About Carol

These days family is incredibly important to me.

Growing up I didn’t always get the support and guidance I needed, in fact by the time I was 5 years old, my mother had left home, and I never saw her again, I had a stepmother who really didn’t know what to do with me, so mostly ignored me or when she didn’t, I was usually in trouble!

I spent a lot of time in libraries, growing up, as we moved so many times that that became a safe space for me. When I left school, I wanted to be a teacher, but family finances said otherwise so I went to work, and that dream was put away!

When my first child was born, I promised I was going to give him a better childhood than mine had been. The one thing my experiences taught me was to be there for others, especially the children in my family. I make sure that if they are unsure about anything, they can come to me.

I want them to feel safe, to be themselves and to never be pressured to be anything other than who they are. I see it as giving them the support I always longed for, but rarely got!

In my 30’s, I was working as a teaching assistant and finally got my chance to do teacher training. I was very lucky to have a mentor who really made a difference. She taught me how to challenge children in a way that helped them build independence while nurturing their individual needs. That balance -of pushing children to grow while giving them support – became the philosophy I work from today.

So, over my 27 years of working in school I’ve seen first-hand the pressures children face and how they show up in their emotions and behaviours. It is clear to me that many school behaviour policies are reactive – You do this, this happens, but don’t deal with whatever the underlying root cause might be. Children don’t follow theory, they follow their emotions, they follow and react to their emotions. At times, because of negative feelings, negative actions follow and quite often staff must restrain children to keep them and those around them safe. And while there are strict guidelines and policies in place for this it was always something I hated doing.

I felt there must be something better, so I started looking and found Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT). I wanted a proactive approach that children could learn to help them understand and manage their emotions in order to respond to any challenges they faced.