Archives: People
Alison Morton OBE, CEO
Alison Morton joined the Institute as Director of Policy and Quality in 2019 to strengthen its work in Policy, delivering ‘Health Visiting in England: A Vision for the Future’ – iHV’s evidence-based blueprint to rebuild health visiting services. Alison transitioned to become Acting Executive Director in January 2021 and was appointed as the CEO in April 2021.
After training as a nurse at Guy’s Hospital in London, Alison worked for less than a year at the Evelina Children’s hospital before following her dream to become a health visitor. Following completion of the 3-year Community Nursing degree programme at King’s College London, she graduated with a combined qualification in health visiting and district nursing in 1993. These were formative years that lay the strong foundation that drives Alison to challenge inequalities and use the evidence to make the difference. Alison’s contribution to health visiting was recognised through her award as one of the first five Fellows of the iHV in 2014.
Alison has an extensive background in health visiting, having held senior roles across national policy, 0-19 public health operational delivery and quality improvement, alongside teaching and research. In her previous roles, Alison worked as a Professional Advisor for Health Visiting in the Chief Nursing Directorate at the Department of Health from 2014 and then as the Best Start in Life Programme Manager at Public Health England (PHE). At PHE, Alison managed several national programmes of work for children aged 0 – 5 years, including developing a cross-government partnership as part of the Social Mobility Action Plan to reduce inequalities in early language and leading the first PHE Taxpayer Best Value Review of the Family Nurse Partnership national unit.
Alison previously worked as the Head of Nursing in Southern Health NHS Foundation Trust and as an NIHR Clinical Academic at the University of Southampton. Her research was focused on implementation science in health visiting, and her quality and practice development roles centred on co-production and quality improvement methods. Alison is also an honorary lecturer at the Institute of Child Health at UCL and her work has been recognised through numerous national awards.
Alison’s overriding ambition throughout her career has always been to ensure that every child truly does have the best start in life.
Wendy Taman received her honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Health Visiting at the iHV’s sixth annual celebration event held in London on 4 December 2018. The award, in recognition of her continued support of both the Institute and the health visiting profession, marks the high esteem in which she is held by the Institute’s board.
Wendy is a practising health visitor who uses technology to spread good health visiting practice – and who is supporting the Institute’s presence on Twitter.
Dr Alain Gregoire received his honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Health Visiting at the iHV’s sixth annual celebration event held in London on 4 December 2018. The award, in recognition of his continued support of both the Institute and the health visiting profession, marks the high esteem in which he is held by the Institute’s board.
Alain, a Consultant Perinatal Psychiatrist and chair of the Maternal Mental Health Alliance, has worked with the Institute on its Perinatal Mental Health Champions project and much more widely has campaigned around and supported the critical role of the health visitor in recognising and supporting mothers with perinatal mental illness.
Professor Rosamund Bryar received her honorary Fellowship of the Institute of Health Visiting at the iHV’s sixth annual celebration event held in London on 4 December 2018. The award, in recognition of her continued support of both the Institute and the health visiting profession, marks the high esteem in which she is held by the Institute’s board.
Rosamund Bryar, one of the founding Trustees of the Institute, is Emeritus Professor of Community and Primary Care Nursing, City University London, and has been involved in service development, education, research and research capacity building in health visiting and primary health care since the mid-1980s. Ros was one of the “Gang of four” who set up the Institute.
Maggie is delighted to work with the iHV as the Expert Adviser on infant and child sleep.
Maggie Fisher started her SRN training at The London Hospital in 1974 and worked and qualified as a district nurse. Since then, she has worked as a health visitor/Specialist Community Public Health Nurse with 40 years’ experience working in different parts of London and the home counties, in a variety of generic and specialist roles. Her specialist areas of expertise are sleep, parenting, supporting couple relationships, and promoting perinatal and adult mental health. Sleep is an area that affects every aspect of physical and mental health, emotional wellbeing, parenting and relationships.
In the 1990s, Maggie set up and ran a successful sleep support service in Hampshire which ran for many years. Maggie then worked with Christine Bidmead to set up the Netmums parents sleep support information and support, and then Maggie did the same at Channel Mum. Since then, guiding and supporting exhausted parents to understand normal infant and child sleep patterns has been a lifelong passion. Maggie worked for many years as a Professional Development Officer at the Institute of Health Visiting. During this time Maggie became established as the ‘go to’ expert on infant and child sleep, with an increasing remit for sharing evidence-based practice with practitioners.
Maggie has also worked as an independent consultant and trainer working with a variety of national organisations and published various articles, a book and co-authored 2 other books and chapter in a book. Maggie is a also a Fellow of the iHV.
Maggie stepped back from her role at the iHV in 2023, but continues to work on a major international systematic review on infant sleep, working with researchers in the UK, Canada, and Australia. Maggie presented the emerging findings from this at the World Sleep Symposium in Rome, March 2022, and the iHV Evidence-based Practice Conference in September 2022. When the systematic review is completed and submitted for publication, the aim is to produce evidence-based guidance from the review for professionals and parents.
Dr Karen Whittaker, Senior Education & Workforce Lead
PhD, MSc, BN, PGCE, FiHV, FHEA
Karen is responsible for
- Supporting national policy development impacting on health visitor education and regulation
- Supporting the iHV Directors in the development and delivery of projects concerned with health visitor workforce planning and development
- Preparing briefings for enabling best use of the health visitor workforce, such as the iHV ABC of skill mix and the career framework for health visitors
- Collaborating with other professional bodies representing Public Health Nurses nationally and internationally to develop guidance and resources for practice learning.
- Facilitate health visitor practice educator networking, to share expertise and ideas for the benefit of all learners within practice settings.
Vicky Gilroy, Director of Innovation and Research
NMC Registered Children’s Nurse, Health Visitor, Educator, FiHV, qualified school nurse
Responsible for:
- Leading on developing and managing projects
- Lead on evaluation
- Professional engagement
- Representative on the Obesity Health Alliance
- Healthy Weight and Healthy Nutrition Champions trainer
- Perinatal and Infant Mental Health Champions training
- Leadership training
At the launch of the iHV, 28 November 2012, Professor Viv Bennett received one of two Honorary Foundation iHV Fellowships awarded that day.
The Honorary Foundation Fellowship of the iHV was awarded to acknowledge the support given to the Institute during its development by Professor Bennett and also to acknowledge Professor Bennett’s unprecedented leadership of government policy to reinvigorate the health visiting profession.
At the launch of the iHV, 28 November 2012, Professor Richard Parish received one of two Honorary Foundation iHV Fellowships awarded that day.
The Honorary Foundation Fellowship of the iHV was awarded to acknowledge the support given to the Institute during its development by Professor Parish and also to acknowledge Professor Parish’s lifetime contribution to Public Health.
