CEO and Founder
OLIVIA OKONKWO
The impetus for the service is grounded upon praxis drawing from both theory and practice to think about how best to support everyone. As someone who is mixed ethnicity and grew up in various environments where I faced several predicaments, I eventually undertook a reflection on my experiences.
I became aware for example that the people around me had assisted me with my emotional growth and from this reflection I began to see how other young people can also be assisted to embark on a similar trajectory: although no two journeys are ever the same. In thinking about how best to support young people I can see that working through early trauma and building a positive sense of the future are essential.
LIFE Vision
Meet the PIE Lead Consultant
DR DEAN WHITTINGTON
Dr Dean Whittington previously worked for 16 years as a psychotherapist within the addictions/self-medication field, initially based in Deptford SE London, and then latterly working across South London. In the process he devised the first BAME, Women and Men’s therapeutic drug services along with support for young people at school. This therapeutic work unearthed issues relating to trauma in childhood during the 1990’s, dynamics that later shaped adolescence and adulthood often hidden from mainstream services. Therapeutic insight became a way of understanding the young people’s behaviour as opposed to imposing labels, idealisations and projections upon them. In the therapeutic work undertaken with the homeless from 2006-2011, underlying traumatic issues were unearthed.
This discovery provided the basis for the launch of psychologically informed environments, later used by the Dept of Communities and Local Government in a more truncated form. The basis of LIFE is a return to the more expansive holistic and phenomenological foundations of PIE; erased within the current ideations. This expansiveness is highlighted here:
MY PROMISE TO YOU
Meet the Clinical Manager
JAY MORALLY