Liz Day studied painting at Chelsea College of Art, then trained as a teacher and taught art for two years. Her interest in working with people led her to train as a social worker. From 1987 to 2004 she worked in a number of professional and managerial roles for Bexley Social Services and, later, Bexley Care Trust. For 16 years she coordinated work around HIV. In this role she developed and ran a group for children affected by HIV called The Circle of Life. After presenting this work at the International AIDS Impact Conferences in Ottowa and Brighton, she was invited to go to South Africa as part of an initiative which became the Ten Million Children Memory Project.

Liz’s involvement in memory work with children and their parents went hand in hand with her interest in systemic practice. She had embarked on training in family therapy at the KCC Foundation, where she gained an MSc in systemic therapy and the Advanced Award in Social Work. She is also a qualified teacher, trainer and supervisor of systemic family therapy. Since 2004 she has been a senior family therapist with Oxleas NHS Foundation Trust, working in the Bexley Child & Adolescent Mental Health Service (CAMHS). Liz presented at the first international NVR conference, held in April this year at the University of Greenwich.

Liz’s first encounter with NVR about five years ago coincided with her starting to make art again after a gap of many years. She hopes one day to be able to spend every summer in the Pyrenees painting.

Liz has always been passionate about improving communication between people and about resisting violence and oppression. She sees working in NVR is a natural development of this.