SFCP Trustees

Dr Julie-Marie ffrench Devitt – Chair of SFCP

Julie-Marie has held a range of senior academic and NHS leadership roles and has teaching and research experience in healthcare.  She has professional qualifications in nursing, midwifery, health visiting and teaching, a Master’s in Public Health and a PhD based around the development of primary care leadership across NHS organisations.Areas of specialism: Socratic Dialogue facilitation; undergraduate and postgraduate research supervision; NHS monitoring and regulation and clinical governance. The University of York – Departmental lead for the enhancement for the quality of teaching and learning across all undergraduate programmes and lead for the National Student Survey. Project Management – Leadership and development for a range of projects relating to the promotion of public health initiatives, working closely with GP’s, public health departments and secondary care providers.

Dorothy Moir

Trustee, SFCP since 1998.Formerly Trustee and Director of BELMAS education charity, MiE Editorial Board until 2020. Trustee and Director, Age UK IW from 2011, Vice Chair 2016-2020. AgeUK IW volunteer. Chair of IW Lottery Funded Ageing Better Project 2015 -2020. Lay member, IW NHS England Vanguard Programme 2015 – 2019, Workforce Development Group member. Convenor, Community Philo Café 2015 – today, Cowes Library.Before professional retirement, Founding Deputy Head in a W Midlands multicultural Social Priority Community Comprehensive School regarded as ‘living up to its philosophy’; Comprehensive School Headship Isle of Wight, introduced Thinking Skills programme committed to encouragement of shared ethical values in communities and organisations.

Prof. Sarah Banks

Sarah Banks trained as a Socratic Dialogue facilitator with SFCP and is committed to supporting its work in promoting dialogical approaches to critical thinking about important issues in our personal and political lives. She has a particular interest in using dialogue to work with community activists and students/staff in higher education to clarify ethical questions relating to social justice and action for social change. She is founding co-director of the Centre for Social Justice and Community Action at Durham University, U.K. and Professor in the Sociology Department. She teaches and researches in the fields of professional ethics, community development and participatory action research. She uses Socratic Dialogue in teaching, and has developed variations of dialogical approaches, such as Dilemmas Cafes and Participatory Theatre, for exploring ethical questions. She also convenes several international networks on ethics in social work and participatory research and is a trustee of Durham Community Action.

Michael Strain

Michael is a former Classics teacher and LEA administrator who has been a Belmas member for many years now, perhaps more than 40!  Encouraged to join SFCP by Rene Saran, who shared some of his interests in educational history, politics and administration, he has lived near Belfast for many years now and enjoys surveying life and events from a range of national and historical perspectives. 

Dr Dieter Krohn

Dieter Krohn studied philosophy, English and German at the University of Hannover (Germany) more than fifty years ago.  At that time he got to know Socratic Dialogue through his philosophy professor Gustav Heckmann, a student and follower of Leonard Nelson, and learned through him how to facilitate.  Henceforth his life was largely dedicated to Socratic Dialogue.  He has been a member of the Philosophical-Political Academy for more than 40 years, most of that time as their Secretary.  He is chair of the Friesstiftung, a foundation which is dedicated to the Neo-Kantian philosophy of Jakob Friedrich Fries.  With others he founded the Society of Socratic Facilitators in 1994 and was their chairman for 25 years.  The organisation of seminars and international conferences on dialogical philosophising and publications on Socratic Dialogue as author and editor were among his tasks as well as the training of Socratic facilitators in different countries.  He has researched the history of SFCP in various archives in Britain and Germany and published parts of the results. His professional life:  Teacher examinations for different types of schools, diploma in education, extensive empirical research on personality factors in the achievement in English, dissertation and doctoral examination.  Publications on the theory and practice of the teaching of English as an additional language.  Teaching in schools, teaching at university, training and further training of English teachers, advising schools, school administration and the Ministry of Education.

Lorraine Yates (Treasurer)

Lorraine Yates (Treasurer)
Having completed a law degree at the University of Birmingham, Lorraine Yates trained as both a Chartered Accountant and Chartered Tax Adviser with HW Fisher & Company. After spending a few years working in Industry at Clear Channel International, Lorraine set up her own accountancy firm and enjoys providing services to a variety of clients.

In her spare time Lorraine is a Trustee for a charity called Big C Little Warrior, set up to benefit those suffering from cancer. She lives in North London with her family, and to relax can be found swimming around the Finsbury Park Reservoir!