Martin Stabrey

Managing Editor

Martin is Chief Operations Officer of CYC-Net and Managing Editor of CYC-Online. He lives in Cape Town, South Africa and is married to Helen and together they have two daughters, Kirsten and Tamara.

He is a product of the South African residential care system, having spent most of his childhood in care at St. John's Hostel in Cape Town.

He studied Economics and Information Systems at the University of South Africa.

Dr Mark Smith

Associate Editor

Dr Mark Smith began his career in Child and Youth Care in 1981 as a residential social worker at what was then called a List D (approved) school outside Edinburgh, Scotland. He spent the next 19 years in practice and management positions in different residential settings finishing his practice career as Principal for secure accommodation services in Edinburgh, in charge of two secure and three attached open units.

In 2000 he was appointed to a position at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow to develop and teach a new Masters programme in residential child care. He did this successfully for five years before moving to the University of Edinburgh as a lecturer and then senior lecturer in social work. He moved to the University of Dundee in 2017 as Professor of Social Work.

Mark has written extensively on residential child care, including three books, Rethinking Residential Child Care (2009) and Residential Child Care in Practice (with Fulcher and Doran) (2013) and Boys’ stories of their time in a residential school: ‘the best years of our lives’ (2022). His Doctorate addresses concepts of care and upbringing.
 

Janice Daley

Associate Editor

Janice Daley has worked in Child and Youth Care since 2000 across residential, family support, and community settings in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada. She completed her MSc in Child and Youth Care Studies through the University  of Strathclyde.
 
Her current work is situated in a faith-based practice context, with particular interest in the intersections of relational care, spiritual formation, and community life. Practicing in Newfoundland has shaped her appreciation for the role of culture, story, and close-knit community in Child and Youth Care.
 
Originally drawn to journalism, Janice continues to contribute to the field through scholarly writing and conference presentations. She retains a deep and occasionally overzealous affection for grammar, punctuation, and well-placed commas — a trait her colleagues have learned to expect.
 
She lives in St. John’s, Newfoundland, with her husband, Peter.

James Freeman

Associate Editor

He provides leadership development, training, and consultation for organizations working in complex, high-pressure human-service environments. His work helps organizations strengthen teams, build leadership capacity, and create conditions that support stability, trust, and long-term effectiveness.

James holds an M.A. in Organizational Leadership and brings more than 30 years of experience in the Child and Youth Care field, spanning direct care, supervision, training, and senior leadership. He is the author and editor of numerous publications, including Holding the Center: Leading with Heart in a World of Hurt (forthcoming), and a recipient of the National Staff Development and Training Association’s Career Achievement Award.

His experience includes training and consultation across North America and internationally, as well as service on national and international boards, including the Association for Child and Youth Care Practice and the Association of Children’s Residential and Community Services.

James also serves on staff with the California Alliance for Child and Family Services Catalyst Center as a Senior Open Doors Facilitator for the state-funded Children and Youth Behavioral Health Initiative, supporting statewide efforts to improve access to mental health and substance use services for young people.

James lives in Southern California with his wife and three children.

Dr Shemine Gulamhusein

Associate Editor

Dr. Gulamhusein has worked in the fields of therapeutic recreation, pediatric palliative care, violence against women and children who witness abuse counsellor, international youth camps, outdoor programming for people with disabilities, and as a private practitioner supporting children, youth, families, and adults wanting to explore their inner child through somatic practices.

She has a deep-seated commitment to creative, innovative, and interdisciplinary understandings, dismantling of, and re-creating accessible, culturally grounded, and transformative research. Her primary research is grounded in therapeutic recreation, movement, and migration studies. The central interest is in creating spaces for Muslim immigrants to unpack migration narratives, create meaning in their freely chosen activities (recreation), and grapple with the beautifully complex sensations bodies experience. Shemine’s work is situated in (auto)ethnography and community-arts-based methodologies that acknowledge people's desire to seek a sense of belonging through recreational and leisure pursuits.

Her curiosities about the power of recreation offer her research a rhythmic pulse.

Dr. Patricia Kostouros

Associate Editor

Dr. Kostouros is a Full Professor at Mount Royal University. Patricia’s research includes gender-based violence, disaster impact on shelters, student wellness and mental health, compassion fatigue, and trauma-sensitive teaching. Before academia Patricia managed a youth shelter, a women’s shelter, and was the Executive Director of a residence for women with a trauma history. She has published both journal articles and books, is a reviewer for numerous journals and sits on the editorial advisory board of the journal Relational Child and Youth Care Practice.

Brian Gannon

Brian worked in Child and Youth Care from 1959 as a child care worker, principal, trainer, supervisor, lecturer and writer.

He started his career in child care while in his final undergraduate year. Four years later he and a colleague started a new program (St Nicolas Home) in Johannesburg for a sector of the South African population not previously provided for. In 1967 he was invited to become principal of St Johns, a 64-bed program in Cape Town where he remained for fifteen years.

In the late 1960s, in the Western Cape, he founded South Africa's first child care workers' association, and was instrumental in the establishment of similar associations in Natal, the Transvaal and the Eastern Cape. In 1975 these provincial associations amalgamated into the National Association of Child Care Workers.

In 1982 Brian became the NACCW's first National Director. The NACCW has become the major training, literature and advocacy organisation in the field in South Africa.

Brian produced the NACCW's monthly journal Child and Youth Care from 1983 until 1999, when he founded CYC-Net with Thom Garfat.

Brian passed away on 28 September 2017.

Thom Garfat

Thom a Director of Transformative Relational Consultation and Training (TRCT) and has worked with young people, families and those who work with them for 50 years.

He is the co-founder of the International Child and Youth Care Network (CYC-Net) and the journal Relational Child and Youth Care Practice. His training, The Purposeful Use of Daily Life Events is used worldwide. He has authored or co-authored of eight books and numerous professional articles. His primary focus is on ‘making it work’; finding practical everyday ways to enhance the process of healing and development.

Thom was appointed as a Member of the Order of Canada in 2023.

He lives in Quebec, with Sylviane.