About Andrea Middleton
Andrea has a great range of experience in attachment aware practice and youth violence reduction from her work as a practitioner, consultant and researcher. Andrea was a lead consultant for Nurture UKs Nurturing London and Nurturing Kent Projects which have been implemented as a proactive response to soaring rates of youth violence and adversity within communities.
Andrea has published work in the field of nurturing practice with her most recent publication: The Nurture UK Violence reduction Unit Programme – Exploring a model for reducing school exclusions and instances of youth violence through nurture practice.
She has an innate curiosity to understand how children develop socially, intellectually, physically, and spiritually and believes passionately in supporting young people holistically to thrive in every aspect of their lives. This curiosity led Andrea to study the Montessori Method of early years education and to work with very young children in a specialised setting. She also worked for several years in primary school settings where she piloted and led nurture groups and whole-school pastoral support offerings. She supported cognitive learning in schools as a Speech, Language and Communication Specialist Assistant and offered social and emotional support as an Emotional Literacy Support Assistant.
Andrea also works privately as a Therapeutic Wellbeing Practitioner utilising Homeopathic treatment alongside therapeutic support modalities, such as Drawing and Talking therapy and Sand Play therapy to support children, young people and adults alike. She is a registered member of The Society of Homeopaths and SEBDA. Andrea holds a BSc(hons) in Homeopathy, a University Certificate in Psychology and a MA Education from Edge Hill University, and as published several research papers on various aspects of nurture practice, including the necessity for wellbeing support for nurture practitioners and the importance of nurturing learning in natural spaces.
Andrea most recently worked as a Lead Consultant supporting a number of schools engaged in nurtureuk’s pilot partnership programme with Violence Reduction Units in London and Kent and published a research paper based on this work in October 2022. Andrea is passionate about relational practice and is dedicated to supporting educational professionals to adopt more nurturing and trauma-informed approaches toward creating a more connected and peaceful world.
Andrea is an avid reader and loves being in nature, particularly working in her herb garden at her home in Hampshire which she shares with her husband, teenage daughter, three cats and where she is (sometimes) visited by her other two grown-up daughters. If she is not in the garden, you may find her knitting or quilting with a cat on her lap in a quieter part of the house, listening to a biography on audiobook.
