Helena is an Inclusion advisor specialising in SEND and SEMH. After completing a Psychology degree, Helena worked in a specialist school for Autism and then went on to complete her PGCE at a residential SEMH school in Essex. Helena was employed as a class teacher after completing her PGCE at the school and went on to train in Transactional Analysis at the Cambridge institute for Transactional Analysis.
Helena continued her career in teaching as senior teacher and advanced skills teacher in an all through special school. Whilst working in a special school, Helena developed a passion for supporting pupils with SEND in mainstream settings and worked alongside senior leadership teams in developing schools to support their provisions for pupils with special needs. She joined Barking and Dagenham, where she took on the role of Assistant Head of inclusion and ARP manager. During this time, Helena has worked to improve the provision of ARP’s and set up new ARP’s in Barking and Dagenham. Helena has always had a holistic approach into ensuring the best possible provision to meet the needs of pupils and has spent time developing her own area of interest in neuroscience and child development. Helena is a qualified Thrive practitioner and has also undertaken trauma informed schools training.
Helena led Inclusion and safeguarding at her most recent school and also undertook a Head of School role, she has worked with the current senior leadership to drive the school forward and lead curriculum development as well as inclusion. Most recently along with the senior leadership team her school secured an outstanding R.E. inspection under the new CSI framework.