – trustee
Alex co-founded Mental Health – Time for Action and holds a PhD in Politics from the University of Nottingham. He currently teaches on the University of Cambridge Foundation Year in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences.
His PhD combines insights from political theory with the history of psychiatry. He is particularly interested in how the relationship between reason and emotion has been conceptualised over time, and how these conceptualisations shape our understanding and treatment of mental distress.
He is passionate about social medicine and examining the social determinants of health.
In his spare time, Alex plays piano and composes music.
Naomi Rasmussen – trustee
Naomi is a postgraduate medical student at University College London and current UCL Psychiatry Society chair, to which she brings a background in the humanities. She is passionate about non-pathologising approaches to mental distress, and opening up spaces for trauma narratives, in the widest possible sense, to be heard.
Following a fortuitous encounter with co-founder Rachel Bannister, she has never looked back! Through her work with the Mental Health – Time for Action Foundation she hopes to be part of the systemic change sorely needed to ensure care and treatment is a co-created, compassionate endeavour, which embeds the individual’s story at its very heart.
Naomi is also a keen musician (cello, piano, singing) and dancer (ballet).
Dr Caroline Bald – trustee
Caroline is a registered social worker in criminal justice. She works as an academic at the University of Essex in Social Work and Social Justice, leading the MA in Social Work and Human Rights programme. Her research explores the problematisation of well-being and inclusive education.
Caroline’s anger at state-led discrimination and the stigmatising power of weaponised wellbeing narratives led her to find Mental Health – Time for Action after speaking (and swearing) at a Psychiatry Teaching Conference. Her goal is to effect change through educational reform from moralising “rites of passage” to a shared cross-caring professional critical pedagogy.
Caroline is a Glaswegian working-class feminist writer who loves nothing more than reading Tartan Noir on coffee breaks as she explores new spaces. Mum to two teachers, she’s happiest learning.
Mental Health - Time for Action Foundation 