Keynote Speaker and Judges
Keynote Speaker |
|
 |
Alastair Campbell |
| Alastair Campbell was Political Editor and Chief Political Columnist on both the Sunday Mirror and Daily Mirror before spending 10 years working with Tony Blair. He was instrumental in the creation of New Labour and played a central role in the party's three election victories. Undoubtedly the most high profile Chief Press Secretary and Director of Communications and Strategy to the Prime Minister in the history of British politics.
He has spoken publicly about his ‘humiliating 24 – carat crack up’, which happened in 1986 while working for the Today newspaper and which was made public when he started work for Tony Blair. |
|
Judges |
|
 |
Paul Abbott |
|
Screenwriter Paul Abbott has been writing drama for Radio and TV since 1982. He has won awards from the Royal Television Society, The Indies and the Broadcasting Press Guild. Additionally, the BAFTAs awarded Paul the Dennis Potter Award for Outstanding Writing Achievement in Television. He is best known for State of Play, Clocking Off and Shameless. Paul has spoken out about his own experience of mental distress in the media. |
|
 |
Tina Baker |
| Tina Baker is GMTV’s resident soap expert and won last year’s Celebrity Fit Club (ITV1) and went on to run this year’s marathon! She presents a weekly soap preview on Lorraine Kelly’s LK Today, plus special items for GMTV and The News Hour including outside broadcasts from soap sets and reports on The British Soap Awards where she is also one of the judges.
As a TV critic, Tina has contributed to many series and studio debates and is a regular pundit on series including Top Ten TV, 100 TV Treats, Big Brother, When Shoulder Pads Ruled The World, ITV1’s Soap Secrets, Sky 1’s Soap Stars Behaving Badly, ITV2's Emmerdale Specials plus UK Gold's Sex And The Sitcom weekend. |
|
 |
Patrick Butler |
| Patrick Butler is editor of SocietyGuardian. He was previously editor of SocietyGuardian.co.uk. Prior to joining the Guardian in 2000, he reported on social affairs for a range of national newspapers and professional magazines. | |
 |
Sian Davies |
| Sian Davies is NUS Officer for Students with Disabilities (SWD). She is responsible for raising awareness of issues affecting students with disabilities and also promotes the need for better provision for disabled students within the further and higher education sectors.
Sian was also awarded the Survivor Award in 2003 for her open and lucid account of her experiences featured in the Sky News report on the Department of Health's 'Read the Signs' campaign, which aimed to raise awareness of mental health problems among young people. |
|
 |
Donna Franceschild |
|
BAFTA winning writer Donna Franceschild won the Mental Health Media Award in 1995 for her drama serial Takin' Over the Asylum and again in 2001 for Donovan Quick. Her most recent drama was The Key which was broadcast on BBC 2 in September 2003. |
|
 |
Professor Roger Graef |
|
Born in NYC, he is now a dual national. He has directed plays, tv drama, and opera. His more than one hundred and twenty films as director or producer cover arts, current affairs, social issues, and comedies, including THE SECRET POLICEMAN’S BALL (with John Cleese), and the first COMIC RELIEF (with Richard Curtis). Roger was the first documentary filmmaker to be honoured with the BAFTA Fellowship last year, the Academy’s lifetime achievement award. His company, Films of Record, is celebrated its 25th year in 2004. Roger was awarded an OBE in 2006 for his services to broadcasting. |
|
 |
Catherine Jackson |
|
Catherine Jackson is editor of the magazine Mental Health Today, which is now in its fourth year. She was for many years a cartoonist but has for the past 15 years worked in magazine journalism, specialising in mental health and community care. She has also been a user of mental health services. |
|
 |
Antonia Jolly |
| Antonia was a member of the award winning Sunday Surgery phone-in show before becoming the social action campaigns producer at BBC Radio 1. Working closely with young people, she has developed a good understanding of the lifestyle issues affecting 14 and 25 year olds. Antonia has recently produced one of the most successful campaigns in the history of the station on anti-bullying alongside the Department of Education & Skills. The Beat The Bullies campaign kick started the now ubiquitous fad for charity wristbands in the UK. Antonia continues to produce diverse campaigns from exams to safer sex and is also a single mother to 12 year old Josh. | |
 |
Tim Lott |
| As well as journalism, Tim Lott has worked in publishing and broadcasting, and was editor of the London listings magazine City Limits. He won the Whitbread First Novel Award for White City Blue, his first work of fiction. His novel The Scent of Dried Roses, a moving account of his mother's depression and eventual suicide, addresses the stigma attached to mental illness and won the J. R. Ackerley Prize for autobiography. He is a writer with a marked sense of humanity and love, who is painfully aware of how easily the threads of one's life can unpick themselves. | |
 |
Shelley Jofre |
|
Shelley Jofre is a reporter with the BBC's flagship current affairs programme, Panorama. She has made several programmes on the treatment of mental health, including investigations into the increasing use of psychiatric drugs with children and the overprescription of benzodiazepine tranquillisers. Her three investigations into the controversy surrounding the antidepressant Seroxat have prompted a government review and changes in the way the drug is now prescribed. In 2003 two of the films were awarded an MHM Special Commendation for Public Impact. Shelley is based in Glasgow and has worked as a BBC journalist for 15 years. |
|
 |
Jenni Murray OBE |
|
Jenni Murray has been the regular presenter of Woman's Hour since 1987. She is the Author of Is It Me or is it Hot in Here? That's My Boy! and The Woman's Hour; a history of women since World War II. |
|
