“Barbara’s thoughtful leadership and approach to organisational culture has been a major feature of transforming Royal Free life for many years. Her work with senior executive groups was incredibly important as we managed our way through the Covid pandemic. As CEO I found her approach and wisdom really helpful.”
Caroline Clarke, Regional Director for the NHS in London, former Group Chief Executive of Royal Free London NHS Foundation Trust.
“Barbara developed psychology input for our 8 month leadership development programme designed for senior nurses and midwives in the NHS. She designed, developed and delivered a module on resilient leadership in the covid recovery period. The participants experienced a supportive and open style. Barbara provided a safe space for the participants to explore and share some really important experiences. This session was ranked highest by the participants during the evaluation of the entire programme.
Liz Thiebe Senior Nurse Advisor to the NHS
“I have had the pleasure of working with Barbara Wren across various projects since 2017. This has included within the context of a large London mental health trust and a London based Integrated Care System. Barbara's consultation has informed the development, implementation and evaluation of both organisation-wide and cross-organisation/sector psychologically informed programmes to support the workforce. These include (but are not limited to) Schwartz Rounds, reflective spaces for leaders, conferences and culture change pieces. Barbara has also worked directly with myself and my team, providing both reflective and developmental spaces.
Without hesitance I consistently seek to contract time with Barbara due to the unique way she is able to balance practicality with reflection. Barbara is quick to adapt to our current demands and context, whilst holding the bigger picture in mind. This manifests in spaces that feel safe, supportive and constructive, whilst also helpfully challenging and creative. Thanks to Barbara we have been able to rapidly establish a portfolio of programmes over the years in a way that feels relevant to the organisation(s) and supported at all levels.
On a personal note, I find our 1:1 reflective supervision vital to my work. I work as a senior leader and am responsible for staff support related programmes. Barbara helps me to 'pull the lens back' and use formulation to understand the organisation at multiple levels. This permits me to then access ideas for improvement and project development that would not be possible otherwise. Barbara also has a great sense of humour, a very human approach and helps us to keep a focus on our own wellbeing which only further supports our level of effectiveness.”
Senior Clinical Psychologist and Leaderogist and Leader
“Barbara approached our work together with absolute professionalism. She carefully prepared me in advance and then facilitated the session with expertise and kindness, enabling me to recount my experience confidently and safely. This patient I discussed had remained very much with me on account of the emotional impact that his death, had on me. Afterwards I was able to reflect and understand more why his story remained with me, and over time I have come to terms with his death. When I think of him now, I am at peace with his story, rather than somewhat haunted, as I was beforehand.”
Senior Medical Consultant
"Having agreed to contribute a story for Barbara’s session I experienced misgivings about whether I could manage my feeling of emotional vulnerability, and how safe I would feel alongside worries about confidentiality. With her guidance beforehand, and expert, kind and thoughtful facilitation of the group session , the experience was positive, eye-opening and emotionally enriching".
Senior Surgeon
“I’ve worked with Barbara across two organizations over a number of years and each engagement has been transformative . One of Barbara’s unique strengths is her flexibility and extremely broad and integrated “toolbox” which she can draw on – from conflict management, mediation, OD, systems, social and clinical psychology and creative arts. She is able to respond with a precise and well-adapted intervention and despite having worked with her for years and in different contexts it is never the same thing. She brings a psychological perspective but is able to ground this in the practical reality of work and organizations and translate for the teams.
Barbara brought new insights and understanding to me and to my team. She provided supervision and facilitation to my team at a time when the team were tired, burning out and feeling overwhelmed and stuck. Barbara offered profound insights that while simple and clear had been completely missed, including helping us to think about the impact of the contexts we were working in. She has confidence and competence working with complexity and with challenging working environments. And Barbara has tailored her work to multi-lingual and globally distributed, diverse teams. Barbara has enormous compassion and intelligence which are used to great effect, whether working with team members, managers or senior leaders.”
Elizabeth Field | Formerly The British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCDO ) and Amnesty International
“Barbara provides essential support in the assessment, analysis and solutions for individuals, teams and organisations. As a new leader, navigating a particularly complex set of organisational dynamics during a redundancy period, I hugely appreciated Barbara's ability to adapts the methods and approaches required to the specific needs of individuals and the team. I would recommend her to anyone looking for support in interrogating or improving their team dynamic, or simply seeking to improve individual and team skills and capacity to navigate complex organisational life.”
Eve Geddie
Head of Office and Advocacy Director, European Institutions Office Brussels, Amnesty International