Sharon Bond obituary

"My colleague Sharon Bond, who has died aged 77, was a social worker and family psychotherapist in London before setting up her own therapy, consultation and training service, Chiron. Starting out in 1985 as an education social worker for the London borough of Tower Hamlets, she was then for many years a principal psychiatric social worker with Hackney Child and Family Consultation Service, working with families and children in mental health clinics and with teachers in schools."

"She was in the vanguard of staking a claim as a black female in a field that had been dominated by white male clinicians. She was the first black woman to qualify as a family psychotherapy supervisor, and set up Chiron to help people who felt excluded by existing training institutions. Her mission was to build up the self-belief of practitioners who had been made to feel they could never make the grade."

"Sharon was born in Kitty in British Guiana (now Guyana), the second of the five children of Doreen (nee Mingo), a seamstress, and Jaslin Bond, an engineer. She came to the UK in 1957, aged nine, with her parents and an older sister, Yvonne. After her secondary schooling she became a member of the British Black Panthers, and created a Saturday supplementary school (named Heads) in east London to support black children who were being failed by the existing system."

Sharon Bond was born in Kitty, British Guiana, and moved to the UK in 1957. She became active in community education and joined the British Black Panthers, creating a supplementary school for black children and volunteering for West Indian World. After qualifying in social work from Goldsmiths College, she worked in Tower Hamlets and then as a principal psychiatric social worker with Hackney Child and Family Consultation Service. She qualified as a family psychotherapist in 1993 and founded Chiron in 1997 to support practitioners excluded by traditional training institutions, becoming the first black woman family psychotherapy supervisor and mentoring many into the profession.

Read at www.theguardian.com