‘My goal is to obliterate child vulnerability,’ says SA-born MBE

When Johannesburg-born Professor Lorraine Sherr saw a letter in her post box in England, she thought it would be of no significance. However, it turned out to be an official letter from Buckingham Palace.

“I felt disbelief, as if they had got the wrong person,” she told the SA Jewish Report this week.

The letter informed Sherr, a professor in the medical school at University College London, that she had been named as a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in Queen Elizabeth II’s New Year Honours List for 2021. The award was for her services to vulnerable children and families.

On 25 January 2022, Sherr attended the award ceremony at Windsor Castle, where she received her MBE medal from Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge.

“It was beautiful to be invited to the castle and to go and sit among the wonderful paintings,” says Sherr.

The Queen wasn’t in attendance. “The day before, our headlines in our newspapers were about the Queen getting into her helicopter and leaving Windsor for Balmoral Castle because she knew I was coming,” Sherr jokes with a chuckle.

She described Prince William as “a remarkable person who knew about my work and asked about it”.

“I was able to tell him about my current work, which looks at the huge impact of COVID-19 on children experiencing orphanhood across the world. He had no idea of the figures.”

Sherr grew up in South Africa, attending Cyrildene Primary School and Athlone Girls High School.

“I wonder if I’m the only Athlone graduate with an MBE, or will there be many more to come?” she asks.

Having studied psychology at the University of Warwick in Coventry with a PhD on the importance of communication in healthcare, Sherr has been at University College London for the past 30 years.

“I teach medical students about the importance of mental health and ensure that tomorrow’s doctors understand that physical health goes hand in hand with mental health,” she says. “My research is linked to vulnerable children and families.”

Sherr has a wide portfolio of academic research and is published nationally and internationally. She has a long record of research conducted in Africa looking at vulnerabilities such as HIV, COVID-19, poverty, teen pregnancy, mental health, and adversity.

“I have numerous projects in South Africa,” she says. “One to One implements my learning through play in the Bright Start Programme in the Cape. And I have evaluated Mad About Art, an art therapy programme in Knysna. We use art therapy to support the mental health of children and families affected by HIV.”

Sherr is working with a study group on teen pregnancy in Cape Town which focuses specifically on mental health and HIV. “We’re looking at the effects of teen pregnancy in the presence of HIV in a teenage mom compared to teen moms without HIV,” she says. “Of course, you look at the layer of vulnerabilities, trying to provide interventions.”

She’s also involved with a Global Challenges Research Fund hub looking at evidence to accelerate achievements for adolescents in Africa. She’s doing this jointly with South African-born Professor Lucie Cluver, the youngest female professor at Oxford University.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Sherr helped put together COVID-19 parenting tips, reaching more than 134 million users. She undertook this as part of the United Kingdom Research and Innovation Global Challenges Research Fund team.

“The urgency of the need struck us and overnight, we were able to gather together a global team,” she says. “We used sound evidence-based interventions to inform the tips. They were picked up globally on virtual platforms, through radio, and even governments who distributed the tips with food parcels. Our evaluation now suggests that more than 200 million people have been reached.”

Sherr will feel satisfied that her work is complete only when she obliterates vulnerability.

Asked how she plans to accomplish this, she says, “Governments need to pay attention. I started out looking at vulnerability linked to health conditions, and my expertise is mental health. But I was looking at a combination of vulnerabilities – you know, when a child has layers upon layers of shocks and traumas. We are now working on a five-year project called the Accelerate Hub, in which we are showing how combinations of interventions can boost the effects. We’re trying to give guidance to governments about how to cluster pensioners.”

She says her Jewish identity has been part of everything she has done. “My earliest values came through the Jewish youth movement in South Africa where you had opportunities to explore and express your political and moral ideas. You take your Jewishness with you. Some of our best ideas came through on Shabbat and in informal meetings.

“You never leave South Africa, you just go away,” says Sherr. “I come back frequently. Almost all my research is either in South Africa or Africa. I travel all over Africa to the most desperate and desolate of places.”

Besides receiving an MBE, a highlight for Sherr is that her career has allowed her “to champion a set of Jewish values on the importance of life, family, and happiness”.

Looking to the future, she would like governments and policymakers to respond quickly and competently to the vulnerabilities facing children across the world.

“More children have experienced orphanhood from COVID-19 than there have been deaths,” she says. “The deaths have concentrated global attention, yet the plight and needs of children are pushed aside. I will continue to rally attention and evidence to get children and families at the centre of programming.”