Register data proves facts — names, roles, filings — not wrongdoing. The affiliations below are drawn from the public register and public reporting. Their presence here is context for donors and referrers, not an accusation against any individual.
Tim Baker
Hawke’s Bay/Gisborne businessman; founded KFG at 31 after publicly disclosing drug addiction, depression and recovery (NZ Herald/Hawke’s Bay Today, Nov 2019); previously internationally known for selling Donald Trump-themed toilet paper in the UK (50,000 rolls; he has said he was “high on drugs” during that venture). Departed the trustee board in September 2023 but remains National Director and the site’s most prolific author — his byline is on the SSRI surge, Study 329, gender-surgery, toxoplasma, pornography, antibiotics, Kingston, Rucklidge, Epstein, recovery-houses and Horowitz articles. In January 2024 he announced the anti-medication documentary One Last Story (“it will really shock people”) and a debt-collector legal initiative, and has described “instances of misinformation” about the charity and an impersonation incident involving fake collectors.
Dr Robin Youngson
Mainstream record (genuine): MA MBChB FANZCA; NZ Quality Improvement Committee founding member; WHO International Steering Committee (patient safety); honourary senior lecturer, Auckland; co-founder of Hearts in Healthcare (15 countries); TIME TO CARE author; NZMA Chair’s Award 2016; TEDx speaker. The pivot: full-time Raglan “trauma therapist and trainer”; Certified Havening Practitioner/Trainer; founder of “Somatic Compassion”; October 2024 memoir The Science of Miracles. Pre-board authorship: he wrote KFG’s November 2022 vaccine-mandate article (“state-sanctioned abuse”) — his editorial relationship with the charity predates his board appointment by nearly three years. Entanglement: KFG endorsed Somatic Compassion, produced the Science of Healing short film and sponsored The Miracle in Raglan documentary promoting his practice — a registered charity spending charitable resources promoting its own chairman’s commercial, unevidenced therapy: a straightforward conflict of interest.
Mike Ferriss
Church of Scientology member since 1980 and its long-standing NZ spokesperson (NZ Herald, RNZ). Certification Officer, Church of Scientology of NZ Inc (CC27252) — itself a registered charity. Director of CCHR NZ — co-founded by the Church of Scientology in 1969; its submissions call psychiatry “a pseudoscience,” seek to ban antidepressants for under-18s and freeze mental-health funding (Abuse in Care Royal Commission). Fairness note: CCHR NZ’s Lake Alice advocacy was genuine and nationally recognised (2025 Kiwibank Community of the Year, via The Post). The structural problem is doctrinal: a senior anti-psychiatry figure on the board of a suicide-prevention charity already publishing anti-antidepressant content.
Contributors & programme names of note
Richard Vernall — author of Running on Empty: Antidepressants and Youth Suicide (promoted by KFG, endorsed by Julia Rucklidge) and of KFG’s May 2025 “more than pills and protocols” essay. Paris Williams — psychologist, author of Rethinking Madness (endorsed by Robert Whitaker/Mad in America circles); authored KFG’s “The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse.” Rebekah Barnett — Australian writer (Spectator Australia; prominent anti-mandate commentator); authored KFG’s antidepressant-withdrawal account. Julia Rucklidge — Professor of clinical psychology, University of Canterbury; legitimate researcher whose micronutrient work KFG profiles and who endorsed Vernall’s book. No indication she endorses KFG itself. Scott Townsend — Hero’s Journey Project Coordinator. Karen Hart, Tracy Livingston-Pooley, Tukiri Awa — officers; no public red flags found. Former officers departed en masse 2023–2025 — a complete board refresh around the relaunch and again around the Youngson/Ferriss era.
Adjacent people
Not Kiwis For Good — but central to the story. These individuals are not officers or staff of the charity; their names, work or stories recur across its site. Profiles are deliberately neutral: inclusion here is context, not accusation.
Dr Julia Rucklidge
A legitimate, published researcher into micronutrients and mental health whose RCTs are real (modest effects, mixed replication) and who explicitly cautions that micronutrients are not cures. KFG profiles her work as a “revolution” (Claim 40) and she endorsed Richard Vernall’s anti-antidepressant book. There is no indication she endorses KFG itself, its programmes, or its board; her inclusion on the site lends mainstream academic credibility to the anti-medication editorial line by association.
Richard Vernall
Founder of supported-employment agency Poly-Emp (1993); not a clinician or researcher. Author of Running on Empty: Antidepressants and Youth Suicide (2021), which argues youth antidepressant prescribing has failed to reduce suicide. Published a companion piece on Mad in America and writes for Daily Telegraph NZ. KFG reviewed his book glowingly (Claim 30) and published his “more than pills and protocols” essay (May 2025).
Dr Paris Williams
US-trained clinical psychologist (PhD Saybrook University), practised in NZ 2013–c.2023. Author of Rethinking Madness (2012, self-published imprint), a fixture of the Mad in America ecosystem; associated with ISEPP, an anti-psychiatry organisation. Now sells “Mindful-Somatic Approaches to Trauma Therapy” certification trainings. Authored KFG’s “The drugs don’t work, they just make you worse” (Claim 27) — effectively a book/training promotion.
Rebekah Barnett
Runs the Substack “Dystopian Down Under,” reports for Daily Telegraph NZ, and is a volunteer interviewer for Jab Injuries Australia (a vaccine-injury claims organisation). Her antidepressant-withdrawal account (Claim 32) was syndicated to KFG from her own posts. Genuine experience, activist provenance.
Dr Ronald Ruden
His delta-wave “depotentiation” theory is a hypothesis, not an established finding; the clinical literature remains small, promoter-conducted, and unreplicated. Never mentioned by name in KFG’s governance, but he is the intellectual source of the charity’s flagship promoted therapy (described in the October 2025 “A Kiwi Leading the Way” article as “Dr Ronald Ruden, a medical doctor and neuroscientist”).
Prof Joanna Moncrieff
Lead author of the 2022 serotonin umbrella review that KFG cites repeatedly. Her review is a legitimate scholarly contribution about aetiology — but she is also a prominent figure in critical psychiatry, and her own team objected to interpretations claiming the review showed antidepressants don’t work. KFG’s usage (Claims 15, 22) exceeds and distorts her actual findings.
Dr Mark Horowitz
His personal severe withdrawal experience drove his hyperbolic-tapering research; co-author of The Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines with Prof David Taylor. KFG’s August 2026 article shares his tapering method — and this is one case where the charity’s content is responsible and mainstream. Notably, his work is about safer prescribing and deprescribing within medicine, not about rejecting medication — a distinction the site’s framing blurs.
Helen Fisher
Her hypothesis that romantic love involves low-serotonin states is cited in the Epstein article to support claims about SSRI “emotional blunting.” Speculative evolutionary psychology, cited as clinical evidence.
Kevin Briggs
His Golden Gate Bridge interventions are retold in Vernall’s KFG essay on human connection. Legitimate and moving story; used as scaffolding for the “connection, not medication” thesis.
Meredith Youngson
Dr Youngson’s wife and collaborator in his compassion-work. Mentioned for completeness; no role at KFG found.
Dietrich Jehle
Senior author of the Cureus gender-surgery study featured in Claim 36. Publicly clarified that the study examined associations, not causation — a clarification KFG’s article omits.