My experience

I'm a facilitator, community organiser, equity & inclusion practitioner, culture and systems analyst, death doula, writer, lived experience expert and co-designer. I do many things because my brain is wildly energetic, and shifting between roles has always helped me to bring a more rounded approach to creating change within the world.

To do my work I draw from wide range of disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, economics, psychology, philosophy and physics, as well as my professional experience in organisational development, equity and inclusion, product and service design, and community building.

Alongside that I bring embodied wisdom from mothering, gender dysphoria, class conflict, complex PTSD, navigating disabling environments, and building queer communities and networks of love and care that transcend all of the above. In my approaches I am always seeking inspiration from and alignment with the natural world.

My approach

I start all of my projects, no matter how big or how small, with an exercise that enables everyone to identify what they value and what they are mindful of. I do this because we are all unique in our approaches, and will be arriving with different expectations and cultural norms. Below are some of the values and behaviours that show up when I work with others:

Mutual

As an experienced equity & justice practitioner I have repeatedly witnessed the ways power imbalances can manifest in any space or relationship. For this reason I centre mutuality very strongly within all my work - paying close attention to what value is being exchanged / what expectations there are / who has access to what level of decision-making. Every layer of the work I do requires active engagement from everyone, combined with creating capacity for agency for anyone.

Embodied

I often describe this as ‘doing the work as you do the work’. As I work on a lot of projects which are centred around dismantling systems of oppression, this requires us to not only be cognisant of the change required at a bigger picture level, but also how dominant norms might be playing out within our own micro-interactions and to ultimately enact change in every opportunity we get. For instance when I support a group to design new ways of working together I encourage them to actually practice what we are speaking about in that same session. Taking an embodied approach is also about constantly centring presence and making space for what emerges in the moment. As a facilitator this means I find it easy to adapt and respond to needs of different people, shaping and reshaping the plans or approach in collaboration with others.

Pattern-seeking

As an autistic person I am constantly pattern-seeking to be able to navigate every day life. Over the years I have developed a microscopic lens on people, relationships and culture, and often find myself identifying potential problems or opportunities within teams much earlier than others. As a result of this natural tendency I enjoy in depth analysis and connecting the dots between a wide range of issues or questions within my work.

It also means I can weave together stories in ways that are accessible to, and resonate with, a wide spectrum of people.

Experimental

With a background in product management, and a life that sits outside many societal norms, I am a huge advocate of experimentation in all of my work. I believe experiments can create safety in how we explore possibilities beyond our imagination. Driving forward change always comes with risk but through experiments we can hold those risks and tensions in a way that is both manageable and inspiring.

Spiritual and practical

In my work I am always seeking inspiration from creative and spiritual practices and believe this can often unlock people’s constrained thinking or behaviours. However whenever I use these kinds of practices I do so while grounding us in what our practical realities are.

Examples of my work