Our People

The TRB team brings together skilled clinicians, researchers, and policy leaders dedicated to raising standards in trauma care. With expertise across health, justice, education, and social care, we combine lived experience with professional practice to deliver evidence-based, trauma-focused reform. Our shared commitment is simple: to protect the public and create systems where recovery and dignity are possible for every individual.

Where Insight Meets Oversight

The Trauma Regulation Board (TRB) is an independent UK regulatory body established to set and uphold national standards for trauma-specialist practice across multiple sectors. Our purpose is to bring cohesion, safety, and accountability to a field that has long operated without consistent oversight, despite trauma being one of the most significant public health issues of our time.

TRB exists to address a systemic failure: while trauma is implicated in outcomes across mental health, safeguarding, criminal justice, and education, there is no statutory body regulating how trauma care is delivered. We are changing that.

Our approach is grounded in a neuroscience-informed, tri-phasic model of trauma recovery, and built on a competency-based, interdisciplinary framework. TRB will regulate trauma practice across health, mental health, education, social care, domestic abuse, and criminal justice—ensuring services are not only trauma-informed, but clinically safe, legally defensible, and ethically sound.

We are currently undergoing review for Professional Standards Authority (PSA) accreditation and preparing for phased national implementation. Our higher education programmes will be externally quality-assured and credit-rated by the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA), forming part of an integrated pathway from training to professional registration.

The Board Behind the Mission

TRB is shaped and guided by a multi-disciplinary Advisory Board of leading figures in psychiatry, neuroscience, forensic psychology, social work, education, cyber governance, and survivor advocacy. This board is not symbolic - it is strategic. It ensures that regulation is not created in isolation but is rooted in frontline realities, informed by clinical precision, and ready for system-wide impact.

Every Advisory Board member plays a critical role in aligning the regulatory framework with real-world practice - so that what we build is not only visionary, but viable..

Meet the Advisory Board

Rachel Fairhurst

CEO & Founder

Rachel Fairhurst is a specialised trauma practitioner, educator, and reform strategist with over a decade of experience in trauma-focused intervention and systemic transformation. As CEO of the Trauma Regulation Board, currently under Professional Standards Authority (PSA) review, Rachel is leading the creation of the UK’s first regulatory body dedicated to trauma-specific practice, accreditation, and governance.

  • PHD Mental Health & Criminology Cardiff Met,(current)

  • MSc in Clinical Psychiatry, University of South Wales

  • PG Dip Traumatology

  • Author

Tom Hawkins

Director of Trauma Regulated Social Work at the TRB

Tom is the director for integrating Trauma focused practice into the discipline of Social work in the UK. Tom Hawkins serves as TRB’s Director of Trauma Regulated Social Work, bringing deep experience in trauma-focused practice and kinship care. His work stands for dignity, reform, and the kind of social work that protects emotional truth and rebuilds trust where systems have failed.

  • BSc Law degree , University of Wolverhampton

  • MSc in Social Work at Birmingham University

  • Co-Author to Trauma focused social work

  • Inside Kinship care

Chukumeka Maxwell

Chukumeka (Chukes) is a registered community social worker and founder of Action to Prevent Suicide CIC, with over two decades of experience across statutory and voluntary sectors. Born in London to African-Caribbean parents and returning as a child refugee from the Biafran civil war, he brings lived experience to his leadership in suicide prevention, equality, and community development. His career spans hospitality, NHS leadership, and grassroots reform, integrating Cultural Capability, compassion, and courageous conversation to foster safety, healing, and systemic change.

  • BSc (Hons) Social Work

  • Postgraduate Study in Public Mental Health, Warwick University

  • NHS Leadership & Community Development

  • Specialist in Cultural Capability & Suicide Prevention

Mark Hamilton Taylor

Mark Hamilton Taylor brings a strong voice for social justice to TRB. Through his work with the Social Impact Academy and Social Justice Hub, he helps shape conversations around trauma-informed practice and ethical reform.

  • Founder of the Social impact academy

  • CEO of the Social Justice Hub

  • Advocates for ethical reform and trauma-informed systems

  • Shapes national conversations on justice, equity, and lived experience

Marilyn Hawes

CEO of Freedom from Abuse, The UK's leading public advocate for preventing child abuse, addressing the challenges of child abuse in a quick effective manner and in so doing limits the impact of abuse. Marilyn Hawes, founder of Freedom from Abuse, stands with TRB through her outspoken advocacy and lived experience - she challenges silence around child abuse and fights for prevention, education, and justice with unflinching clarity.

  • CEO of Freedom from Abuse

  • Speaks publicly on trauma, justice, and reform

  • National advocate for child protection

  • Delivers safeguarding training across sectors

Meet the Team

Samantha Miller

Accreditation & Development Manager

Governance Lead

Samantha leads TRB’s accreditation process, reviewing applications, assigning tiers, and ensuring that trauma-specialist practitioners meet the standards needed for safe, ethical practice.

  • Honours in Psychology & Sociology

  • Governance Co-ordinator

  • Experienced Compliance Officer

  • Worked in a Clinical Young Adults Psychiatric Unit

Emma Nicholas

Youth Service Lead

Emma oversees responsibility for safeguarding the integrity of trauma-informed standards across youth-facing services. Emma Nicholas supports TRB by making sure youth services stay trauma-informed and consistent. She brings real frontline experience and keeps the focus on what young people actually need.

  • Youth Services

  • Holds qualifications in Youth Safeguarding and Trauma-Informed Practice

  • Delivered frontline crisis care across NHS and sexual violence services

  • Was a Team Leader for ISVA in Devon & Cornwall

Sarah Mayo

Administration

Sarah manages TRB’s practitioner register and supports course coordination through precise administrative stewardship

  • Register Manager

  • Administration

  • Course Co-Ordinator

Kate Kaute

Cybersecurity & Infrastructure Lead

Kate leads TRB’s cybersecurity and information systems, protecting the organisation’s digital infrastructure, safeguarding sensitive data, and ensuring that trauma-informed work is carried out in a secure and trusted environment.

  • Oversees TRB IT infrastructure, Software Management, and Information Security

  • CertNexus CyberSAFE Certified

  • CISMP

  • Provides Technical Support across systems, safeguarding functionality and user access

Why It Matters

Our advisors don’t just advise - they co-create the future of trauma regulation. With their leadership, we stay bold, accountable, and ahead of emerging needs across clinical, justice, education, private & public sectors.

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