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New Year Honours for Catz alumni

Friday 31 January 2025

 

The St Catharine’s community is proud of the inclusion of three alumni in the King’s New Year Honours list:

  • Janet Grauberg (1985, Geography) was appointed Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) for services to the community in North London and to Education;
  • Graeme Groom FRCS (1969, Natural Sciences) was appointed Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) for services to International Disaster and Emergency Aid; and
  • Steve Mallen (1984, Geography) was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to Mental Health and Suicide Prevention.

Sir John Benger (1979, English), Master of St Catharine’s, commented: 

“The New Year Honours list recognises the achievements and service of extraordinary people across the UK. On behalf of the St Catharine’s community, I want to thank and commend Janet, Graeme and Steve for their years of public service. I am in awe of their resolve and the extraordinary ways they have all dedicated themselves to the service of others.”

Janet Grauberg OBE MA

Janet’s career has included leadership roles as Deputy Director in the Department for Education and Director of Strategy and Policy at Barnardo’s, and she is now a senior organisational learning consultant focusing on best practice and innovation in children’s services. She has also given more than 20 years of voluntary service to her community, most notably as an elected Liberal Democrat councillor for Kilburn ward in the London Borough of Camden (including two years as the Lead Member for Children and Young People), vice chair of governors at H3 Federation overseeing three schools in North London, founder of the West Hampstead Community Food Hub and chair of West Hampstead Amenity and Transport.

Janet said, “I have found it surprisingly validating to have this recognition, and it really belongs to everyone I volunteer with in my community of West Hampstead and who I served with as a school governor over the last six years. I’ve been a volunteer all my adult life, including helping to run a youth group while I was a student at St Catharine’s, and I have always got much more out of it than I put in. I would really encourage anyone with a spare bit of time to get involved somehow in their local community.”

Janet Grauberg
Janet fundraising for the West Hampstead Community Food Hub at the local Christmas Market in December 2023.

Graeme Groom CMG MA FRCS 

A consultant orthopaedic surgeon at King’s College Hospital (KCH) in London, Graeme has served as co-chair and volunteer surgeon for IDEALS (International Disaster & Emergency Aid with Long-term Support) and as founder and now deputy chair of Rebuild (a charity that supports the recovery and rehabilitation of the patients of KCH’s Limb Reconstruction Unit). Alongside his invaluable role helping limb reconstruction patients in the UK with Rebuild, Graeme’s work with IDEALS has seen him provide systematic training of doctors and perform trauma surgery and limb reconstruction in conflict areas for the past 20 years. In Gaza alone, he has visited over 40 times over the last decade, giving much needed support to local hospitals.  

Graeme said, “It is mortifying to be granted an individual reward for a collective effort – and IDEALS exists because of the collective rather than the individual. There is no doubt that IDEALS punches well above its weight and that its impact is much, much greater than the sum of its parts. All we do is collective. Since 2009, our group of extraordinary volunteers has brought hope and relief to some of the most disregarded, disparaged, deprived, dispossessed, and attacked people in the world. And we stick at it. 'Long-term support' is the key message from our acronym. This reward is an honour for me, but it is solely because of IDEALS and it is for the fellowship of this wonderful group that I am truly grateful.”

“A former Master of Catz has been part of this project from the beginning: Sir Terence English KBE DL FRSM (Honorary Fellow 1992), with IDEALS’ founder and long-standing chair John Beavis, brought the project to Gaza in 2009 and has been with us until last year when he resigned as a trustee. Although he is now in his 90s, his last visit to Gaza was in December 2022.”

Graeme Groom
Graeme in December 2023 at the European Gaza Hospital in Khan Younis in southern Gaza.

Steve Mallen CBE MA

Steve Mallen has been honoured for services to mental health and suicide prevention following the tragic loss of his 18-year-old son, Edward, in 2015. Edward was Head Boy at both his primary and secondary schools and had been offered a place to study Geography at the University of Cambridge, following in his father’s footsteps.

Steve co-founded the Zero Suicide Alliance (ZSA) in 2018. The ZSA now has a membership base of approximately 900 organisations and 3,500 individuals. The free online suicide prevention training modules developed by the ZSA have been accessed by 2.8 million people and the data and suicide prevention tools offered by the ZSA, which started life as an informal collaborative, are now underwritten by the NHS as a national resource.

Steve is also a member of the Government’s National Suicide Prevention Strategy Advisory Group (NSPSAG) and was one of a number of experts by experience involved in formulating the 2023 National Suicide Prevention Strategy.  He has also advised on the NHS Long Term Plan and is or has been a member of various Expert Reference Groups in the Department of Health & Social Care, the Department of Education and the Ministry of Justice. Invited to present evidence to the Health Select Committee on a number of occasions, Steve has also been a Governor and adviser at Cambridgeshire & Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate in Health Science from Anglia Ruskin University in 2021.

The MindEd Trust was created by Steve in his son’s memory and the Trust made a substantial donation to Cambridge University in 2023 to fund a 3–5-year programme of research initiatives and innovations aimed at reducing mental ill health and suicide in young people.

Steve said, “Whilst it is inevitably pleasing to have one’s efforts recognised, this award is of course overshadowed by the tragic loss of my dear son. I dedicate this honour to him. It is the very least he would have expected of me, the very least I can do in his memory and the very least he and countless others so needlessly lost to suicide deserve.

“I would also like to take this opportunity to offer a formal and sincere thank you to the Master, Fellows and staff of the College for their kindness and support in the aftermath of my family’s tragedy.”

Steve Mallen
Steve Mallen