Rowan Foster Email & Phone Number

Within this role, I provide a lived experience perspective within the Surrey Heartlands Tier 4 Provider Collaborative Hub, working directly with young people in Tier 4 settings and when required, working with them prior to admission and post-discharge. My primary task, aside from providing my perspective from my own lived experience, is to collate data about patient experience within the beds we commission and use this to improve services both on a case-by-case basis and on a higher level. I have worked closely with NHSEI on tasks like the CETR/DSR work, in co-chairing NEbEN (National Expert by Experience Network), and assisted in the development of the QMF (Quality and Maturity Framework) for the Provider Collaboratives. I frequently present to local and regional board meetings, helping ground our service development with real-time information from our service users and what they want in their care, and have developed multiple resources and frameworks for patient engagement within my role. Much of this role was built from the ground up and thus I have had the pleasure of curating it to my strengths and to the identified needs of our service user population. We are also currently working on the rollout of Emerald Place, a CAMHS GAU co-delivered with Elysium within Surrey. I have been advising on a lived experience and coproduction lens throughout this project.I am also a member of the LEAG (Lived Experience Advisory Group), advising NHS England’s MHLDA Quality Programme.

I’ve spent years as part of participation groups for Surrey Youth Voice: when it was the RAP team, and also when it was the UVP team. I was part of CYA from about 2014 and joined ATLAS (known then as SYAS) in about 2016 when it was rolled out. I have also attended Care Council and the Care Leavers’ Forum from time to time. I sat on interview panels, worked with SABP in steering the direction of service development, helped faciliate the CYA awards for about 4 years, attending away days and preparing for this as needed, reviewed documentation and policies to provide a lived experience perspective, delivered training, and consulted on a huge variety of projects and workstreams while in this informal (often voluntary) role. I still do some of this work nowadays when I have capacity outside my current role.

Woking, England, United Kingdom

Within this role, I helped shape the way co-production and participation was conducted within SCC. I worked across three workstreams - CYA (for young people with experience of mental health services), ATLAS (for young people with additional needs and disabilities) and Care Council (for young people in care and care leavers). This included facilitating focus groups, creating reports and articles (https://surreyatlas.uk/2020/10/29/comorbid-mental-health-and-send-needs/), proofreading for others and conducting accessibility checks, consultation, presenting in webinars, delivering and developing training, and more! The impact I was most proud of in this role was encouraging an intersectional approach within the team and interlinking the different workstreams to consider young people (like myself) who have lived experience of multiple cohorts, and utilise their unique perspective effectively.

Gcse

As my basic qualification, I attained 8 A*-C GCSEs, attaining a 9 in English Language and a 7 in Maths. I also completed an ECDL.

Level 1

I am studying British Sign Language Level 1 with my local sign language school (taught by a Deaf tutor). This is both to build skills.

Education record

I am currently studying as a Priestess of Cerridwen in the Avalonian Tradition under Bee Helygen. I am currently undertaking the first.