Our Special Friends

Patrons

Lord Fairhaven

Honorary Patron

Lord Fairhaven KStJ DL graduated from the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, before commissioning Royal Horse Guards and completing two tours of duty in the Mounted Regiment. He has been, and still is, a great supporter of many local charities and has a wealth of experience and knowledge of the sector. He has been Vice President of The Animal Health Trust, Patron of Royal Papworth, and Patron of Our Special Friends. In his leisure time, Lord Fairhaven enjoys being in the great outdoors with friends and enjoying his garden.

Dr Marc Abraham OBE, BVM&S MRCVS

Patron

Dr Marc Abraham OBE, or ‘Marc the Vet’, is a Brighton-based, multi-award-winning vet, author, and broadcaster, Marc also campaigns for animal welfare, is secretariat of the All-Party Parliamentary Dog Advisory Welfare Group (APDAWG) in Westminster, and led the campaign to ban the sale of puppies in UK pet shops, known as ‘Lucy’s Law’. Marc also gives talks to local schools about caring for animals and looking out for one another, plus he’s just finished making a documentary called ‘Dogspiracy’. Marc was presented with his OBE for Services to Animal Welfare by King Charles III. More: www.marcthevet.net

Trustees

Mark Johnston

Chair

Mark Johnston trained as a vet and worked initially at a large equine practice in Newmarket where he took a special interest in equine anaesthesia and intensive care. He subsequently earned a PhD in this area. He is now Managing Director of Vetstream, a company providing online clinical information, continuing professional development, websites and other digital services to veterinary practices.

Robert Ferguson

Treasurer

Robert is an experienced chartered accountant. He qualified with KPMG in 1979 and worked in the firm’s London, New York, Silicon Valley and East Anglian offices. He was senior partner of the East Anglian practice from 2004 to 2009.

Since 2012, Robert has worked as Finance Director at Ashtons Legal, a full service regional law firm, and more recently as Finance Director at Suffolk Primary Care, a super partnership of GP practices.

As a corporate auditor and investigator, Robert advised a wide range of businesses on strategy, organisation, financial control and processes. More recently that experience has been put to use implementing change as part of board level teams in both legal services
and primary care.

Robert is married, with four grown up children. He enjoys cycling and music.

Elizabeth Ormerod

As Small Animal House Physician Elizabeth was responsible for Glasgow University’s charity veterinary clinic during which period she became attuned to the significance of companion animals in the lives of vulnerable people. Elizabeth has pioneered bond-centred veterinary practice – taking the needs of her clients into account and tailoring treatment plans accordingly. With multidisciplinary collaboration she developed outreach programmes, delivering Animal Assisted Intervention (AAI) programmes to schools, nursing homes, hospitals, sheltered housing, psychiatric hospitals and prisons.

Elizabeth has travelled widely to visit model AAI programmes, as a Churchill Fellow, and additional overseas study trips to N America and Asia. Elizabeth is a Vice President of The International Association of Human-animal Interaction Organisations (IAHAIO); Past Chair and a director of SCAS; co-founder and Vice President of Canine Partners, the UK assistance dog programme; and a visiting lecturer to veterinary schools. She is recognised internationally for her work in anthrozoology and was awarded the Inaugural International William F McCulloch Award for excellence in human-animal interaction education and practice.

Carolyn Bradburne

Fundraising and Events Co-ordinator

Carolyn held senior positions in financial control and planning for major fashion retailers such as the Burton Group and River Island for many years before moving to the voluntary sector. Since then, she has built up considerable experience in fundraising for a wide variety of charities, including Spinal Research, Motor Neurone Disease, St Nicholas Hospice in Bury St Edmunds and the restoration appeal for the Theatre Royal in Bury St Edmunds. Carolyn contributes to the management of our finances, fundraising and events.

Rebecca Stephens

Rebecca has 30 years’ experience within the social work profession. She has worked as a front-line practitioner in areas including mental health, disability, domestic abuse and in hospital and community-based settings in Australia and the UK. Rebecca has also provided consultancy and training to government and non-government organisations to progress workforce development initiatives including the provision of professional and clinical supervision. Rebecca currently works at the University of Sussex as a Senior Lecturer in Social Work. She is a pioneer of Veterinary Social Work in the UK, a growing and emerging branch of social work globally that is, ‘an area of social work practice that supports and strengthens interdisciplinary partnerships that attend to the interaction of humans and animals’ (International Association of Veterinary Social Workers). Rebecca is the Co-Director of Education with the International Association of Veterinary Social Work and is actively developing inter-disciplinary partnerships across social work, veterinary and animal-welfare practice settings to influence knowledge exchange, skills development and education and training opportunities.

Rebekah Sullivan

Rebekah graduated as a vet in 2005 and spent 7 years working with large and small animals in mixed practice, before joining the Donkey Sanctuary. She has also volunteered with animal charities overseas and with Streetvet in the UK. Rebekah has experience across veterinary medicine and surgical care, including preventative health care approaches, and has written and presented teaching material for vet students, animal owners and practising vets. Her main veterinary interest lies with the human-animal bond, in whatever form that may take and however large or small the animal. Her passion is for exploring how we can collaborate across human, animal, and environmental spheres to provide effective, sustainable and desirable health and welfare for all. In 2023 she completed a MSc in One Health, with a research project that explored joint provision of healthcare for vulnerable humans and animals in marginalised communities. The research led Rebekah to the work of Our Special Friends, and fits perfectly with our ethos. She looks forward to supporting our valuable efforts.

Our Team

Bin Johnston

MA VetMB MRCVS

Founder and Chief Executive

Belinda trained as a vet and worked in London, becoming a founding partner of a veterinary practice in Battersea. Life experiences and her time in practice stimulated her interest in the relationship between people and their pets – the mutual benefits these relationships offer and the impact of losing them. Moving to Suffolk, she developed her person-centred approach and trained in bereavement support and counselling. She now lectures veterinary and animal welfare staff on how to help people cope with companion animal end of life decisions and loss.

She saw the need for a charity which would promote and enhance the bond between people and their animals, providing support to enable these relationships to continue through difficult times, whilst empowering and supporting difficult decisions and loss. Our Special Friends was born! Today Belinda is our Chief Executive. She is also our main practitioner, visiting potential users of the services we offer, assessing their needs and matching them to appropriate support from our volunteers and affiliate organisations. She believes firmly that people need pets and pets need people because they both benefit from being together – but they need to be a good match and, when necessary, to be supported by others to maintain the relationship.

Anna Hunt

Trusts and Grants Manager

Anna is an experienced Trusts and Foundations Manager with fifteen years’ experience in the voluntary sector and a Distinction in the Certificate in Fundraising from the Institute of Fundraising. Amongst other things some of her key career achievements have included managing a small team which secured over £1.7m in a single financial year for EACH, personally raising over £1.8m over four years for Action for Children and previously £1.5m over four years for St Nicholas Hospice Care. She has also secured major grants from the St. James’s Place Foundation, the Big Lottery Fund, the Thompson Family Charitable Trust, the Bradbury Foundation, the Department of Health, the Primary Care Trust, the Wolfson Foundation, the Henry Smith Charity and other grant-givers. Anna will be helping Our Special Friends by researching and applying for funding opportunities.

Susan Bradwell – Finance officer

Susan also joined the charity in 2017. Susan brings a wealth of experience with her to Our Special Friends. She is a trained accountant and offers invaluable support on the financial side from donations, book keeping and accounting through to payroll and expenses.

Frances Day – Volunteer Support Manager

Frances has worked in a variety of roles in the third sector. Following her graduation with a degree in Psychology from Sheffield, Frances began her working journey as an outreach worker at MIND Cambrideshire. It was here that Frances recognised the huge importance of supervision, and support, for those working at grass-roots level. Feeling the pressures of being on a zero-hour contract, Frances decided it was time to progress and joined a lively team at Action for Children. Here she began to develop her team management skills and was, after two years, offered an opportunity to manage and coordinate a very active youth provision with the YMCA. Frances supported a team of both paid staff and volunteers and enjoyed the opportunity to empower individuals to support those with vulnerabilities. When Covid arrived, the project’s funding was jeopardised and saw a very sad demise. It was time to move on and, seeing the opportunity to utilise and develop her skillset, as well as combine her love for amimals, Frances was delighted to join the Our Special Friends team. Frances believes that volunteers are an intrinsic cog in the OSF wheel and endeavours to support and empower them throughout their time with the team.

Chloe Smith – Animal Companionship Coordinator (Maternity Cover)

Chloe looks forward to working for Our Special Friends and to supporting as many people as possible. In her career Chloe has previously helped people in the community with their care needs as well as those with debilitating mental health conditions. She has seen and experienced first-hand how animal companions help to alleviate suffering and loneliness.

Chloe has had dogs in her life since she was born and currently has two cats Apple and Spook (both domestic shorthairs) and a dog, Molly (a 10 year old Staffy cross). She has so much love for animals and is so grateful to have spent her life surrounded by them.

Andrew Simmonds – Fundraising Lead

Andrew is hugely excited to bring his fundraising experience and passion for securing new income to Our Special Friends. His near 30-year fundraising career includes a long tenure at the RSPB achieving rapid growth in membership and charitable income from £50m to £75m annually, including the celebrated recruitment of the conservation charity’s one millionth member. At the Animal Health Trust, he joined in 2003 at a time of development and a new strategy to diversify fundraising and meet the growing needs of the veterinary and animal welfare charity. He cherished the ‘pets in the office’ culture for over 16 years, and succeeded in doubling legacy income to £2 million annually, developed individual giving and community fundraising, and grew charitable trust income year upon year to a record level of £1 million. During the pandemic he was motivated to help a vulnerable group – older people living alone facing chronic loneliness and isolation at a time of global crisis. Joining a small but committed team at Re-engage, Andrew was pivotal in helping the charity secure well over £2 million for the first time in its history to support growing numbers of beneficiaries at such a challenging time.

Andrew is inspired and focused at Our Special Friends to diversify income and donors’ much needed generosity. It will be rewarding and motivating to build on the team’s incredible success. Andrew is also excited to once again share the office with much loved pets and canine ambassadors for OSF!

Crucially, new funding and growth will help many more people in Suffolk benefit from the power of animal companionship at a time of illness, loneliness, bereavement or other crises.

Gemma Reid – Animal Companionship Practitioner

Following a series of temporary jobs after leaving school I then realised my ambition to work with animals when I landed a trainee Veterinary Nurse position at a mixed practice in Stowmarket. 5 years later and wanting a new challenge I then moved on to referral nursing at the Animal Health Trust. Over time I worked my way up to Deputy Nursing Manager, and oversaw the nursing team based in the busy hospital wards, and for a few years alongside this also helped develop and run the hydrotherapy unit, until the wards became too busy to split my time that way (how I missed squelching up the long corridor to reception in my wetsuit, especially in winter!) Having initially thought that I’d gain a year’s referral experience to take back to general practice, I found the work constantly evolving and stimulating, and before I knew it 17 years had passed! It was again time for a change, so the next 5 years were spent self employed locuming at various practices, and then lately being employed by Vets4Pets in Haverhill, until being fortunate enough to get the coveted new role of Animal Companionship Practitioner with Our Special Friends. I’ve known Bin for several years after meeting her at a local event and then doing a small amount of volunteering, and since then OSF was on my radar as a place I’d love to work. I consider myself lucky to have had a rewarding career as a VN, but had long been thinking that I’d like to help people with their animals from a different angle (and to not spend another day in theatre if I could help it!) so I am extremely pleased to join the lovely team.

Fran Mackintosh – Office Coordinator

Fran is excited to be joining Our Special Friends as Office Coordinator as she has always
had a passion for animals and their assistance in promoting mental wellbeing.

Fran has previously spent over 5 years working in Administration in various companies
around Essex and Suffolk, however before changing careers she spent 8 years working in
the Visual Effects industry in London, adding computer-generated effects to TV commercials
and short films. This experience means she has a creative flair and a good understanding of
IT systems, as well as an interest in current trends in AI technology.

She lives near Haverhill with her husband and 2 cats, Poppet and Casper.

Sam McAulay – Animal Companionship Practitioner

Sam is very excited to be joining Our Special Friends (OSF), following 8 years working in
veterinary practices. She qualified as an RVN in 2017, and was fortunate to have worked
with both small animals (furries) as well as exotics, including crocodiles, snakes and birds of
prey, to name but a few.

Sam has a huge passion for recognising ‘Chronic Pain’ in pets, and over the years
developed pain clinics to help educate owners and treat patients, primarily using laser
therapy.

Unfortunately, due to chronic pain issues herself, she had to make the hard decision to step
back from nursing, but she knew she wanted to stay and work within the animal sector.
She was excited when the role of Animal Companionship Practitioner (ACP) came about at
OSF, as she was aware to some extent of the amazing work this charity does. Speaking
further with Bin, she very quickly realised this was the perfect opportunity for her and
couldn’t wait to jump on board.

Sam is very keen to use her previous knowledge to apply to this role and the opportunity to
support people experiencing vulnerability in the community. The benefit of the human-animal
bond is such a simple concept with such huge implications and rewards, and Sam feels very
lucky to be working with such an incredible team and charity.

Sam lives at home with her husband, two sons, cat and snake. Having always lived with
dogs; they can’t wait to add another family member soon.

Our Volunteers

At any one time we have up to 100 volunteers helping Our Special Friends with their clients and their animals over the West Suffolk area. Some provide regular weekly support and other help as an when they can on an ad hoc basis.

Our Animal Helpers

We currently have around 37 volunteers with their friendly dogs visiting people in our community.

Our dog walking volunteers are walking approximately 35 of our clients dogs. We have teams of volunteers looking after some pets so that their walking needs can be met.

These figures are changing all the time as our requirement change pretty much on a daily basis.

(Date: 11th May 2022).