Becky Byrne
Website coordinator
Becky is an independent specialist speech and language therapist based in Surrey who is passionate about supporting children, young people and adults to unlock their fullest potential. Within her private practice she supports children, young people and adults who stammer as well as a range of other communication difficulties. She has a person centred approach to stammering and has a particular interest in psychological approaches and mindset tools to support resilience and wellbeing for people who stammer. Prior to working independently, she led the South East Surrey NHS stammering service. She is passionate about supporting the CEN to make a real difference to people who stammer and the therapists supporting them.
Ali Berquez
Chair of the committee
Ali Berquez is Clinical Lead at the Michael Palin Centre. She has a post graduate diploma in CBT from the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre and a BRIEF certificate in Solution Focused Brief Therapy and is a registered European Fluency Specialist. Ali became chair of the CEN in July 2022 after a three year term as one of the CEN's three study day coordinators. Ali sees her involvement in NAT CEN as an opportunity to support generalists and specialists across the UK to feel more knowledgeable and confident about their practice with children and young people who stammer or clutter and their parents, as well as adults who stammer/clutter.
The CEN is organised and run by a group of volunteer Speech and Language Therapists who have been nominated by the members to contribute to a variety of roles.
Places on the committee are filled for a term of 3 years. Committee vacancies are announced via email and in CEN meetings but if you are interested in taking part please contact us here.
The CEN is organised and run by a group of volunteer Speech and Language Therapists who have been nominated by the members to contribute to a variety of roles. Places on the committee are filled for a term of 3 years. Committee vacancies are announced via email and in CEN meetings but if you are interested in taking part please contact us here.
The CEN is organised and run by a group of volunteer Speech and Language Therapists who have been nominated by the members to contribute to a variety of roles. Places on the committee are filled for a term of 3 years. Committee vacancies are announced via email and in CEN meetings but if you are interested in taking part please contact us here.
Ali Berquez
Chair of the committee
Ali Berquez is Clinical Lead at the Michael Palin Centre. She has a post graduate diploma in CBT from the Oxford Cognitive Therapy Centre and a BRIEF certificate in Solution Focused Brief Therapy and is a registered European Fluency Specialist. Ali became chair of the CEN in July 2022 after a three year term as one of the CEN's three study day coordinators. Ali sees her involvement in NAT CEN as an opportunity to support generalists and specialists across the UK to feel more knowledgeable and confident about their practice with children and young people who stammer or clutter and their parents, as well as adults who stammer/clutter.
Becky Byrne
Communications Secretary
Becky is an independent specialist speech and language therapist who is passionate about supporting children, young people and adults to unlock their fullest potential. Prior to working independently, she led the South East Surrey NHS stammering service. She is the newest CEN committee member and looks forward to being part of a CEN making a real difference to people who stammer and the therapists supporting them.
The CEN is organised and run by a group of volunteer Speech and Language Therapists who have been nominated by the members to contribute to a variety of roles. Places on the committee are filled for a term of 3 years. Committee vacancies are announced via email and in CEN meetings but if you are interested in taking part please contact us here.
Want to find out more about how the CEN is run?
The Committee follows an agreed list of responsibilities and aims to ensure we meet the expectations of all our members. To read this constitution, please click here.
Kate Clements
Editor of SIGNAL magazine
Kate joined the CEN in August 2023 to take over the role of producing and publishing the CEN Newsletter (SIGNAL.)
Alison Nicholas
Study Day Coordinator
Alison qualified as a speech and language therapist in 1991. For most of her career, she worked at the Michael Palin Centre for Stammering, where she had a clinical and a training role and was involved in the Centre’s research programme. For the last five years, she has been working independently in South Wales with clients who stammer across the age range, and she also provides supervision to other therapists working within this field. She is an Associate Tutor at Cardiff Metropolitan University where she teaches the Stammering module on the undergraduate course. She is a Registered European Fluency Specialist and has a Certificate in Solution Focused Brief Therapy.
Daisy Hope
Communications Secretary
Daisy initially worked across early years and mainstream schools in Hackney. She has worked at the Michael Palin Centre since 2016, and particularly enjoys working with families. She recently completed a foundation course in Systemic Practice which has further developed her interest in how wider environmental and cultural influences interact with an individual’s experience of stammering. She hopes that by contributing to the CEN she can help therapists continue to access a broad range of perspectives on stammering, and ways of approaching therapy, which she has found so beneficial since starting to specialise in stammering.
Simon Henderson
Treasurer
Simon qualified as a Speech and Language Therapist in 2005 and works as a highly specialist clinician in stammering (children and young people) with Northumbria Healthcare NHS Foundation Trust. Clinically, Simon is interested in the social psychology of childhood communication difficulties as well as counselling skills for SLT’s. Simon has also developed competency frameworks to support the professional development of clinicians for dysfluency practice and he has presented this work at various RCSLT conferences and the 2021 Oxford Dysfluency Conference. Simon joined the National CEN Committee as Treasurer in February 2022.
Jennifer Ryder
Minutes Secretary
Jen has worked in Rotherham since 2007, apart from a 2 year career break when she worked in NZ. She loves her mixed adult caseload which constantly keeps her on her toes by including acute and progressive neurological conditions, DLD, functional neurological symptoms, autism, reflux and more! She has been in sole charge of the stammering caseload in Rotherham for most of the time she has worked in Rotherham so has always valued the CEN for the peer support and CPD opportunities which it offers.
Nicola Maddy
Study Day Coordinator
Nic has supported children and young people who stammer since 2003. She works as a Therapist in South West Yorkshire NHS Trust and has recently also started working with adults who stammer. She is passionate about creating a world which better understands and makes space for stammering and feels that the learning within our profession plays a key role within this, along with working alongside the stammering community. She is excited and hopeful that the study days will support therapists working with people who stammer in the development of their knowledge, skills and clinical practice, and inspire a love of working with people who stammer/clutter.
Kerith McNally
Social Media Coordinator
Kerith is a Speech and Language Therapist who works for Southern Health & Social Care Trust in Northern Ireland. She is passionate about supporting children and young people who stammer and working with their families. She enjoys working across a varied caseload with children who stammer and clutter, and with children who have DLD and SSD. Kerith is excited to be part of the team who work together to offer further professional development and support for SLTs also working in this clinical area.