A snapshot of what I’m currently delivering, developing and contributing to across RSHE, public health, youth work and early intervention.
September 2026
RSHE across Greater Manchester
13 school delivery days booked, reaching around 2,000 young people across Years 7–11. Work includes consent, sexual harassment, media influence, body knowledge and targeted girls work.
September 2026
Girls Work
Developing the next phase of Strong Girls Club and bringing together conversations around the role of girls work in early intervention, healthy relationships and preventing VAWG.
September 2026
Tameside Youth Partnership
Contributing to local conversations about youth provision, partnership working and how services can create spaces where young people feel they belong..
OCTOBER 2026
Doin’ it Best
Developing and hosting the next Tameside RSHE Network session, supporting schools to look at RSHE through three lenses: young people’s experience, statutory expectations and local need.
November 2026
Preparing for 2027
Developing my 2027 training calendar, with new opportunities for schools, services and practitioners across RSHE, sexual health, girls work and early intervention.
Ongoing
From Policy to Practice
Contributing to conversations around changing policy and priorities for children and young people, and exploring how national direction becomes meaningful local practice.
My Journey so far….from Broadoak to bookshelves.
1991-1998 | Broadoak Youth & Community Centre
My work started as a young person at my local youth and community centre, Broadoak, where I became a SRE peer educator. It was grassroots youth work that first sparked my interest in working with young people, sexual health, girls and young women.
1998 – 2011 | Youth and Community Work | Tameside Council
Before the books, programmes and conferences, there was youth work. I spent more than a decade working with children, young people and communities across Tameside in youth clubs, schools and community settings.
2011- 2015 | My first business CreAteam Ltd
Through CreAteam, I developed and delivered creative media and youth work across Greater Manchester working in partnership and with support from Department of Health/Film Club, Home Office and FC United of Manchester.
2015 | I became Tough Cookies Education!
With support from the Greater Manchester Crime Commission Youth Aspiration Fund, I took Teenology Talks: Consent into 10 secondary schools across Greater Manchester. The programme created space for young people to explore consent, relationships and CSE long before these conversations became the much greater national priority they are today. The learning from those classrooms didn’t end when the workshops did: it went on to contribute to Parliamentary evidence. d when the workshops did: it went on to contribute to Parliamentary evidence.
2016 | Women & Equalities Committee | Sexual Harassment & Sexual Violence in Schools
The experiences and learning gathered through Tough Cookies’ work with young people became written evidence to the House of Commons Women and Equalities Committee inquiry into sexual harassment and sexual violence in schools. For me, this is what meaningful youth work can do at its best: listen locally, learn from young people and make sure their experiences reach the places where bigger decisions are being made.
2018 – 2026 | Tameside RSHE – Tameside Council
Commissioned in 2018 to develop Tameside’s RSHE curriculum and support its implementation across schools and updated in 2023. I continue to work with Tameside as an RSHE consultant, providing training, curriculum support and leading the borough’s RSHE Network for local schools and practitioners.
2019 | RSE Conference North West | RSHE Network
In 2019 I founded the first RSE Conference North West, bringing practitioners together to share learning, ideas and practice. Delegates wanted the conversation to continue, so the RSHE Network North West followed, creating a free professional space for schools and practitioners to learn from one another and strengthen relationships and sex education across the region.
2019 -2020 | Consent & Pizza | Sex Ed for Grown-ups!
Through Salford CVS funding, some of my favourite projects were supported. Tough Cookies received £1000 and £980 for Consent & Pizza and Sex Ed for Grown-ups! to be delivered in schools and with parents, creating approachable ways for young people and adults to talk about relationships, sex, consent and the issues that can otherwise be difficult to discuss.
2020 | Girls’ Rights in the UK | Plan International UK
My work with young people was featured in Plan International UK’s national State of Girls’ Rights in the UK 2019 – 2020 report. I had delivered consent workshops to more than 3,000 young people. The report shared my finding that, aside from knowing the legal age of consent, 99% had never previously had a conversation about consent.
2020 | Home Office COVID-19 Funding for Girls Work
During the pandemic, Tough Cookies Education was awarded £11,350 through Home Office COVID-19 funding, for work across Greater Manchester. I delivered online girls work to support resilience and wellbeing.
2020 | Self Care Kits for Teens
During lockdown youth work and support had to change shape. And so I applied for funding and worked at home with help from my family to create self-care kits for teens, focused on resilience, coping skills, mental health and practical support. 250+ young people were delivered a self care kits which included things like toiletries, period products, stress busters, mindfulness activities and feel good treats.
2021 | Greater Manchester Answer Cancer
My work in cancer awareness began back in 1998, when I worked on The Balls Project in Tameside, an innovative men’s health initiative. That work continued throughout my career and cancer awareness became part of my health and RSHE workshops in schools. In 2021, I became a Greater Manchester Answer Cancer Champion and Tough Cookies received funding through the Greater Manchester Answer Cancer Fund, supporting work across Oldham, Salford and Tameside.
2021 – 2022 | Know Your Body | The Eve Appeal
I worked with The Eve Appeal on the pilot of Know Your Body, its first gynaecological health education programme for children and young people. As part of the pilot, I delivered the Know Your Body lessons in schools across Greater Manchester, testing the resources directly with young people before their national launch. The pilot delivered 53 lessons to more than 1,100 young people. The programme went on to launch nationally in 2022, providing free, age-appropriate lesson plans covering anatomy, menstrual health, HPV and cancer prevention.
2022 | Oldham Safeguarding Children Partnership
I was commissioned to work with Oldham Safeguarding Children Partnership to develop Happy & Safe Relationships a relationships education resource for primary schools across Oldham. Developed with input from the wider Oldham community and piloted with a local primary school, the resource was designed to give teachers practical support to deliver relationships education in line with statutory RSHE requirements. It remains available to Oldham schools as a free teaching resource.
2022 | Relationships, Sex and Health Education 101
In 2022, Jessica Kingsley Publishers published my first book, Relationships, Sex and Health Education 101. The activities featured in this first publication grew from the years of workshops, staff training, youth work, focus groups, evaluations and conversations with Greater Manchester children, young people, families and educators.
2022 – 2024 | UniteHER, Greater Manchester Violence Reduction Unit
My girls’ work also became part of Greater Manchester’s approach to violence reduction.
Through a partnership with UniteHER, I delivered healthy-relationships and sexual-harassment education alongside organisations including England Netball and StreetDoctors. The programme brought girls together with professionals, sport and education to build trust, improve communication and provide violence-reduction-centred learning.
2023 – 2025 | Sharing Practice – Public Policy Exchange
Across three consecutive years, I was invited as a Key Speaker at Public Policy Exchange’s national Student Sexual Health and Wellbeing events, bringing practical experience from RSHE, sexual and reproductive health education and nearly three decades of work with young people.
2025 – 2026 | Menstrual Health of Girls & Young Women
In December 2025, I joined a panel of health professionals, educators and campaigners to give evidence on menstrual health education, RSHE, stigma, teacher confidence and the information girls receive about their bodies and reproductive health. UK Parliament Committees. My contribution was cited in the Committee’s final report, Menstrual Health of Girls and Young Women, published in March 2026.
2026 | Behind Every Strong Girl Is a Strong Girls Group – Routledge
Nearly three decades of youth work and work with girls and young women has shaped my second book, Behind Every Strong Girl Is a Strong Girls Group: Workshops and Activities for Empowering Girls in Schools and Youth Groups. Published by Routledge, the book brings together tried-and-tested girls’ work activities for professionals working with girls aged 9–16.