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My mum has bipolar. My dad was a recovering alcoholic.' - Leeds City Council chief exec Tom Riordan on why we need to open up about mental illness

Yorkshire Evening Post

2016

Tom Riordan is an English civil servant. He has been Chief Executive of Leeds City Council since August 2010,[1]and spent three months working part-time for the UK government from May 2020 leading the Contain strand within COVID-19 NHS Test and Trace programme, setting out the framework for managing local COVID-19 outbreaks. Tom’s mother was diagnosed as bipolar as a teenager and while she enjoyed periods of good health she sometimes struggled with raising two young children. Coupled with this his father was fighting alcoholism and depression. Tom was just two weeks old when he and his older brother were placed with foster carers for the first time. As a toddler he and his older brother spent time in care another three times. He only find this out when told as an adult.

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