Our grandmother, Faith Spicer, who has died aged 95, qualified as a doctor in 1944 from University College London and became a psychiatrist, embarking on a career developing support services for adolescents. Until 1967, she worked in London as medical director at the Brook Advisory Centre, following a period at the Marie Stopes Clinic, and promoted the sexual and emotional health of young people through her work with Brook and beyond.
Faith, a twin, was the youngest of nine children – eight daughters and a son – of the Rev Montague Gifford James and his wife, Violet (nee Piggot). She grew up in Buckinghamshire and at the age of 22 married a fellow doctor, Clive Spicer; they had three children, Jane, Mary and David.
Talking about the 1950s and early 60s, Faith said: “Young people did not find it easy to turn to family doctors, believing perhaps that their confidences would be betrayed to parents. The behaviour patterns of young people changed rapidly… [It was] clear that something should be done to help young people at this critical time to prevent catastrophes.”
She campaigned and was a charismatic speaker and fundraiser for her cause. With funding from benefactors, in 1969 she founded the London Youth Advisory Centre, now the Brandon Centre, providing counselling and psychotherapy for young people and their families in very complex situations. She recognised the need for a service that allowed young women time to talk through the emotional issues that accompanied requests for contraception. Faith published papers on the role of the Brook Advisory Centre; adolescent psychotherapy; and youth, sex and maturity; and wrote the book Sex and the Love Relationship (1972). In 1977 she was made OBE.
She retired at the age of 65, but continued to work with young people, at the Anna Freud Centre in London, and as a consultant to the Cotswold Community, a therapeutic community for children from complex backgrounds. Its former director, John Whitwell, reported that she “advised the community on their most complex cases and children they were ‘stuck’ with”. She wrote a paper on the importance of food in therapeutic communities which is still valuable today. She also served as chair of a juvenile magistrates’ court and as a member of the British Board of Film Classification; in 1989 she was on the BBFC committee that banned the video Visions of Ecstasy.
Faith’s first marriage ended in divorce. In 1986, she married Tony Estill; he died in 2002. She is survived by her children, five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
