Hi, I’m Steph Hill.
I’m the founder and director of Happy Headwork and Happy Headwork Community CIC. Both grew from my personal and professional journey. To understand the thinking behind them, it helps to know a little of that story.
Where it began
My journey with psychology began nearly 30 years ago, studying it at university. That was also where I met my partner. After graduating, I became an ESOL trainer, and we moved to Southeast Asia, where we lived and worked for a couple of years.
In 2004, my family and I were caught up in the Boxing Day tsunami in Thailand. My partner lost his life, and the rest of my family and I were badly injured. I returned home to South Wales to recover, living with post-traumatic stress, panic attacks and the many difficult symptoms that came with them.
Learning to help myself
My GP quickly referred me to a psychiatrist. I spent an hour answering deeply personal questions about what had happened. At the end, I felt hopeful that this was the beginning of my support. When I asked when we would meet again, I was told the waiting list was at least 18 months. The other option offered to me was antidepressants.
I’m not against antidepressants. I’m pro-choice, and particularly pro-informed choice. But I remember leaving that appointment feeling powerless and hopeless. In the days and weeks that followed, those feelings turned into frustration and anger.
I also recognised a privilege I had: a psychology degree, an education and some foundations to build on. I knew how to learn and could translate complex information into something that might help me.
For me, medication remained a possible plan B, one I ultimately didn’t need. I began building on what I knew. I explored mindfulness-based approaches, CBT, neuro-linguistic programming, solution-focused approaches and hypnotherapy, taking what helped me and leaving what didn’t resonate. Later, I trained as a solution-focused hypnotherapist. But this journey began with trying to support myself.
Building a life while my emotions caught up
Alongside that learning, I had a mantra: build it and they will come. For me, that meant building the life I would want if I weren’t living with trauma, in the hope that my emotions would eventually catch up.
Just six months after the tsunami, I undertook a postgraduate certificate in teaching adults. I went back to work overseas and later completed a master’s degree in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development. I was still experiencing post-traumatic stress and panic attacks while doing all of this.
Recovery wasn’t a straight line. There were times when the emotions caught up, and times when they slipped away again. Learning about psychology was one part of healing. So were meaningful work, relationships and the life I was building.
My career developed internationally across humanitarian response and sustainable development, helping staff prepare for and respond to crises through human rights and gender-responsive approaches. Later, this work extended into health and social care, alongside learning and development, monitoring and evaluation.
How Happy Headwork took shape
Working alongside people in demanding frontline roles, I kept noticing a gap. They were supporting others through extremely difficult experiences, but the support available to them often came down to generic employee assistance programmes or stress management training.
I began creating training for colleagues (with complete imposter syndrome as I did it). It was really well received, and the idea that became Happy Headwork started to grow.
By 2016, I had returned to South Wales as a lone parent with a young baby and decided to build my self-employed work. I established the business that became Happy Headwork, under a different name at the time, alongside my consultancy, which I still run.
Happy Headwork brought together my psychology background and my experience of teaching adults. ESOL had taught me to make learning communicative, practical and accessible across different languages, cultures and educational backgrounds. I wanted to bring complex, juicy psychology into people’s hands through learning they could actually use.
That includes wellbeing, but also team dynamics, communication, boundaries, conflict and leadership. Understanding how we think, feel and respond can help us work with the messy parts of being human, with more compassion and more useful choices.
Through my consultancy, I continue to train humanitarian staff internationally. I also work with law enforcement teams on human rights and gender-responsive approaches to supporting people affected by trafficking, migrant smuggling and forced criminality. The learning is participatory and psychologically informed, helping people question assumptions and put new understanding into practice.
These strands of my work continue to inform each other. They share a commitment to evidence-based psychology, compassion, human rights, intersectionality and sustainable development.
And then came the community
By 2021, friends and people working in the community kept asking whether I could bring this approach into community settings. I brought together a multidisciplinary team, and we created Happy Headwork Community CIC.
It is a separate, not-for-profit organisation with its own purpose. The shared thread is Juicy Psychology. Sustainable Change. In the community, that means working with people and partners to create accessible programmes shaped around their lives, interests and the barriers they face.
We bring psychology together with therapeutic coaching, creativity, nature connection and opportunities to contribute. Our programmes support people across the interconnected parts of life: ourselves, our relationships, our homes, work, communities and the natural environment.
I keep coming back to the privilege I had when I needed help. I had an education and knew how to learn. I wanted to break down those barriers for others, democratising psychology by making it accessible across different social, cultural and educational backgrounds. My experience in ESOL had taught me to meet people where they were and find different ways to bring learning to life. I wanted people to have access to useful knowledge and opportunities to practise it.
Why it matters to me
I want people to have knowledge they can use, choices they can make and opportunities to feel connected and contribute. Psychology can help us care for ourselves and question our assumptions about other people, recognise prejudice and bias, challenge stigma and break down barriers between us. This learning can help us build more compassionate, connected communities.
Our wellbeing is interdependent. It is shaped by the people around us, the systems we live within and the health of the natural world. That is why our community work connects personal learning with social cohesion, social change and action for the environment and climate.
Never in my lifetime have I felt a greater need for this work. My hope is that we make it easier for people to learn, grow and create change together.