Role Models

Tell us about your business, what services do you offer?

Role Models offer fun life skills courses for children, teaching confidence, resilience and relationship building. We nurture these skills through games and challenges. Children learn best when having fun and I love seeing the impact of our courses. My long term vision for Role Models is to be the place that parents come to when they want to support their children outside of academics.

What inspired you to enter your profession?

After 12 years in Primary education, I increasingly felt that the social and emotional needs of the children always came second to their academic achievement. No matter how much a school prioritised these areas, the pressure to achieve academically always consumed daily school life. I then trained in psychodynamic therapy at The Tavistock in London. I felt that I was addressing the needs of those who were at crisis point, as opposed to the average child in the classroom who needed that confidence boost.

How long have you been working with Role Models?

I came across Role Models in 2021 and they ticked every single box when it came to practical and meaningful ways to develop resilience, confidence, leadership and creative problem solving skills. I am the Character Education Team Manager. I write the content for our online sessions as well as the courses we run in the school holidays. With my lovely colleague, Louise, we lead parent talks in the area and teach teachers how to develop these skills in the classroom.

What is your favourite aspect about working in the local area?

We have been running our school holiday courses in Hampstead for 2 years, at The Village Prep and King Alfred School. We love being in Hampstead because of the powerful sense of community. We find the parents we work with are engaged, open and acknowledge the importance of children developing these skills.

That said, I think that a lot of parents are lost when it comes to how to build their children’s resilience and confidence. They know it falls outside of academic school life, yet their children don’t need to see a therapist. I think we serve the space in between. Louise, our director of Character Education is not only a former Deputy Headteacher, she is also a qualified Coach, using practical strategies to upskill children (and parents) in a broad range of life skills. I use my training in psychodynamic therapy to ensure that we are empowering children with emotional intelligence and the ability to communicate their feelings and needs

What encouraged you to join Hampstead Hive and what has your experience been like so far within the Hive?

We are delighted to be a part of the Hampstead Hive community. We have found the network to be incredibly supportive and we are inspired by the broad range the community has to offer.

Where can we go to find out more about your business/access your services?

Please reach out to me if you have any questions laura@rolemodels.me

We are so excited to be in 2 locations this Easter:

Mon 28th March –Fri 1st April at The King Alfred School

Mon 11th- Thurs 14thApril at The Village Prep

Hampstead Hive Member Spotlight - Laura Kay