Meet the Effectiveness Bank team
From 2008 staffed only by Mike Ashton, thanks to funding from the Society for the Study of Addiction and what is now Alcohol Change UK, from 14 September 2015 Drug and Alcohol Findings was able to be joined by Natalie Davies. From 1 May 2018 continued funding from the same bodies enabled Mike and Natalie to share responsibility as co-editors and co-owners. From 1 May 2021 funding for the provision of research updates ceased and Natalie (though remaining co-owner) transferred to the Society for the Study of Addiction (SSA) and Mike retired.
Here’s the team as they were described before this point …Natalie Davies, co-editor
Natalie is a researcher and writer, living and working in Oxfordshire. She joined Findings in 2015 as an editorial assistant, in 2017 became assistant editor, and from 1 May 2018 has been working alongside Mike Ashton as co-owner and co-editor. Prior to Findings, she worked for the Centre for Mental Health and Society, Communities First, Supporting People, and Sport Wales. Drugs and alcohol have featured in almost every area she has studied, including homelessness, domestic abuse, mental health and antisocial behaviour. She has a master’s degree in women’s studies, which gave her the opportunity to pursue personal and academic interests in the movement to end violence against women.
Mike Ashton, co-editor
Drug and Alcohol Findings was founded in 1998 by Mike Ashton who has since been editor or co-editor. His background was 20 years at the Institute for the Study of Drug Dependence, then the UK’s information service on the misuse of drugs, where he helped develop the library including its indexing system and answered enquiries from public and professionals. Later he became co-responsible for the institute’s publications programme and founded Druglink, the ‘trade’ magazine for the British drug misuse sector. He edited the magazine for 10 years until leaving the institute in 1995. Before establishing Findings, he produced the first two annual reports on the drug problem in the European Union for the European Monitoring Centre for Drugs and Drug Addiction.