Trevor’s career has been spent teaching in schools and working as a publisher and trainer for educational publishers, and he is now self-employed. His daughter Tobi took her own life in December 2020 whilst in the care of the Norfolk and Suffolk NHS Foundation Trust:
“When Tobi was at home with us during the pandemic, from March to September 2020, she gave no clue that she was struggling with her mental health. When she was back at university in Norwich on her own, her mental health deteriorated rapidly and before she died she took several overdoses, about which we were kept in the dark. The serious incident report into her death concluded that ‘Tobi’s death is more likely than not to have resulted from problems in care delivery and service provision of the Trust.’”.
It is clear that there are many lessons to be learned from Tobi’s death. Trevor’s focus since Tobi’s death has been to tell her (and her parents’) story so that the importance of including families in the treatment of young people with mental health problems is recognised and valued as a potentially life-saving resource.