My background before joining Unlimited Potential

I started life as a nurse and then an NHS manager, until I got to board level. I went on an NHS secondment to do work nationally on health inequalities. This led me onto a different career path in the VCFSE sector . I met an ex-health visitor called Hazel Stuteley at Connecting Communities (C2). She taught me how to enable communities across England to transform their own lives. This was the start of a revolution in my thinking about health and well-being and I did a lot of public speaking, lobbying and writing.

My role at Unlimited Potential

I was attracted to work at Unlimited Potential because it does exciting social innovation work. In total, I worked as an external contractor on six different projects, ranging from running an international competition to help NHS foundation trusts to tackle their most complex problems to supporting disadvantaged fathers who wanted to improve the lives of their children.

What most benefitted me from being with Unlimited Potential and what difference it made to me

The fatherhood project (renamed Dadly Does It) won multiple awards and the fathers themselves became locally quite famous because their work not only changed their families’ lives but also helped a lot of other families too. I learned from them about what it was like to live in communities experiencing multiple disadvantage, about the important role of fatherhood, and exactly how men think and behave differently to women. I learned to take risks, to fail, to shut up and listen properly and, crucially, to build residents’ capabilities and confidence rather than to offer them help, so they become stronger.

What I have gone on to do/achieve since I left Unlimited Potential

I am still a nurse and I combine my clinical and social innovation skills, using my lived experience as someone with life-long breathing problems. My time with Unlimited Potential encouraged me to start my own social enterprise called BreathChamps CIC, which helps people to breathe better in fun and social ways like singing, dancing and nature activities. I am unafraid of being creative and inventing ideas with the support of the community. Working so much with children influenced me to co-create a Brownie Badge for asthma with Girl Guiding South Lancashire. This encourages children to become ‘junior nurses’ and look out for friends with asthma.

I was awarded the honorary title of Queen’s Nurse for my high standards of (my interpretation of) nursing, learning and leadership. I hope that I have influenced other nurses to think beyond a medical model to a social model of health.