About me

I’m Leah, a cross-disciplinary person with experience in learning and evaluation, community engagement, facilitation, service design, and user research. I have special interests in research ethics, participation, equity-centred practice, and creative methods. You can read more about my approaches on my Substack newsletter One Hundred and One, and on LinkedIn. You can see the zines I make in my Big Cartel shop.

My formative early-career years were spent working in the United States in grassroots, community-based sexual and reproductive healthcare services for people who were marginalised in multiple ways. Since arriving in Scotland in 2001, I have worked with public services including NHS Scotland, Scottish local authorities (nearly all of them!), and the Scottish Government. I have also worked with a variety of UK-based charities, big and small, as well as a number of service design agencies.

In addition to freelance work, I am part of a worker-owned co-operative called fractals, an associate of Andthen and an associate of Nile. I am certified in counselling skills by Counselling and Psychotherapy in Scotland (COSCA).

I am an anti-oppressive practitioner which means I pay special attention to power, how the systems we work in create and uphold inequities, and how research or design can be used as tools for solidarity and destabilising oppressive systems. I am a neurodiversity affirming practitioner with foundations in design justice and ethics of care. My individual support services are informed by models of professional supervision developed by social workers and mental health practitioners in the UK and Aotearoa.