Adolescent health group

Dr Fiona Smith 

Dr Fiona Smith is a GP from Stockton on Tees, who has a special interest in adolescent health. She has worked at Eaglescliffe Medical Practice since 2003, and in 2018 set up Footsteps, a service for children and young people based within a primary care setting.

Footsteps provides mental health support for young people aged 11-19 years and has received a BMJ award, RCGP poster prize and Stockton Mayors award. Fiona has been a member of the RCGP adolescent health group since 2019.

Dr Faraz Mughal

Dr Faraz Mughal is an academic GP and holds a prestigious National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Doctoral Fellowship at Keele University. Faraz is a GP in Birmingham, a Fellow of the Royal College of General Practitioners, and an affiliate of the NIHR Greater Manchester Patient Safety Research Collaboration. He is an NIHR Academy and NIHR Incubator for Mental Health Research Case Study and is an appointed NIHR Academy Forum member. Faraz has a growing international reputation for suicide prevention and young people’s mental health in primary care and is an expert advisor to the Department of Health and Social Care and NHS England.
 
Faraz’s main research interests are in the prevention and management of self-harm and suicide, young people’s mental health, and common mental health problems in primary care settings. He is Chief Investigator (CI) of the NIHR funded COPING study - developing and testing a new brief psychosocial GP intervention for young people after self-harm. He has won research funding with colleagues amounting to £1.7 million, £647,000 at CI, from NIHR, NIHR SPCR, and the RCGP Scientific Foundation Board.
 
He has 101 scientific and peer-reviewed journal publications; H-index 15.

Dr Amina Al-Yassin

Dr Amina Al-Yassin is a GP in the NHS and Barnardo’s and the Clinical Lead for children’s services in the London Borough of Brent. Amina is passionate about the health and wellbeing of babies, children and young people. She has trained in both paediatrics (MRCPCH) and general practice (MRCGP). Amina has completed a post-CCT fellowship in child and adolescent mental health (CAMHS) and a diploma in working in children and adolescent mental health. I am a core committee member in the Royal College of GP’s adolescent health special interest group.

As the Strategic Clinical Lead for Children’s Services in Brent, the scope of her role includes supporting better outcomes for Brent children in CAMHS, childhood obesity and dental caries, SEND, children with long term conditions and liaising with children’s safeguarding teams. As a GP with Barnardo’s, the largest national children's charity in the UK, she supports their work towards becoming a leading provider of integrated health and social care services across the country band, developing commissionable healthcare delivery models as part of its signature programs.

Amina established Iraq's first centre for personal development, resilience building and mentoring for orphaned children (Hikayati) and developed the governance, supervision and training structures for a network of family mental health clinics across the country including in rural and underserved areas.

She is passionate about education and training, both for fellow health care professionals as well as community groups. As well as an MSc in Medical Education, Amina is a WHO FIDES health influencer and an accredited trainer for multiple programmes including the youth MHFA, children and war foundation’s trauma recovery intervention, and the Anna Freud National Autism trainers’ program. She enjoys public speaking and workshop facilitation and regularly presents at conferences and workshops for professionals, young people and families on mental health and wellbeing.

Amina has won multiple awards for her work, including the Imperial College Emerging Alumni leader award (2023) and the Empowered women's network outstanding achievement of the year (2023). In 2021, she was a finalist for the PULSE General Practice awards (GP Rising Star award).

Dr Emma Rengasamy

Dr Emma Rengasamy is currently an academic GP trainee doing an academic clinical fellowship at the University of Cambridge. Her current project is in the area of child and adolescent mental health. She is also one of the education and training officers for the International Association of Adolescent Health. Emma has a strong interest in adolescent health and mental health. 

Dr Liz Hare 

Dr Liz Hare qualified in 1992 from the Liverpool Medical School and completed an MRCGP in 2003 after completing basic surgical training and gaining FRCSI. She completed her Dermatology Diploma as part of a community surgery service and joined AHG in circa 2016 and remains very engaged to this day. Liz is sighted on medical writing about Young People’s health topics, and is a case reviewer for NCEPOD on Transition, Endometriosis and JIA research studies.