• CIFI can be accessed by all involved in family building using sperm/egg or embryo donation and/or surrogacy. This might be when difficulties arise in family communication and relationships, where intergenerational issues become challenging, sharing information about origins requires expert support, and/or meetings with half-siblings or donors/donor offspring presents dilemmas.
• CIFI is a Clinical Psychology led specialist service informed by a Systemic Family Therapy approach offers therapeutic consultation and ongoing interventions with experienced Psychotherapists & Mental Health Clinicians. Professionals have expertise working across generations and with multiple connected families.
• Everyone involved including donors, surrogates and their relatives may contact CIFI and find skilled therapeutic help to address the complexities that follow.

• Some couples, individuals & families require more than existing the peer support organisations offer, or where services do not recognise the multi-family & multi-generational aspects of these situations.
• For example, this has been valuable where there are difficulties making family arrangements after separation or divorce, when parents have differing views about openness, or where transgender issues are involved. In many situations consultations need to include more than one or two people.
• DC adults may experience struggles with identity formation, family relationships after unplanned revelations or are thinking about tracing a donor and do find the counselling provided by the HFEA linked service sufficient. The children of surrogates may ask awkward questions, or donors might wonder how to share information about having been a donor in the past with their current partners, their own children and grandchildren.

Sharon Pettle is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist & Systemic Family Therapist with decades of experience in the NHS, including specialist adolescent services and she was at Great Ormond Street for more than ten years. She has also worked in the charity sector and as an independent researcher, supervisor, trainer, and clinician. She has been involved in this field for 25 years, following her doctorate research about late revelations about parentage. She has undertaken other research, some about openness in DC families, and published a number of papers. She has offered therapeutic consultations to a wide range of individuals and families facing various dilemmas connected to Donor Conception and Surrogacy.

She developed workshops for young people who are growing up in families where parents are being open about their origins. These have run for almost 20 years, and participants often return more than once. Her concern that young people need more opportunities as they develop, led her to run the first multi-family group for teens and parents pre-Covid. She has created a team who can assist with the delivery of different types of groups, across the age range - often using creative techniques including art and drama when these are useful, and CIFI will be providing these throughout the year at different locations.

She has offered training in this important area to a range of professionals including psychotherapists, psychologists, and lawyers. She has presented internationally including Italy, The Netherlands, Argentina, Switzerland and around the UK. She also has more than 30 years of experience as an Expert in the Family Courts, and has been involved with Extradition cases when children are likely to be affected. She is recognised as one of few clinicians who can bring deep understanding about Donor Conception and Surrogacy into the legal arena when there are complex issues for courts to resolve.

She has drawn together other experienced clinicians and trainers who have wide ranging skills and a strong interest in this area. Some have direct experience in related areas, other have personal experiences and connections with this field.

Hanspeter Dorner is a Consultant Child & Adolescent Psychiatrist, who has worked in the NHS since 2008. In his current role he works with many children and young people with neurodiversity and complex needs. He came to the UK in 2001 to work and train at Great Ormond Street Hospital keen to focus on attachment, trauma, and the various consequences of child maltreatment. Prior to this, he practiced as a Paediatrician and completed a Master’s degree in Systemic Family Therapy in Austria.

Hanspeter has lived experience as the father of a 10-year-old son, conceived through surrogacy with his same sex partner. This made him realise the importance of a clear narrative towards all involved in a surrogacy journey and generated a keen interest in the field of alternative ways of conception and parenting.

Miranda Pattinson is an independent social worker and later trained as an adult psychotherapist (now retired). She has spent more than 30 years working with adults, children and families. She has had a particular interest in alternative family arrangements: in the care system; with other family members; or by adoption. Questions of identity and the meaning of “family” pervade all these areas of work. In her private practice she met many young people and adults where issues of identity and belonging were often central whether adolescents were thinking about identity in relation to family or gender, or adults looking again at complex family situations and the dynamics that have shaped who they are.

Like the others, Miranda uses a range of techniques, depending on the issue to be resolved and what people find useful in reaching that goal.