I am a Child Psychologist, trainer, practitioner, academic and author who specialises in well-being, welfare and mental health issues. I have been training staff who work with children for many years. My courses focus on evidence and practice-based foundations of understanding, managing and applying interventions for various mental health and behavioural issues. I train staff in multiple settings. My approach is using the whole school/community/workplace approach and creating shared understanding of issues and interventions that as a whole help to support far more effectively throughout staff approaches. Adapting to, and adopting, appropriate language and communication aimed at empowering understanding and increasing intervention success forms a large part of my training courses.
An example of areas and topics that I cover include managing: ASD; Eating Disorders, Stress and anxiety; Self-harm and suicide; Mental Health; Girl Bullying; Attachment; Resilience; plus all other related topics and issues. For the foreseeable future ‘norm’, all of my courses will be delivered on-line over one or two mornings.
I also work directly with children and families as a practitioner. I worked in clinical assessment and diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder Conditions before moving out of clinical and into behavioural. As a researcher, I focus on qualitative research and have worked for many leading children’s charities it the UK; where the remit is hearing the voices of young people in policy and practice. As an author I write for magazines, academic journals and universities. My book ‘Girl Bullying: Do I Look Bothered’ has sold well to schools and families in the UK and US.
I often write bespoke courses that are requested and also give Key Note speeches.
‘How have you taken care of your own mental health and wellbeing since the start of the Covid-19 Coronavirus pandemic?’
The main point for me is that I have trained throughout the pandemic, which has made me read all of the research that I can access from a science perspective, as opposed to be driven by the media response. This has fed into my courses as I adapted all of them for on-line delivery with a strong element of the relevance of the impact of COVID on all areas that I train in. This helps my delegates and myself to see that there is a way forward that allows us all to feel an element of control, rather than disempowerment, from the power of the pandemic. I always believe that if we look toward what we can do to gain some control, as opposed to what have lost, we find the way forward. My new saying now is ‘what is the norm for the next couple of months if all goes well, and what is the plan if there is a major change?’ In short, stop looking for the old norm and manage a new norm in small chunks of time. That way we have achievable goals rather than dreams of once upon a time.
‘How do you want to change the world?’
I wouldn’t, it’s too big a task to contemplate, and those kinds of tasks always cause too much stress. I would look at how I manage my world, the world in which I live and function in a micro level. For example, how can I make an positive impact with those I love and work with? For me, if we all did that, the world would benefit on a macro level.