The girls in my Girls Journeying Together groups are my inspiration and they are why I founded Rites for Girls.  Each girl is so different and yet the girls share so many of the same concerns, questions and experiences.  It’s a privilege to be entrusted with guiding them into puberty and through their teens.  I can’t think of any work more fulfilling and fun.

I am the founder and director of Rites for Girls and as the originator and facilitator of Girls Journeying Together groups my vision is that every girl grows up expecting guidance as she matures and knows of a Girls Journeying Together group near to where she lives.

I studied child psychology at Cambridge University, was a counsellor to distressed teenagers, and taught sex education in schools and youth groups.  I also trained as an assertiveness trainer, a 5Rhythms shamanic dance teacher, and a business management consultant.

In my early twenties I worked as a counsellor to distressed teenagers.  Girls were harming themselves physically and mentally and I promised myself that I’d find a way to equip girls so they wouldn’t end up endangering their well-being.  After thirty years of working with young people I have found a way to give girls the robust support they need to see them through their teens.

I’m a home-educating mother of one girl, two boys, two cats, and a number of aloe vera plants; wife to a Kiwi, daughter to itinerant parents, friend to a cherished few, and lover of time alone too.  I live in the Ashdown Forest, near Forest Row in Sussex, England.  I sometimes shout at my children, accidentally step on the cat’s tail, or forget to water the plants, but I love them all.