Our Team​​

Board of Directors

Rachel Witkin
Executive Director, Co-founder​

Rachel is the Co-Founder and Executive Director for Modern Slavery Community of Practice. she also works as a consultant for OSCE/ODIHR and the International Survivors of Trafficking Advisory Council (ISTAC). She is a visiting fellow at St Mary's University, where she teaches the TiCC on the Skills for Care course.  Rachel was lead consultant and writer for the international OSCE/ODIHR National Referral Mechanisms Handbook, is co-author of the Trauma-Informed Code of Conduct (TiCC), and contributing editor for the UK Slavery and Trafficking Survivor Care Standards (Human Trafficking Foundation).  She is also a contributor for both editions of  Modern Slavery Law and Practice (Bloomsbury).

Arnas Tamasauskas
Operation Director, Co-founder

​Arnas is the Co-Founder and Operations Director for Modern Slavery Community of Practice. He works on funding and operations management, as well as facilitation of partnerships between organisations, and design of MSCOS brand. Outside of MS-CoP, Arnas works for the3million as a Campaigns Organiser, and he is also a Neuropsychology PhD Researcher at the University of Liverpool.

Sian Oram 
Director, Co-founder

Dr Sian Oram is the Director and Co-Founder of the Modern Slavery Community of Practice. She is also the PrincipaI Investigator of the MSCOS project, Head of the Section of Women’s Mental Health and Professor in Women's Mental Health at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience at King's College London.  Her research focuses on interpersonal trauma, its intersection with gender and with institutional and societal structures, and its relationship to mental health.  ​

MSCOS Project Contributors

Juliet Joseph
Survivor Alliance 

Juliet Joseph has lived experience of human trafficking with a lot of experience of what it is like to be a victim. She wrote a leaflet for survivors not only to get into research, but to also help them to interact with other survivors and none survivors to build their confidence and get involved in the community around them.

​Cornelius Katona
Helen Bamber Foundation​

Professor Cornelius Katona is the Medical Director at Helen Bamber Foundation. He is the Royal College of Psychiatrists' lead on Refugee and Asylum Mental Health. He is an Honorary Professor in the Division of Psychiatry at University College London. He was a member of the Committee that recently updated NICE guidelines on PTSD. He has published more than 300 papers. In 2019 he was awarded the Royal College of Psychiatrists’ Honorary Fellowship, the College’s highest honour, for his ‘outstanding service to psychiatry’.

Queenie Sit
MSCOS (KCL) and Helen Bamber Foundation​

Queenie Sit was the Community of Practice Fellow for the Modern Slavery Core Outcome Set (MSCOS) . Her role sits within the Counter-Trafficking Department at the Helen Bamber Foundation, where she is a member of the Counter-Trafficking team. Her role provides a focal point of contact and co-ordination for the MSCOS Community of Practice which brings together survivors, academics, frontline practitioners and policymakers in a dedicated Community, developing online forums, content, podcasts, meetings and workshops to embed the MSCOS model, and take the project forward. 

Sharli Anne Paphitis
King's College London

Dr Sharli Anne Paphitis is the the Principal Investigator of the MSCOS project and a Research Fellow in Women’s Mental Health at King's College London. She is an Associate Researcher in Community Engagement at Rhodes University. Her research focusses on community-based and participatory interventions to support survivors of violence, forced displacement, and human trafficking. ​

Sohail Jannesari
Brighton & Sussex Medical School

Dr Sohail Jannesari is a Lecturer in Global Health. He completed a PhD on the effects of the asylum process on the mental health of Iranians and Afghans using a participatory approach and a postcolonial lens, and recently co-produced a guide for mental health practitioners working with Afghan sanctuary seekers. He is the project lead on the Stolen Tools anti-racism journal, co-convener of the Inspiring Ethics group and hosts the Qualitative Open Mic podcast. He founded the Migrant Connections Festival and co-founded the Cotton Tree Trust. 

Nicola Wright
University of Nottingham 

​Dr Nicola Wright is an Associate Professor in Mental Health, School of Health Sciences, University of Nottingham. Nicola is a mental health nurse by clinical training.  She holds a PhD in Nursing Studies from the University of Nottingham and is the Associate Director of the Health and Wellbeing Programme at the Rights Lab.  Utilising predominantly qualitative research methods she has completed research projects exploring what mental health recovery means in the context of modern slavery.

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Minh Dang
Survivor Alliance 

Minh Dang, MSW, PhD is the Executive Director of Survivor Alliance, an international non-governmental organization focused on building sustainable communities with, by, of, and for survivors of slavery and human trafficking. She is a Research Fellow and Lead in Survivor Wellbeing and Scholarship at the University of Nottingham's Rights Lab.
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Bee Damara
Survivor Alliance

Bee Damara is an MA student in Human Rights and Global Ethics and a course facilitator with Survivor Alliance.  She has been working with young refugees and human trafficking survivors for 12 years.  Bee is contributing her practice-based expertise and connections with survivors as a co-researcher for the project. 

Emma Howarth
University of East London

​Dr Emma Howarth is a senior lecturer in the School of Psychology, University of East London. Her primary research focus is on domestic abuse and responses to children who experience it. Emma brings expertise on core outcome set and consensus methodologies and is currently leading work to develop core outcome sets for children affected by domestic abuse and child maltreatment. 
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