Hi, I'm Emma!

I work at the intersection of education, mental health, community justice and the arts, as a generative change practitioner, specialising in children, young people and families, trauma, the creative arts, and restorative approaches.

The main challenge I see in my practice is three-fold: the accumulation of stress, and the arrested stress response (aka trauma); transformation illiteracy; and disconnect from our body, our creative mind, and the communities to which we belong.

My creative therapeutic practice is centred around building resilience, transformation literacy and creative capacity at an individual, organisational and societal level. I do this primarily through accessible, embodied restorative approaches to reducing toxic stress and resolving trauma; transforming negative experiences by sourcing a person/group’s creative consciousness; designing and fostering awareness-based systems change projects (specialising in co-producing projects with the community to promote lasting peace); championing and facilitating the storytelling (and re-storying) of those engaged in deep generative change.

I am currently co-developing a new holistic psychologically-informed pastoral care provision in two diverse contexts: an elite high-performing independent London day school; and in the community with young people affected by serious youth violence. Each service designed to provide accessible, adaptable, creative multi-level interventions that go beyond one-to-one therapy: online-to-offline learning platforms and cultural healing spaces (integrating an innovative system of peer-support) that activate deep learning, deep change and generative collaboration. These projects are part of my portfolio for an action-research based MA in Leading Social Change.

I have worked as a:

~ coach / counsellor

~ pioneering teaching artist, head of dept, fellowship-awarded advisory teacher, trainer and coach

~ Play & Creative Arts Therapist in primary, secondary & post-16 education provision

~ Artistic Director - social architect for a charity transforming the lives of young people affected by serious youth violence through community music education projects

~ consultant & facilitator delivering trauma training and workshops promoting creativity and innovation in public, private and third sector

~ Trauma Release Exercises (TRE) Provider and Supervisor

~ Restorative (Justice) Facilitator

~ Community choir conductor-'cellist-composer