Mary-Joy Albutt (known as MJ)

Expert and Pioneer in Positive Dementia Care

MJ qualified as a registered general nurse (RGN) and registered mental nurse (RMN) at the prestigious Royal London Hospital in 1989. Since then, she has worked in a wide range of health care and teaching settings in public, private, and voluntary sectors.

Her vast wealth of experience includes well over 15 years working in care home settings. During this time, she has become an expert in caring for people living with dementia, becoming a dementia nurse specialist and, more recently working as Head of Dementia for one of the largest care home providers in the UK.

MJ is currently undertaking a PhD with the University of Worcester, researching the bi-directional relationships between trauma and dementia, and how trauma informed dementia care can be implemented within a care home setting.

Expert by Experience, individual Trauma and Trauma Informed Care

Perhaps more impressive than her professional achievements is the fact that she has achieved all of this whilst living with the effects of childhood trauma. At the age of 16, she spent her “gap year” as an inpatient on an acute psychiatric ward – long before there were specialist mental health services for young people.

She spent the next 40 years feeling misunderstood and very frustrated with herself because she could not understand why, whenever things were going well, she went back to her self-sabotaging behaviours.

At the age of 55, everything changed for her. When she had to engage with mental health services for the first time in 12 years, their response to her was totally different; mental health services had changed and become “trauma informed.” Having been silenced, not believed, labelled, and stigmatised for her whole life, suddenly people not only believed her story, but were able to help her understand why all of her symptoms and behaviours made sense in the light of her traumatic past.
With the help of a counsellor, she is now finding out who she really is, embracing her past rather than running from it and experiencing the joy of discovering her authentic self – the person she was always meant to be.

Her first book, “The Bear, the Bull and The Butterfly” was published in Jan 2025. MJ is now working tirelessly to give a voice to others who may have been silenced or misunderstood following their traumatic experiences, and to help organisations embed trauma informed care into their practices through inspirational talks and consultancy services.

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