Senior Public Health Practitioners

Alex Wood

Senior Public Health Practitioner

Alex is an experienced Public Health Practitioner. Having worked in community development implementing asset-based approaches, she has a passion for empowering communities to help tap into strengths and resources and create positive change.

She has worked across workplace health, healthy schools, and early years. She is skilled at translating evidence into action. Alex got her MSc from Bristol University in 2008 with a distinction. Alex has developed expertise in whole system approaches to physical activity.

Alex is known for her strategic vision, creative problem solving and unwavering commitment to improving population health outcomes.

Recently she has delivered lectures on the Public Health MSc in Cardiff and delivered talks at a number of conferences. She is a passionate advocate for equality.

Helen Griffith

Senior Health Promotion Specialist

Helen joined the team in 2017 as a Public Health Practitioner and became a Senior Public Health Practitioner in 2019, working on Healthy Weight/Healthy Food Environments, Diabetes Prevention and Alcohol Harm Reduction.
Before joining Cardiff and Vale, Helen worked for the Aneurin Bevan Local Public Health Team, supporting the rollout of the Living Well Living Longer Health Check Programme. Prior to this Helen was a Health and Wellbeing Officer with the Communities First Team at Caerphilly County Borough Council. 
Helen has a BSc in Sport Development and experience of working in the coaching and fitness industry, which gradually led to taking more of an interest in nutrition and weight management and its impact of health. Helen completed an MSc in Leading Digital Transformation in March 2025, with a keen interest in using the advances in technology to enhance ways of working and provide the best healthcare.

Laura Wilson

Senior Health Promotion Specialist

Laura has been a member of Cardiff and Vale Public Health Team since 2013, working on a variety of topics including sexual health, physical activity and alcohol. 
Her current role has a focus on tobacco control, falls prevention and childhood immunisation. Laura is also on secondment working with Cardiff and Vale UHB Patient Safety Team to develop the Community Falls Pathway and co-produce community courses to enable residents to age well and reduce their risk of falls. 
Prior to joining the Public Health Team Laura worked in the third sector with roles in substance misuse services and as a health promotion coordinator for a Breast Cancer Charity.

Kim Wilyman

Senior Health Promotion Specialist

Kim joined the Public Health team in 2022 as a Public Health Practitioner working in the Vale of Glamorgan Healthy Schools team. In 2024 Kim started as a Specialist Practitioner leading the Vale Healthy and Sustainable Healthy Schools Scheme and the Vale Healthy Schools team. 
She has worked in the NHS for over 17 years, working initially as an adult nurse, and after completing a postgraduate diploma in Specialist Community Public Health Nursing she worked as a Health Visitor in Cardiff for 10 years.

Gillian Morse

Senior Public Health Practitioner
Gillian has a BSC (Hons) in Environmental Health and is a practising Environmental Health Officer, currently specialising in Health Protection. She has worked in Local Government for over 20 years, in a variety of officer and senior roles. 
Gillian has experience of practice within various disciplines of environmental health including food safety, communicable disease, health & safety and housing. Gillian took up a part-time role with the Local Public Health Team in July 2024, having completed a Masters in Public Health from Cardiff University in March 2024.
 

Kate Roberts

Senior Public Health Practitioner
Kate has worked in numerous public health roles in Wales and England. She started her career working with families with young children in Sure Start areas in England and after completing her degree in Health and Community Development worked both in the third sector and local public health teams on health improvement projects. 
She completed her MSc in Public Health in 2014 after submitting her dissertation of a qualitative research project on young children and perceptions around oral healthcare. She joined the Cardiff and Vale Public Health team in 2018 and now works on a range of topics including elements of the Good Food and Movement plan, alcohol and Making Every Contact Count.

Martha Powell

Senior Public Health Practitioner

Martha started her career in public health when she joined the team as a Substance Misuse Specialist Practitioner in June 2015 as a member of the unique multidisciplinary Substance Misuse Education Team, Switched On. 

Over the years she has worked alongside the local populations in Cardiff and the Vale of Glamorgan on several different health and wellbeing topic areas including alcohol, immunisation, falls prevention, physical activity and MECC.
She is passionate about making a difference to people’s lives, improving health and wellbeing outcomes for all to enable them to be the best they can be.

Since August 2022, Martha has been working more specifically on building up the Whole Systems Approach to Healthy Weight work, aligning our local Good Food and Movement Framework approach to the national strategic approach, Healthy Weight Healthy Wales. 
Martha has a Psychology BSc and a Health Psychology MSc, and has also gone on to complete the UKPHR portfolio which saw her become a registered Public Health Practitioner in September 2021.

In October 2023, Martha won the UKPHR award for Improving Public Health Practice in Reducing Health Inequalities, through the collaborative work on the movement animation project QuickChange.