I am Director of Communities at The Brilliant Club and a trustee of Citizens UK. My Fellowship focuses on how we can work with parents and carers to create change in education. This will involve travelling to the USA to learn about successful community organising with parent and carer leaders and comparing this to current practice in the UK.

My experience of seeing educational inequality in my hometown of Oldham led me to work to increase access to and success in higher education for underserved communities. I am especially passionate about organisations working with communities in a meaningful way to ensure ordinary people are influencing change in the education sector.

I hope that my research will support and develop existing community organising with parents and carers in the UK, strengthening the evidence base and providing a toolkit for people and organisations who seek to address inequalities in education but struggle with engaging parents and carers. I also hope this research will make a particular impact on places such as Oldham, where opportunities and spaces for cross-cultural community changemaking are often limited.