Turning Pain into Power: The PEGS Journey

PEGS started with an idea, a Google document and no funding.

It started because I knew from my own experience what it felt like to be a parent living with child to parent abuse (CPA) and not really knowing where to turn. I could see a gap. Parents were struggling, families were struggling, and yet the parent experiencing the abuse was often not the person being supported.

I often say that I turned my pain into power, to empower others.

I couldn't change my own family's experiences or rewrite our story. What I could do was try to make sure another parent had a different path.

That is why PEGS exists.

Since 2020, that one idea has grown into a national lived-experience-led organisation that has supported more than 14,000 parental figures experiencing CPA.

Seeing a gap and doing something about it

CPA is a form of domestic abuse, but it remains widely misunderstood and often difficult for professionals and families to recognise.

Parents can spend years trying to access standard support, only to find that their experience does not fit the services available. They may be told it is a parenting issue, a behaviour issue or simply part of growing up. Meanwhile, they can be living with verbal abuse, coercive control, financial abuse, intimidation or physical violence in their own home.

PEGS was built around a simple principle:

The parent matters too.

We do not believe supporting children and supporting parents are competing priorities. Families need both. But the parent experiencing the abuse should not disappear from the picture.

PEGS provides free specialist support directly to parental figures through daily online drop-ins, peer support, our EPIC programme, one-to-one support and practical tools including our PRAM (PEGS Risk Awareness Model).

Our online model was a deliberate choice. Parents experiencing CPA cannot always leave the house, attend an appointment or commit to a traditional service. Online support means they can access us from wherever they are, often when they need us most.

From one person to a team

PEGS may have started with my lived experience, but it is no longer one person's story.

Today, PEGS is delivered by a dedicated specialist team who bring professional knowledge, lived experience and a genuine belief in the parents we support. Alongside our staff, parents themselves help shape our work through our Parent Advisory Group and peer community.

That matters to me.

PEGS does not belong to a founder sitting at the top of an organisation. It belongs to a community of incredible parental figures who are trying to survive some of the most unsafe and difficult situations imaginable.

Parents are not simply recipients of a service. Their experience is expertise.

One parent told our evaluator:

“We are that expert voice. We’re not the professionals, we’re the experts.”

I think that captures PEGS perfectly.

The difference we make

Our independent Year 1 evaluation, carried out by Dr Sally Olewe-Richards, gives us strong evidence of what happens when parents are finally given a space where they feel understood.

Of the parents accessing one-to-one support, 81% had been living with CPA for two years or more before seeking help. Almost a third had been living with it for more than five years.

When they arrived, the average score for feeling in control of their situation was just 2.9 out of 10. Feeling connected to others who understood was 3.4.

After support, feeling in control increased to 6.9 out of 10  a 138% increase. Overall wellbeing rose from 3.6 to 7.4.

And 89% of parents attending our drop-in sessions said they felt less alone afterwards.

These numbers represent something very real.

They represent a parent who feels heard rather than judged. Someone who begins to understand what is happening to them. Someone who starts to find their voice again.

One parent described PEGS as:

“Giving a voice to those who’ve been silenced.”

Changing the system, not just supporting the individual

I knew from the beginning that PEGS could not simply become another service supporting families while the wider system remained unaware of CPA.

So we train professionals too.

During 2025–26, PEGS training reached 2,595 professionals across the UK, including police officers, social workers, healthcare professionals, education staff and charity sector workers.

Our evaluation also found that schools and social services were among the most common referral routes into PEGS. When professionals understand CPA and know where a parent can go for specialist support, the door opens sooner.

Our work has contributed to CPA being recognised within national domestic abuse guidance and has brought CPA into conversations across health, education, social care, policing and domestic abuse services.

For me, leadership is not about having all the answers. It is about seeing something that needs to change and being prepared to keep going.

Recognition of the work

The growth and impact of PEGS has also been recognised through national, regional and international awards and recognition.

I was honoured to receive an MBE, but I see that recognition as being bigger than me. It belongs to every parent who has trusted PEGS with their story, every member of our team who shows up for parents every day, and everyone who has helped us make CPA harder to ignore.

Awards are lovely, but they are not why we do this.

The recognition matters because it helps shine a light on CPA and gives us another opportunity to say: these families matter.

What comes next

We have grown considerably since that first Google document, but our reason for being has not changed.

We cannot change what has already happened to a family. We cannot promise that a child's behaviour will change. We cannot fix every situation.

What we can do is make sure a parent does not have to face it alone.

We can help them understand what is happening, recognise risk, find their voice, understand their options and feel more confident navigating the systems around them.

We can help professionals recognise CPA and respond differently.

And we can keep building a community where parents are believed, supported and valued.

PEGS started with one person's pain.

Today, more than 14,000 parental figures have found us. Thousands of professionals have learned about CPA. Parents are helping shape our work. A conversation that once barely existed is now happening across the UK.

That is PEGS.

Turning pain into power, and using that power to help others find a different path.