Sandra Peake

Dr. Sandra Peake is a nurse by background. She trained in the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast and worked in the surgical and theatre directorates.

In 1995, Sandra was appointed CEO of WAVE Trauma Centre, a small voluntary group established in 1991, and was the organisation’s first paid employee.

Sandra has driven WAVE’s growth, from its humble origins to its position today as the only regional NGO working across the communities in Northern Ireland delivering therapeutic
and support services without distinction to those bereaved or injured as a result of the Troubles/ Conflict. WAVE also provides access to therapeutic services outside Northern
Ireland; across Ireland, Great Britain and to those who were directly impacted by the Northern Ireland Conflict living worldwide particularly in New Zealand, Canada and the
United States.

Sandra has established WAVE as an extensive service and trauma education delivery provider.  The team at WAVE delivers services to over 3,500 people per year. Last year just
over 1200 new referrals were received into WAVE  from individuals with the youngest just  4 years of age and the eldest, 96. Transgenerational trauma continues to present in referrals in respect of children and young people.

Sandra has also developed a specialist Trauma Education team at WAVE, delivering accredited trauma education programmes at undergraduate and post graduate level in
partnership with Queen’s University, Belfast and University College Cork.  A key component of trauma education is a Citizen Education programme. This innovative programme is led by individuals who were bereaved or injured in the Conflict. Using their lived experience as source material, they deliver trauma education programmes to student nurses, medical students, social workers, lawyers, counsellors and psychologists. The impact of this training has been immeasurable and requests for this service user engagement continues to grow.

Since 1995 Sandra has worked with the families of those whose loved ones were Disappeared during the Conflict. She works directly with the joint British and Irish Government sponsored Independent Commission for the Location of Victims’ Remains (ICLVR) who search for the bodies of those abducted.

Sandra completed a BSc Hons in Professional Development in Nursing at Ulster University, followed by an MSc in Nursing  at Queen’s University. Sandra was awarded a PhD at
University College Cork for her thesis on the disappeared entitled ‘No Ordinary Death: The Disappeared of Northern Ireland’s Conflict’, graduating in October 2022. She has recently been appointed as an Honorary Professor of Practice at Queen’s.