Seventeen years ago today, I began a journey that I called A Positive Start.
At the time, I’d been working on myself for a while, trying to make sense of why I kept ending up back at square one. The thing about dysregulation and survival mode is that while you’re living in it, you don’t see it — not in yourself and not really in others. But once you do see it, you can’t unsee it, and you begin to notice it everywhere.
I was living in West Cumbria then, once again unemployed and feeling like I’d gone full circle. I’d already been labelled by the DWP as “farthest from the labour market,” and despite my determination never to end up there again, there I was — back in that same place, feeling defeated and desperate.
So I decided to start again, but differently this time. I’d tried every road and they all led me back to where I began. This time, I took a new route — a positive one. Not “positive” in the toxic sense of pretending everything was fine, but in the sense of becoming positive about myself. I chose to stop hating myself for every mistake and blaming myself for everything that had happened.
Instead, I began to look within — with compassion — and ask myself,
“What is it about me? What part am I playing in my own life? What am I responsible for, and what am I not?”
Each day I went to the library in Cleator Moor to read, write, and learn. Slowly, from that place of curiosity and self-reflection, A Positive Start was born.
In those early days, I had no money. I couldn’t even afford the bus fare, so I walked to youth centres to deliver free sessions. I held teatime discussions with young people and their friends, asking what issues they faced and how they thought change could happen. They taught me more than I could ever have imagined.
Then one day, things started to shift. I applied for a job as a project manager for a charity that wanted someone to build a new project from the ground up — to recruit, train, and support people. Initially, I was told I was unsuccessful. But the night before the interviews, they called to say someone had dropped out and asked if I’d like to attend.
I arrived prepared — not with a PowerPoint presentation, but with a strip of old wallpaper covered in images I’d stuck on the back. I shared my vision straight from the heart. The room went silent. I was asked to step outside for a moment. When they called me back in, they told me that all four board members had decided unanimously: the job was mine.
That moment changed everything.
I began recruiting people from the job centre — people who, like me, had once been considered “farthest from the labour market.” Many were survivors of trauma and abuse. Within nine months, our project was awarded the SUSE Gold Award for Equality and Inclusion, and the job centre reported major improvements in clients’ wellbeing, health, and ability to work.
But after that award, things changed.
The charity that had originally supported me to deliver A Positive Start — giving me total autonomy and repeatedly stating they had no interest in the training side — suddenly saw a new opportunity for funding. Once the award and results of our collaboration were public, they approached me, offering to renew my contract for another year and give me a small pay rise, but on one condition: that I hand A Positive Start over to them so they could run it as their own.
I refused.
I agreed to collaborate with them and let them access funding to provide placements, but A Positive Start would remain my copyright — my life’s work, born from lived experience.
That decision changed everything. The chair stopped speaking to me. When I returned from annual leave, members of my team quietly told me that two board members had come in and demanded they download all of my training materials. Soon after, the job centre manager requested a private meeting and disclosed that those same board members had visited her too — asking if the DWP would continue the training without me. She had been instructed not to tell me.
I was devastated. The illusion of charity equals honesty and integrity was shattered. My trust was broken.
I served my notice and left. It was one of the hardest but most defining choices of my life. From that point forward, I continued A Positive Start on my own, working part-time jobs to keep it alive.
After leaving, I faced the fallout that situations like this so often bring. Despite doing an excellent job, I couldn’t get a reference. That alone creates enormous barriers — not just professionally, but emotionally.
You find yourself trying not to mention the truth to potential employers because you don’t believe they’ll understand. You don’t want to sound bitter, but silence becomes another weight you have to carry. It chips away at your confidence and can make you doubt your own worth all over again.
For a while, I was out of work and homeless — sofa surfing with family and friends, feeling lost, exhausted, and unsure how to rebuild. It does nothing for your self-worth. It’s a lonely kind of pain — the kind that forces you to dig deep and find strength you didn’t know you had.
A few months after I’d left, tragedy struck. One of my former colleagues accidentally ended their life — overdosing on prescription medication and alcohol. It was devastating for everyone who knew them. I supported their family through the inquest, and I will never forget the pain of that time.
During that period, I also received vile, hurtful messages from people within the organisation, blaming me for the death — accusing me of giving them hope and then abandoning them out of selfishness. It broke my heart. None of it was true — I knew that absolutely — but the cruelty of someone placing that weight on another human being was beyond comprehension. Their death was an accidental tragedy, more than twelve months after I’d left, and I had remained in contact with them. The organisation, however, had not.
It was a dark and painful time that tested everything I believed about humanity, forgiveness, and purpose.
The charity that had betrayed my trust was closed down 12 months later under a cloud, after other questionable activities came to light.
I carried on.
Because that’s what survivors do — we carry on. We rise, rebuild, and keep moving forward, even when the ground beneath us has shifted.
All the while, I continued my own healing journey. It wasn’t easy — it was hard, messy, and humbling. I went to university as a mature student, studying Applied Psychology, Counselling, Spiritual Counselling, and Trauma. I kept growing, developing, and evolving.
In 2014, supporting other survivors, I wrote STAND – Parents as Protectors, a free program designed to help parents recognise grooming and protect children from abuse. Progress was slow and obstacles were many — funding barriers, and self-doubt among them. But I persevered. After all, I am a survivor in name and in nature.
In 2017, I moved to Scotland after a year of delivering A Positive Start as a trauma-informed workshop in partnership with the local job centre. Those sessions took place in the basement of a Shelter shop — humble beginnings that would eventually lead to establishing A Positive Start CIC, a social enterprise dedicated to supporting community mental health and delivering trauma-informed training.
It would take another five years before we received any funding, but we kept going — facing many ups and downs along the way.
Now, in 2025, A Positive Start celebrates 17 years since its first seed was planted — an idea, a thought, a passion for change born from lived experience and a deep belief that healing and understanding can change lives.
Looking back, what stands out most isn’t the awards or recognition — it’s the people, the small breakthroughs, the courage it takes to keep walking forward even when the path isn’t clear.
If there’s one message I’d like to leave with anyone reading this, it’s this:
When you’re going through hell, keep putting one foot in front of the other. Keep moving forward. Keep believing in yourself.
If your passion doesn’t fade — you’re on the right path.
Here’s to 17 years of A Positive Start — and to everyone still finding the courage to begin again