Youth Voice Advocate and Content Creator
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I am a creative and passionate advocate for young people, bringing over five years of experience amplifying youth voices and working collaboratively with diverse communities. As a member of the Dorset Care Leaver Forum from April 2021 to July 2024, I used my personal experiences of being in foster care to drive impactful change and support others with similar experiences. During this time, I contributed to key projects, including redesigning the “What it is like to be a child in care” training to focus on lived experiences, creating promotional materials for children in care, and designing an information pack to support young people entering the fostering system.
My work on the Dorset Care Leaver Forum also included designing and co-creating the #YouthVoice Magazine, which celebrates the achievements and stories of care-experienced young people and is distributed to over 400 children in care across Dorset. I also designed invitations and postcards to recruit participants for activity days, ensuring accessibility and engagement.
Beyond content creation, I have represented care-experienced young people at key forums, such as the Dorset Corporate Parenting Board, where I shared my lived experiences to educate parents and professionals working with children in care. I facilitated training sessions to help professionals understand the challenges faced by care-experienced youth, overcoming personal reservations to ensure their voices were heard and valued.
Additionally, I have been a member of the Coram Voice Youth Advisory Board and have worked extensively across various charity and company boards. My skills include creating engaging films, photography, and events, as well as a proven ability to advocate for marginalized voices. My dedication, creativity, and lived experience make me a strong candidate to contribute meaningfully to any youth voice initiative.
Advisor on the Speaking Across Lines Events project, which is about learning how researchers and professionals from lots of different subjects (e.g. medicine, social care, mental health care) can work together to produce valuable research evidence for children and young people’s mental health, but also come together with the researchers to discuss the best ways to do research and share the results so that they make a real difference.
Contacted by Fostering UK on a freelance basis to create eight new blogs for their website under the title of Anonymous Care Experienced Blogger to talk about what it is like to be care experienced within the current fostering system and what it is like to go through current societal struggles as a care experienced person (e.g., Cost of Living, Financial Crisis, Housing Crisis, Covid-19, Education,
Employment issues and training issues), but also talk about the positives as well, such as being able to see family again, getting first house, first job, graduating from university).
Within this position, I also created new SEO content for the company's website about different towns and cities that they wanted to expand into. In this part of my position, I had to follow strict copywriting rules, GDPR and SEO content rules.
Working as a videographer on an intervention project by What Works for Children's Social Care looking at the positive effects social workers have on children in care. As this was done during the COVID-19 Pandemic, everything was done virtual and recording using Zoom Video Conference Software.
Dorset Council commissioned me to photograph the Annual Dorset STAR Awards, which were held at
Bryanston School in Blandford Forum to celebrate the achievements and successes of all Children in Care, Care Leavers, and social services professionals who provide foster placements and supported accommodation to former children in care past their 18th birthday. For this event, I captured a series of images for the council to promote the event and the successes of their website and publications.
Create a LGBTQ+ campaign for young people aged 16-25 years old, during Pride Month to showcase that it is okay to be who they are.
Created photographic campaigns on teenage mental health issues and substance abuse.
Thesis Title: The Representation of the LGBTQ+ community in photography: “Has the representation of the LGBTQ+ community changed within photography between 1970 and 2022?”.
09/2018 – 06/2021
Bachelor of Arts (With Honours) in Media Arts
Final Grade: 2:1 (Second Class Honours Upper Division)
Collaborated with outside agencies to create work in the form of a live brief
Created three end-of-year shows, which one was in person and two online due to COVID-19
Thesis Title: Representation of Gay and Bisexual Characters: “Has the representation of Gay and Bisexual characters in modern-day television changed since the early 1950s?”.
09/2016 – 06/2018
Final Grade: Pass (108 UCAS Points)
Worked on projects such as perfume advert, location photography, photobooks and moving image music videos, Location Photography, Studio Photography, Collaboration and Slow and Fast Shutter Speed photography.
Attended Weymouth College’s DSCB Safeguarding event to be their photographer for the event. Attended Weymouth College’s LGBT Awareness event as their photographer
Alongside the course, I completed my Level 2 Functional Skills in English and Mathematics (2016 - 2017) and completed my GCSE English (November 2017)
09/2016 – 06/2018
Completed Course with a Grade of Distinction
Worked on projects such as Radio Production, Music Video, Album Cover Photography, Artist Publicity
Media (Tour Posters, Album Covers, etc) and Television Advert
Alongside the course, I completed my Level 1 Functional Skills in English and Mathematics.
