I am a white, cis, English/British creative conflict practitioner, learning to live with being socialised and racialised with privilege in a colonising country.
I mediate with and skill up people in various kinds of organisations, relationship structures and social settings.
I am learning to understand and transform power relations in the world and strive to facilitate healing from destructive patterns and habits.
I create conditions and spaces for conflict to be journeyed through and grief to be expressed.
My work facilitates clear and transparent interpersonal communication, greater understanding of trauma and the walking towards and holding of conflicts with presence and opening for transformation.
I support people to walk towards the things we most want to avoid; conflict, trauma, grief, loss, fear. We now know that the brain is hardwired to respond to the experience of being accompanied with empathy and resonance and that the limbic alarm system and patterns of reactivity can be changed. It's the accompaniment that's important. We are made to be accompanied. It is so much harder to deal with conflict and heal from trauma alone.
I work to increase space for sharing grief and loss. I help organisations build restorative systems and increase resilience in meeting conflict. I also run bespoke training in Empathy Skills. I am active in Sex-Positive networks to increase an empowered and healing sense of relationship to sexuality. I am a founder member of the Conflict Transformation Weave for the Nonviolent Communication UK network.
Trainings, qualifications and ongoing learning
In 2017, I became a Certified Trainer with the Centre for Nonviolent Communication.
In 2015, I trained in Repairing Childhood Pain and Trauma with Sarah Peyton and Susan Skye (Munich, Germany) which was a transformative moment for me in my understanding of trauma and the healing power of empathy.
In 2013, I participated in the Leadership programme in Nonviolent Communication, San Francisco, California.
I participated in the Diploma in Group facilitation and conflict resolution at the NAOS Institute, London in 2015/2016.
I have trained in Nonviolent Resistance (NVR), (2020-21) with supervision to empower, resource and support families with situations of child to parent violence.
I have studied trauma-informed practice with Peter Levine (Trauma first aid - 2020), The Consent Collective (How do people heal from trauma - 2022)
I have participated in various anti-oppression trainings and initiatives including Whiteness, Race and Social Justice with Victor Lee Lewis and Patti Digh (2020), Authentic dialogues around Race with Roxy Manning (2021), Roots deeper than whiteness (White awake, 2022), BRAP Anti racist boot camp (2022)
I am currently studying Interfaith Ministry with OneSpirit. (2021 - 2023)
Other work
I ran the Invisible Food project in London between 2008 and 2013, a project commissioned originally by Artangel as part of an investigation into Temporary Automonous Zones (TAZ). Invisible Food aimed to reconnect Londoners to nature, to each other and to themselves. She published Street Food: Urban foraging and world food in 2013.
Together with Virginia Nimarkoh, I developed the Cook like a Caribbean project, showing global and historical influences on Caribbean food, at Myatt’s Fields Park. (2014)
In 2006, I participated in The Body Politic, an interdisciplinary training in Arts, Activism and Social and Ecological justice run by Platform at Birkbeck College. Participation in this course led me to set up Invisible Food.