Support that
truly cares.

Sebastian Quinn

Sebastian briefly experienced foster care as a child, giving him a lasting, personal understanding of what it feels like when everything familiar is suddenly taken away. That early experience sits quietly behind much of his work today.

Professionally, Sebastian has spent over 25 years designing learning for some of the UK's largest organisations. His work has always focused on making complex ideas accessible, practical, and usable in real life, especially for people under pressure.

Alongside his husband, Patrick, Sebastian later became a foster parent, caring for children with complex needs and experiences of trauma. It was through fostering that his professional and personal worlds fully collided. He saw first-hand how often carers are offered training that looks good on paper but does little to help at 7pm on a difficult evening.

Sebastian created the Pink Pearl Parent Academy to bridge that gap. His focus is on practical, trauma-informed support that respects how demanding caring roles can be. Learning that feels human, relevant, and grounded in lived experience, rather than abstract theory or tick-box compliance.

At the heart of Sebastian's work is a belief that when carers feel supported, understood, and confident, children feel safer, more connected, and better able to heal and thrive.

Patrick Quinn

Patrick came to fostering after a successful career in the service industry and meaningful work with the charity United Response, where he co-developed a work experience and development programme supporting neurodivergent people into employment.

Through this work, Patrick saw first-hand how the right support, offered with empathy and flexibility, can be genuinely life changing. This understanding shaped his decision to become a foster carer and continues to inform his approach to care.

Patrick brings a calm, thoughtful, and adaptable presence to fostering. Diagnosed with ADHD later in life, he has a strong personal insight into neurodiversity and the ways behaviour is often misunderstood. He believes that children's behaviour is communication and that understanding must come before judgement.

Within the Pink Pearl Parent Academy, Patrick helps ensure everything remains practical, human, and grounded in real-life caring, blending therapeutic approaches with everyday strategies that support carers and children alike.

Alison Kindred Byrne

Alison is an experienced social worker and therapeutic services leader with more than thirty years working alongside children, young people, and the families who care for them. Throughout her career, spanning therapeutic residential care and fostering services, she has championed relationship based, trauma informed approaches that truly centre the needs and lived experiences of young people in the care system and those that care or work with them.

As one of the co founders of To The Moon and Back Foster Care, an award winning therapeutic fostering service, Alison leads both the day to day running of the organisation and its long term strategic direction. Her work is grounded in the belief that when carers and the team within the service, are well supported, children feel safer, more connected, and more able to thrive.

Alison also brings her personal experience of living with ADHD, which she first recognised in her early twenties while entering the social work profession and was formally diagnosed as an adult. She is passionate about embracing the creativity, energy, and perspective that ADHD brings, while using practical systems and supportive structures to minimise the challenges it can create. This combination of professional expertise and lived experience shapes her compassionate, empowering approach to working with carers, families, young people and the team around them.

At the heart of Alison's work is a simple belief: when you understand the story behind the behaviour, you can meet children, and the adults who support them, with greater empathy, confidence, and hope. This also relies on being given relatable access to good knowledge, research and models that develops practice.

Dan Boxall-Simpson

Dan and his husband foster for a Southwest Local Authority and have been fostering for over 8 years. They are also Special Guardians to two siblings they previously fostered. Dan's fostering experience gave him opportunities in Independent Fostering Panel work which opens his eyes to the varied different ways that services work in across the country.

As part of Dan's Panel work, he realised that there was a significant gap in the Southwest where Foster Parents and others who are supporting vulnerable children just weren't always being adequately supported. This fuelled a fire in his belly and in 2024 Dan founded a not-for-profit Community Interest Company that aims to help close that gap. The venture expanded into launching its own Independent Fostering service in October 2025.

Dan has a growing passion for use of language, after all we talk about therapeutic approaches benefitting children, though Dan is a firm believer that some of these approaches particularly around language also benefit us as adults.

Dan is also a Chair of Governors for a trust school as well as being involved in other voluntary roles that are around supporting vulnerable young people in the Southwest.

Dan is a huge supporter of what The Pink Pearl Academy is doing, it brings a modern day perspective on Fostering Training & Support, and Dan is exceptionally passionate about people who do foster (like Sebastian and his husband) in the modern day, being the driving force behind such services.

Katie Pullin

Katie is a Fostering Team Manager at Herefordshire Council, leading the Fostering Recruitment and Assessment Team with a clear vision for improving support for foster carers and outcomes for children. This is reflected in the team winning the West Midlands Team of Excellence Award in 2025, recognising their innovative and impactful practice.

A qualified social worker for 11 years, Katie brings experience from across children's services. Her professional background spans safeguarding work with children and families, specialist roles within fostering, and earlier experience in residential care supporting teenagers. This breadth of practice has shaped her understanding of the challenges faced by children and young people, and those who support them.

Katie is trained in Dyadic Developmental Psychotherapy (DDP), an approach that underpins her relationship centred and trauma informed practice. She is also a qualified Social Work Practice Educator, committed to developing high-quality social work practice and supporting the next generation of social workers.

Katie also brings personal insight as the parent of a neurodiverse child, which deepens her commitment to inclusive, empathetic, supportive and responsive services for children, families and carers.

Katie is dedicated to ensuring that fostering services offer the best support to foster carers, helping to create safe, stable, and nurturing environments where children can thrive.

Dr Jocasta Webb

Jocasta is a qualified and experienced trauma specialist psychotherapist and has spent much of her career working with children, young people and adults who have experienced trauma. She has been part of the therapy team at Assist Trauma Care, a charity providing high quality trauma psychotherapy nationally, for nearly 15 years.

She is also the Clinical Lead for To The Moon and Back Foster Care, where she provides a reflective space to both the Supporting Social Workers and Foster Carers, is also infuses the team with her therapeutic knowledge and expertise. In addition, Jocasta is a Certified Mindfulness Teacher, and runs tailored wellbeing workshops to all age groups. She has worked in schools, residential homes, family centres and private practice, both face to face and virtually.

Jocasta is passionate about helping to improve people's day-to-day emotional experiences by offering a mindful space to enable a 'slowing down' from relentless internal chatter, and started her own company - 'Headroom' - to this endeavour: to 'make room for your head'. (www.roomforyourhead.co.uk)

Jocasta believes that it is fundamental to develop positive habits of mind such as mindfulness in children and young people, to aid them in their navigation of the world and to become happier and more self-aware and fulfilled adults.

She feels strongly that the current generation of children are finding it particularly difficult to navigate the transition between childhood and adulthood, with the lingering impact of lockdown, the pressure and warped perception of reality offered by social media, and the growing anxiety around the global climate.

To this end, she has just published the first book in a series, titled 'The Four Faces of Love', which seeks to entice children to go on a journey of self-discovery and enlightenment, and to stimulate the development of empathy, resilience, ethics, kindness and gratitude.

Rosie Woolgar

Rosie is an Independent Fostering Panel Member across multiple Independent Fostering Agencies and Local Authorities, bringing both frontline and governance experience to her work. Her background spans youth work, CAMHS, and residential children's services, with a particular specialism in LGBTQ+ young people and identity-informed practice.

She has led dedicated services for young people exploring sexuality and gender and delivers training to professionals on inclusion, safeguarding and trauma-informed care. Rosie is especially interested in the intersection between identity, attachment and belonging for care-experienced young people.

Alongside her social care work, Rosie is a qualified Personal Trainer and children's coach with a strong focus on nutrition and the link between movement and mental health. She believes that healthy habits and physical confidence are key foundations for resilience and wellbeing.

With lived experience of social care within her own family network, Rosie brings empathy, transparency and a strong child-centred lens to everything she does. She is passionate about providing practical, evidence-based support that feels useful in real-world moments.

Sarah Martindale

Sarah brings 17 years of experience in fostering, with a particular focus on the recruitment and assessment of mainstream and kinship foster carers. As Team Manager for the Assessment and Recruitment Team at Hull Fostering, she leads on supporting prospective carers through the early stages of their journey, helping families feel prepared for the realities of welcoming children into their homes.

With a background in youth and community work, Sarah's practice is grounded in building relationships, understanding family dynamics, and creating space for honest reflection. She has a strong interest in the experiences of birth children within fostering households and is passionate about supporting the whole family system to feel confident, connected, and emotionally prepared.

Alongside her professional role, Sarah is developing creative, therapeutic resources focused on supporting the children of foster carers, a group whose experiences are often less visible within fostering. Her work aims to create space for these children to explore their thoughts, feelings, and experiences, helping them to feel seen, understood, and emotionally prepared as part of the fostering journey. She is particularly interested in how supporting the whole family can strengthen relationships, build resilience, and create more stable and positive fostering experiences for everyone involved.

As a parent of two neurodiverse teenagers, Sarah also brings personal insight into the strengths and challenges of family life, which further informs her compassionate and practical approach.

At the heart of Sarah's work is a belief that when carers and their families feel understood, supported, and emotionally equipped, they are better able to provide the stability and care that children need to thrive.

Dr Amanda Stephenson

Dr Amanda Stephenson worked for 20 years as a university lecturer at the Arts University Bournemouth teaching contextual studies to degree students on a variety of courses.

In all her teaching her focus was on identity and representation, and on the wellbeing of the students who had diverse learning needs.

In 2025, Amanda gave up her lecturing position to become a foster parent and is currently working on creating filmmaking workshops for children and young people. She has two teenagers of her own, and two dogs, and lives in Bournemouth.

Rose Lord

Rose brings a strong understanding of neurodiversity to the Academy, alongside high-profile experience in learning and development.

As the founder of My Best Mood, and a Women in Tech Awards Finalist, she combines lived experience as a neurodiverse mum of two with positive psychology and trauma-aware learning design.

Her contribution will help ensure our content continues to be emotionally intelligent, practical, and genuinely supportive for children and the adults around them.

Samantha Wilkinson

Samantha is a psychotherapist and ADHD coach who provides guidance and support to children of all ages, teenagers, and adults.

As a person-centred integrative therapist, she works flexibly with each client, drawing on a range of therapeutic approaches to ensure support is personalised and responsive to individual needs.

She is particularly passionate about ADHD coaching. Her work includes supporting individuals through diagnosis, working alongside families, and offering ongoing guidance to help people better understand themselves and thrive.

Samantha has over 25 years' experience working with children and families in a variety of roles, including psychotherapy, work within day nurseries, and as a child minder.