15 years working alongside families through difficult times

I am a qualifying-level systemic and family psychotherapist, currently completing my MSc at the Institute of Family Therapy — one of the UK's leading training institutions for systemic practice. My training includes over 300 hours of live clinical supervision with families.

Before training as a psychotherapist, I spent over fifteen years working with families affected by substance use across the voluntary sector and NHS. I've worked at Change Grow Live, The Forward Trust, Turning Point, VIA, and Cranstoun Drug Services — roles that taught me what families actually need, which is often very different from what services assume.

I co-created and delivered recognised family programmes including M-PACT (Moving Parents and Children Together), Relationships Matter, and Recovering Families — working with families, couples, and children affected by someone else's substance use.

My research explores how hope is experienced and sustained by families affected by addiction — not as an abstract feeling, but as something actively done within relationships. This idea — that hope is relational, practical, and can be held by others when you can't hold it yourself — runs through everything I do.