15 years working alongside families through difficult times

I am a qualified systemic and family psychotherapist. I trained at the Institute of Family Therapy (IFT), one of the UK's leading training institutions for systemic practice, where I completed my MSc in Systemic Psychotherapy. My training included over 300 hours of live clinical supervision with families.

Before training as a psychotherapist, I spent 15 years working with families affected by substance use and additional challenges, in both prison and community settings in the voluntary sector, for local authority, and in the NHS.

I have worked at Change, Grow, Live, Forward Trust, Cranstoun Drug Services, VIA, Turning Point, within Her Majesty's Prison Service and for statutory Children's Services — roles that have provided me with a deep understanding of the difficulties families face and the conditions that help them thrive.

I have also co-created and delivered a range of evidence-informed family support programmes, including Family Ties and Relationships Matter, and have facilitated Family Man and Fathers Inside, alongside the nationally recognised M-PACT (Moving Parents and Children Together), helping families strengthen relationships and navigate the impact of 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.