A placement at City Lit during my final year of training sparked my initial interest in stammering and person centred therapy. I went on to work at City Lit as a part-time tutor facilitating Block Modification and follow up evening classes for adults who stammer, before setting up in independent practice.
I have maintained strong links with the speech and language therapy department at City Lit since this time. I teach on their ‘Effective Counselling Skills for Speech and Language Therapists’ course and co-facilitate two 1-day workshops with Patrick Campbell: ‘Difference not Defect: Stammering Activism, Empowerment and Pride‘ and ‘Stammering: Activist Conversations Continued‘.
In 2013 I co-edited ‘Stammering Therapy for the Inside: New Perspectives on Working with Young People and Adults’ with Carolyn Cheasman and Rachel Everard, which set out to enrich professional accounts of contemporary stammering therapy by including clients as co-authors of therapy knowledge.
Since 2015 I have collaborated with Iain Wilkie to co-develop and deliver the ‘Redefining Stammering at Work’ workshop programme as well as mentoring programmes for people who stammer under the age of 25. I also actively support 50 Million Voices, an ambitious global initiative raising awareness, reducing barriers and fostering stammering allyship to transform the world of work for people who stammer.
In 2019 I co-edited ‘Stammering Pride and Prejudice: Difference not Defect’ with Patrick Campbell and Chris Constantino. Combining personal narrative, art and disability theory, the book documents how society has historically disabled people who stammer and the diverse ways in which people are creating novel and exciting understandings of their speech.
Patrick and I continue to collaborate to challenge thin and negative societal, professional and academic understandings of stammering; to celebrate stammering as a legitimate and valuable way of talking; and to advocate for a stammer-affirming approach to therapy and research. We regularly offer courses and workshops together and co-present at national and international conferences about this work.
I am a member of The Stammering Collective, an international, interdisciplinary collaboration committed to challenging the concept of ‘normal’ speech and the pathologisation of vocal difference this engenders. I am also a supporting ally of Making Waves: A Stammering Pride Flag, an international collaborative project to create a flag that embodies the values, ideals and hopes of stammering pride and celebrates stammering culture.
I am currently co-editing Supervision in Speech and Language Therapy: Personal Stories and Professional Wisdom with Cathy Sparkes and Deborah Harding, a collection of personal narratives exploring the breadth and scope of supervision from professional governance through personal and professional growth to enhancing practitioner confidence, permeability and wellbeing.