​​​​I grew up as a highly sensitive child with undiagnosed ADHD, struggling in a world that often misunderstood overwhelm, intensity, emotion, dissociation and difference.  Like many young people I work with today, my struggles were not recognised for what they were beneath the surface. I lacked anyone making sense of my world.

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In addition, losing my mother during the most formative years in my life profoundly shaped my understanding of grief, survival, and the hidden ways trauma lives within the nervous system.
 

Later, during one of the most traumatic periods of my life, I became frustrated with systems that offered only diagnosis, medication, or talk therapy, but little practical support for how to actually heal trauma held within the body and nervous system.

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Discovering trauma therapy in London in 2003 changed everything. For the first time, I experienced what safety, regulation, and nervous system healing truly felt like. It restored autonomy, connection, and hope  - and transformed not only my personal life, but the way I understood human behaviour, distress, and recovery.

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That lived experience became the foundation of my work.

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In 2013, I founded Teenage Toolbox after recognising that many of the teenagers, families, and vulnerable individuals I worked with in schools, prisons, and communities had little access to integrative, trauma-responsive care that genuinely worked.

 

For over 35 years, I have worked across schools, prisons, private practice, and community settings in the UK, Singapore, Australia, and New Zealand. My early trauma training in maximum-security prisons shaped a lifelong commitment to compassion, restorative justice, nervous system safety, and trauma-informed care.

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Today, my work integrates both professional expertise and lived experience. Clients often say they feel deeply understood because my approach is not purely theoretical - it is experiential, relational, evidence-based, and grounded in real-world healing.

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I integrate interpersonal neurobiology, attachment science, somatic therapies, Polyvagal Theory, Internal Family Systems (IFS), Relational Life Therapy (RLT), Compassionate Inquiry, restorative justice, sensory modulation, and expressive therapies into my work with teenagers, adults, couples, parents, and professionals.

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I am also the author of:

• TAKEN - a personal memoir exploring trauma and healing

• Hate Myself, Hate My Life - a guide supporting teenagers with self-worth, held in over two-thirds of New Zealand secondary school libraries.

 

Today I am privileged to witness - and celebrate - the extraordinary resilience and achievements of not only teenagers, but also the parents, adults, couples and communities I serve.