Annette Mountford is the Chief Executive of Family Links. She worked as a Health Visitor for 13 years, and then combined her experience in health, education and parenthood to introduce the
Nurturing Programme to the UK in 1992. She has led the Family Links team in adapting the Nurturing Programme (NP) to meet national curriculum standards; in anglicising the NP for parent groups; in developing a national training programme for those working as education, health and community practitioners, and is currently trialling the Ante-natal NP.

The Nurturing Programme (NP) is at the forefront in promoting emotional literacy and emotional health nationally. Family Links’ popular book, The Parenting Puzzle, explains the relationship
between feelings and behaviour by engaging the reader through cartoons and exercises.

Annette’s more recent development work includes directing the trial of the Nurturing Programme in prisons; devising the NP for Parents and their Teenagers; launching Islamic Values and the Nurturing
Programme; advising on the production of the Parenting Puzzle DVD, an animated version of the NP aimed at parents with learning and literacy difficulties; producing of an audio CD version of the 10-
week Nurturing Programme for Parents, and revising the NP Handbook for Practitioners for use in Early Years settings. She received an MBE for her work in 2002.