The Synthesise Team
The team comprises Judy Benson, Elizabeth Clarke, Moira Cunningham and John Shiers. Between us we have a variety of experience in the private, public, voluntary and community sectors. Our purpose in setting up Synthesise is to develop an organisation that will promote transpersonal values for personal, community and organisational development and to support models of social change that recognise the interconnectedness of all life.
It has been important for us to establish Synthesise as a co-operative social enterprise to reflect the principles behind our vision.
Judy Benson
Judy’s professional background has been in the public sector particularly within the field of children and young people and local government. In 1992 she moved into consultancy when along with Elizabeth Andrew, she founded the Phoenix Group, www.phoenixgroup.co.uk, a consortium of self employed consultants specialising in working with senior managers, partnerships and executive leaders of Children’s Services in Education, Social Care and Health Organisations.
Judy is currently not working due to illness and has taken time to reflect on the impact that a driven lifestyle can have on health. Awareness of the importance of a deeper quality of life and a more balanced lifestyle has motivated her commitment to developing Synthesise.
Judy’s experiences have given her empathy for people suffering burn out and for those working to provide services with a heart to people and communities in need. She has a new awareness and understanding of the enormous challenges that can come with illness and with ageing. As her energy returns she hopes to develop opportunities for people with life limiting illnesses and to promote programmes of professional development for those working within this field.
Elizabeth Clarke
Elizabeth joined the Synthesise team in November 2006. She has a background in the private and the public sector. In the private sector her work was in organisational development and change in a large multi-national organisation at a time of great upheaval as the company worked to make the shift to a values based organisation.
After training as a psychotherapist in mid life Elizabeth made a career change and worked in the public sector focusing on domestic violence and abuse and then working with the dying through the hospice movement. She remains very interested in the use and misuse of power in relationships, groups and organisations. She is a UKCP registered Psychosynthesis psychotherapist and has an independent practice in Cheshire (www.e-c-therapy.com).
Elizabeth also facilitates personal growth programmes for women based on the metaphor of the labyrinth (www.sacredthread.co.uk) and she is particularly interested in how the labyrinth can be adapted for work in the fields of both organisational and social change.
Moira Cunningham
Moira currently works as a freelance consultant for the not for profit sector (Dovetail Associates Ltd - www.dovetailassoc.net), after a career in charity sector management spanning 3 decades, and a wealth of experience within the voluntary sector at all levels – as volunteer, committee member and paid manager.
Life, and the living of it, have been her main tutors, and helped her to recognise her own spiritual journey. With a commitment to holistic approaches to health and well being, she recently undertook training in clinical aromatherapy, and is interested in seeing how the two apparently different strands of her work may link together in practice. Moira joined the Synthesise team in December 2007, bringing entrepreneurial skills and experience.
John Shiers
John is a UKCP registered psychosynthesis psychotherapist and, with a colleague, has an established independent practice, Didsbury Therapy in Manchester. Having worked in community education and community development, he moved into local authority management, focusing on making services responsive and receptive to local residents. Following a senior management post in the UK division of an international non-governmental organization, John moved into organisational consultancy around children and young people’s services.
John has been involved for three decades in a range of voluntary and community organisations and campaigns for social justice and human rights. He has worked with a range of campaigns for gay, lesbian and bisexual equality, and is currently Chair of a young peoples mental health agency, and a Board member of the Psychosynthesis and Education Trust in London.
Synthesise for John is the achievement of a long held vision to bring together the different elements of personal, organisational and social change he has experienced in his life. His aim is for Synthesise to make a contribution to new ways of thinking and being, through making transpersonal ideas more widely accessible.