Speakers & Contributors

Darren McGarvey is a Scottish author, columnist, broadcaster, and rapper (Loki) known for insightful commentary on social issues, poverty, and inequality. His acclaimed debut, Poverty Safari (2017), won the 2018 Orwell Prize. A former rapper-in-residence for Police Scotland’s Violence Reduction Unit, he explores trauma, addiction, and social class and uses his experience to advocate for a deeper understanding of social deprivation, often focusing on the trauma roots of societal challenges.

Satinder Panesar is an Integrative Psychotherapist with over 25 years of experience working across the third sector, NHS Greater Glasgow & Clyde, education, and private practice, both nationally and internationally. She holds an MA in Integrative Counselling from the University of Derby and is an accredited member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) and the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society (NCPS).
Satinder is also an Individual and Group Clinical Supervisor (University of Strathclyde), Clinical Consultant, and Executive Coach. Her clinical work spans face-to-face and remote practice with young people and adults across the UK, Europe, and internationally.

Her particular areas of interest include trauma informed practice, tradition and culture, and intersectionality. She has extensive experience supporting professionals and organisations through clinical supervision, reflective practice, coaching, and consultancy, including work with NHS professionals across multiple departments, educational settings, emergency services, Sexual Assault Referral Centres (SARCs), homelessness and refuge services, addiction services, and migrant mothers. She also works closely with senior leaders, including CEOs and directors, supporting leadership wellbeing and organisational resilience.

Satinder provides organisational consultancy, offering clinical insight to strengthen psychologically informed cultures, reflective practice, and safety within teams

Prof Peter Rober is, first and foremost, a therapist, working with families. Furthermore he is a professor in Clinical Psychology at the Institute for Family and Sexuality Studies, Faculty of Medicine, University of Leuven, Belgium. He is also responsible for for Context – Center of Marital and Family Therapy at UPC KU Leuven.​

Prof Rober's primary research interests focus is on the family therapeutic process. In particular he is interested in the therapist's inner dialogue and in silences in families.

Professor Liz Forbat is a research psychologist and family therapist. Her research and clinical practice focus on how families and relationships are impacted when someone gets ill, for example with cancer or other life-limiting and life-threatening conditions.

Professor Forbat's research projects centralise patient/carer involvement, to ensure that the work she does is always grounded in their priorities.

Professor Forbat also supervises doctoral students on topics such as family and professional relationships in palliative care, prostate cancer service development.

Dr Sami Timimi is a retired Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, psychotherapist and author. He qualified as a doctor from Dundee University in 1988 and became a Member of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists in 1992, becoming a Fellow of the college in 2012. He has many innovation awards and led multiple service developments including being the consultant for the child and adolescent team of the year at the 2023 annual Royal College of Psychiatrists awards.

He regularly presents as keynote speaker at national and international conferences and has many interviews with press, media and podcasts. He is an author who writes from a critical psychiatry perspective on topics relating to mental health and has published over a hundred and fifty articles and tens of chapters on many subjects including childhood, psychotherapy, behavioural problems, and cross-cultural psychiatry. He’s authored 7 books, co-edited 4 books, and co-authored 2 others. His latest book, first published in 2025 is Searching for Normal A New Approach to Understanding Distress and Neurodiversity.

‘S ann à Leòdhas a tha Pàdraig MacAoidh, agus chaidh dà leabhar bàrdachd leis fhoillseachadh le Acair – Gu Leòr (2015) agus Nàdur De (2020) – agus pamflaid le Clutag Press, From another island (2010). ’S e àrd-ollamh aig Oilthigh Chill Rìmhinn a th’ann agus ann an 2024 chaidh ainmeachadh Makar na h-Alba.

Peter Mackay is a poet, broadcaster, translator and lecturer. He has two collections of poetry with Acair – Galore (2015) and Some Kind of (2020) – and a pamphlet, From another island (2010), with Clutag Press. Originally from the Isle of Lewis, he lives in Edinburgh and is a Professor in the School of English at the University of St Andrews. In 2024 he was appointed Scottish Makar.

Rabbi Charley Baginsky is the UK’s most senior female rabbi. She is Co-Lead of The Movement for Progressive Judaism, Britain’s largest Jewish movement by number of communities. Her work includes exploring identity, belonging, interfaith relationships and how communities navigate difference and polarisation.. She is a regular contributor to Thought for the Day on BBC Radio 4 and a signatory to the Drumlanrig Muslim-Jewish Reconciliation Accords.

Dr Ramón Karamat Ali works as the Research Lead on the Master’s programme in Family & Systemic Psychotherapy in Manchester and is a senior lecturer at the Tavistock Centre where he offers research supervision to systemic students and is a tutor on the Family and Systemic Psychotherapy Supervision course. With a Dutch colleague he teaches on their Transcultural systemic supervision course in the Netherlands.

Ramón’s interests started with issues of identity in mixed-race individuals, as well as bilingualism. He did his doctoral research (2013) on adolescent self-harm and triadic attachment processes in families. He continues to be interested in issues of cultural competency in practice and reflective processes in the realm of teaching and training. His most recent pursuit is the area of mandated therapy for trainee family therapists, termed Personal Learning Therapy (Karamat Ali & Taylor, in press). He hopes that some of his supervision and teaching on research makes it "less scary" and enthuses students and therapists to engage with and integrate research more intentionally into their thinking and various systemic practices.

Dr Ged Smith is a Family & Systemic Psychotherapist with 30 years’ experience; He works as Consultant Systemic Psychotherapist now in private practice, Supervisor and Trainer roles. He is a visiting Lecturer at The Tavistock Clinic in London, as well as to Universities of Liverpool, Hull, Manchester, Lancaster and other educational institutes abroad including staff member at Malta Institute of Family Therapy. He publishes and presents his work all over the world, and has been Editor of Context, the UK magazine for Family Therapy and Systemic practice for several years, and AFSP rep with the European Family Therapy Association. Ged is based in his hometown of Liverpool.

Dr Rachel Abedi is a Child and Adolescent Psychotherapist with a background in CAMHS, schools and the third sector. She has taught on various post-graduate courses at the Tavistock & Portman, and is a doctoral research supervisor. The focus of Rachel's research and practice is how intersectional aspects of identity - particularly faith - affect mental healthcare for children. The significance of faith identity is rarely fully considered in mainstream trainings and practice, despite the consequences of ignoring or making assumptions about faith when working with families. This has a particular impact on Muslim families, mainly due to socio-political attitudes towards Muslims, racism, poverty and stigma, which combine to create a sense that therapy is ‘not for us’.

In 2022, Rachel began piloting free, collaborative, community-based child psychotherapy services for children and young people of Muslim heritage background aged 2 - 25, hoping to build trust in communities and offer accessible, effective treatment. She went on to found The Reflection Project, a charity developing this work across London and beyond. TRP’s 14-strong multidisciplinary team currently delivers services including therapy, parent work, workshops and training for child mental health professionals.

Rachel regularly contributes to conferences, publications and research to discuss the TRP model and the need to consider faith identity in mainstream trainings and service delivery.

Shakira Nkanang is a Systemic Psychotherapist, tutor, and Foundation Lead for the Birmingham Systemic Programme. For over 20 years, Shakira has worked closely with different families, including those fostering and edge-of-care clients within NHS and social care settings, navigating complex and challenging relational dynamics. Currently, she manages a diverse private practice and delivers relational training to schools. She also serves as an AFSP representative for the UKCP College of Family, Couple and Systemic Psychotherapy (CFCSP). Shakira is deeply passionate about culturally informed practices and has been inspired by her experiences in fostering work where she then developed the SENSES Paradigm. This framework supports the integration of dialogical reflexivity and practice, bringing embodied, compassionate curiosity into systemic spaces. SENSES is a model recently published in the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Family Therapy, 47(1).