Kathryn Pugh

Kathryn Pugh is a member of the Parent Carer Peer Support team. She is a parent with lived experience and has worked for almost 20 years to improve in children and young people’s mental health services, leading strategy development, programme implementation, and partnership working at local, regional and national levels.

She was Deputy Head of Mental Health in NHS England, leading the Children and Young People’s Mental Health Community Transformation Programme.   She was the programme lead for CYP IAPT and worked on the development, implementation and system wide assurance of Future in Mind, the Five Year Forward View for Mental Health, Transforming Children and Young People’s Mental Health – Green Paper   and the NHS Long Term Plan.   

She was previously a member of the National CAMHS Support Service and the National Mental Health Development Unit where she led the national implementation of the children and young people’s programme following the amendments to the Mental Health Act in 2007 and developed a national programme to improve transition services. These roles allowed her to deliver the changes she instigated as Head of Policy at YoungMinds, where she led the Stressed out and Struggling Project to improve services for 16–25-year-olds and the collaborative work of the Mental Health Coalition to secure amendments to the Mental Health Act 2007 regarding age-appropriate environments and consent.    

Before that, she worked in primary care, commissioning primary, secondary and specialist care in both acute and mental health for all ages following a successful career in advertising and direct marketing.    

She is deeply committed to ensuring children, young people, parents and carers  and professionals are all able to contribute to shaping services – whether NHS, VCSE or in Children’s services. In 2015 she was awarded an MBE for services to children and young people’s mental health.