TREASURER
Bostjan
Bostjan Mocnik is a Treasurer of the CACE / CAOD. He holds BA with Hons degree in Business Studies (specialised in Public Sector). He has a wide range of professional experience in accountancy, administration, bookkeeping, business, economics and management in healthcare, finance, public and private sector. He is working on his master’s dissertation and when completed he will hold MA degree in Business and Economic Studies (specialised in Management and Economics in Healthcare).
TRUSTEES
Victoria
Victoria is the Co-Founder of Impact Lawyers, a Legal and Business Services Firm which provides a range of complimentary legal and non-legal business services. She is an experienced employment lawyer, a Level 7 CIPD-qualified HR professional, accredited external workplace investigator, practising coach and a non-executive director. Her career started as an operational manager and officer in the Royal Air Force (RAF), then combining her operational and legal experience to deliver practical, common-sense, and legally sound advice, always from a human perspective. Victoria is also an author, speaker, trainer and coach in the field of human performance. As well as volunteering as a Trustee with us, Victoria is an ambassador for Bigmoose (a charity which support people with mental health challenges) and a NED with other not-for profit and corporate organisations.
Denzil
Rev. Denzil John was a Baptist and Congregationalist minister for 49 years, who retired from the pastorate at Tabernacl, the Hayes Cardiff in 2021, having served 30 years there. He has been involved on Christian Citizenship committees of the Baptist Union of Wales and also chaired the CYTÛN Board of Christian Citizenship. He also served on the Christian Aid national panel in Wales, and served on the Council of Alcohol and other Drugs Board as trustee, and served as chair since the beginning of the century. He has many interests and is keen to promote every opportunity to put his faith into action.
Colin
I am a Trustee of the Council on Alcohol and other Drugs (COAD): The Charity for Addiction, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE). I am also Vice Chair of the Committee and Current Lead Officer for Safeguarding (Adults and Children). I was appointed as a Trustee in 2023. My association with CAOD started when my wife started using the Living Room Cardiff, to help her recover from her addiction to alcohol. She started attending the Living Room March 2015 after she had a devastating hemorrhage from her esophageal varices which had developed due to cirrhosis of her liver. After fifteen years of drinking too much alcohol, it had finally taken its grip. We had tried so many ways to help her. It had to come from her, and it did: she is now 10 years sober and with daily help and support from the loving, compassionate, non-judgmental team at the Living Room she continues to be sober. Our family are so grateful. I have spent 40 years in health care, mainly in the NHS, as an Academic General Pediatrician and so have much experience in safeguarding, children’s developmental and common childhood diseases and mental health conditions. I am very much aware of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and the psychosocial effects of addiction within the family (professionally and personally). I am keen to support the Living Room and CAOD (CARE) as this charity has made such a difference to my wife and my family. I want to help to make sure the charity continues to develop, strengthen and grow, so these services continue to be available to other families who have been haunted by addiction.
Philip
Philip Mytton MBA. Recently qualified Registered Mental Health Nurse with previous experience within commercial lending field. Passionate about helping people recover from addiction and transform their lives.
Reverend Ifan Rhisart Roberts
A retired minister who served in four Presbyterian Church of Wales’ pastorates in various parts of Wales. He also served as General Secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Wales for seven years. He is currently Chair of the CYNNAL Advisory Panel.
Darren
Dr Darren James, Consultant Clinical Psychologist, Europe Accredited EMDR Consultant Supervisor, Cwm Taf Morganwg University Health Board. Darren is a consultant clinical psychologist and a Europe accredited EMDR Consultant supervisor and is currently working in Acute Mental health in CTM. He has been involved in adult psychology in various forms for the past 31 years. He first trained as a research psychologist, completing a PhD in the psychology of addiction in the 90’s and a post-doctoral fellowship at St George’s hospital Medical school London and Swansea Clinical School in the early 2000’s. He published widely in several scientific journals before beginning his clinical training in 2004 at Cardiff university. Since qualifying as a clinical psychologist Darren has worked in a range of settings including medium-secure forensics, high-risk eating disorders, CMHT’s, Early intervention Psychosis and inpatient, crisis and mental health liaison teams. Darren has a broad array of therapeutic modalities including Motivational interviewing, CBT, DBT, CFT, OD, EMDR and AI-EMDR. He has a special interest in working with trauma and dissociative disorders, addictions and psychosis. He is a founder, committee member of the EMDR UK dissociation Special interest Group and an EMDR facilitator for Mirabilis Healthcare (Ireland) and regularly provides CPD, teaching and training on working with psychosis and schizophrenia on a national and European level.
Arwel
Arwel was until recently the Vice Chair of the University of Wales and Chair of Social Care Wales. The founding director of Cambrensis Communications he was also CEO of S4C, Head of Programmes BBC Northern Ireland and Editor News and Current Affairs BBC Cymru Wales. A Churchill Trust Fellow, a Guardian Research Fellow at Nuffield College Oxford and a Fellow of the University of Aberystwyth. Awarded an OBE in 2016 for service to the Care sector.
PATRON
Megan Jones
England Red Roses #204, Leicester Tigers and Team GB rugby player Silver medallist Rugby World Cup 2017 Bronze Commonwealth Games medallist Gold Coast 2018 Co-Captain at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games Paris Olympic Games 2024 PWR Premiership Player of the season 2023/24 Six Nations champions 2023/24 Why? On Thursday the 5th of December 2024 I lost my beautiful mum, Paula. She was the type of character who would give everything and anything to those that needed it, worked in the NHS her whole life (40 years) helping others, mischievous and a slight-rule breaker, mum was extremely witty and probably one of the smartest in the room. For 20 years my mum suffered with alcohol dependency, but I never quite understood it, and I still don’t really. I look back on my childhood thinking my mum had a choice, but quite frankly she didn’t. She wasn’t a bad person wanting to be a good person, she was ill and needed help. Help that did not seem to be as apparent as just going to the doctors. Proud, loyal and stubborn I don’t think she quite realised all the good she brought to this crazy fast-paced world. However, I knew how important she was and that’s where my attention to understanding this illness grew, I started to empathise with her and tried to intervene looking for as much support as I possibly could. Two things happened; I realised drug and addiction was at the bottom of the pile for health services and however motivated I was about getting mum better it didn’t matter unless she wanted the help and wanted to stop herself. So, it brings me here, the Living Room (and Wyn) was the only time I felt real hope in getting mum better, but it was too late into the turmoil my mum was already going through. I carry anger, frustration, sadness at how little help there is out there because my mum wanted the help, it just didn’t have the energy and attention is deserved for her to get better. I want to help change that. To change society's perception of addiction and it not being as simple as choosing not to drink. To help those that see no hope and show others that we can help even in the darkest of times. We speak about legacy a lot in sport and there is nothing more I would love than to continue my mum's work of helping others for a cause that is so prevalent and that needs more awareness. A testament to my mum, Paula, and the work she would have been doing if she was still alive.
Professor Ilora Baroness Finlay of Llandaff
Professor Ilora Baroness Finlay of Llandaff is an independent Crossbench Peer in the House of Lords, and a Deputy Speaker. She chairs the Commission on Alcohol Harms and The Bevan Commission in Wales. She established the 2025 Commission on Palliative and End of Life Care. She was a Member of the House of Lords Select Committee on the Assisted Dying Bill and established Living & Dying Well, a think-tank around end-of-life issues. The Ministry of Justice appointed her to set up and lead the National Mental Capacity Forum 2015-2022, which ran fast track webinars during Covid as different problems emerged. At Cardiff University, where she holds an Honorary Professorship, she established the Palliative Care Diploma/MSc and led Palliative Care service development. At the Velindre Cancer Centre she integrated palliative care with cancer services, has taught and lectured widely and has over 240 papers in peer-reviewed journals. She is President of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, a past-President of the Royal Society of Medicine, BMA, Medical Women’s Federation and the Association for Palliative Medicine, and Vice-President of several charities, including City Hospice, Hospice UK and Marie Curie. She has pushed legislation on many health issues, securing the Chief Coroner, banning smoking in public places, ensuring that the Health and Care Act now includes palliative care as a core NHS service and that high-street cosmetic procedures become regulated. She chaired the Select Committee of Science and Technology inquiry into Allergy. She has co-chaired several All-Party Parliamentary Groups and been actively involved in the Online Safety Act, support to victims of crime and compensation for victims of contaminated blood. She was a member of the House of Lords Special Inquiry Committee on the Integration of Primary and Community Care. She was Vice-chair of NICE’s ME/CFS guideline, chaired the CO Research Trust and was a member of The Times Commission on Health and Social Care.
Lleuwen Steffan
Lleuwen Steffan is a singer / songwriter, composer and producer from Rhiwlas in the Ogwen Valley. She composes and produces music for drama for both stage, screen and radio. She is currently working on a stage production using audio archive of forgotten Welsh folk hymns that she came across in the the National Folk Museum of Wales, reintroducing the music to the Welsh audience. She toured 50 Welsh chapels in 2024 and collected and recorded more forgotten hymns that were given to her by audience members. Now living in Brittany, she won the Liet International award for best song for her Breton song Ar Gouloù Bev and her song Bendigeidfran was also awarded best original song at the inaugursl Welsh Folk Music Awards. Lleuwen is an active member of the Global Network of Female Producers and her work as a singer has taken her to Malaysia, Mexico, Europe, USA and India. She is proud to be a patron of the Living Room, Cardiff.
OUR CEO
Wynford
After a 40-year career in theatre and television as an actor, screenwriter and director – he was responsible for creating the iconic characters, Sir Wynff and Plwmsan and the comedy series that introduced us to the eccentric characters of Llanllewyn in, Porc Peis Bach to S4C – Wynford returned to college to qualify as a therapist in 2006. Shortly afterwards he was appointed chief executive of the Welsh Council on Alcohol and other Drugs. That led, in 2011, to the establishment of Living Room Cardiff, the renowned community centre that offers treatment, support and aftercare to people suffering from all sorts of addictions and other harmful behaviours, and their families. He retired from that post in 2017, and immediately became employed as a Specialist Counselling Consultant to CAIS, the parent company of the Living Room, in order to extend the service to other parts of Wales and look after certain initiatives such as Cynnal, the counselling service for clergy, ministers of religion, Christian workers, and their families; Beating the Odds, the service for excessive gamblers; and Enfys, the service for Doctors and other medical workers. He also leads all the Living Room retreats. When CAIS and two other charities merged to form Adferiad Recovery in 2021, he continued to look after Cynnal, Enfys – and, later, the Living Room, which had by then moved to another part of Cardiff. He believes that addiction is a spiritual illness that demands a spiritual solution. Looking forward to celebrating 33 years of sobriety this summer, he said, "In order to change the nature of things, I had to change not the events, but those thoughts that created the events in the first place." He is the author of three books to date, and numerous stage and radio plays, and a Churchill Trust Fellow. He also won the IWA and Western Mail Inspire Wales Award in 2014, and is a regular columnist for GOLWG, the weekly magazine. He is married to Meira, the heroine of his autobiography, Raslas bach a mawr! (Gomer, 2004); father of Bethan and Rwth; and a very proud grandfather to Begw, Efa, Bobi, Jac and Jesi Iris. He now returns to the Council on Alcohol and Other Drugs, where he began his counselling career, to lead the Living Room, Cynnal, and the revolutionary, new Online initiative, A Place To Live, to extend these services, not just to the whole of Wales, but to the World, and in every language.