Two Women, Three Continents, Five Countries, One Mission
Help students and their families THRIVE through transitions
Our Story
We met at a conference about globally mobile families, bonding over questionable conference coffee and a shared frustration:
Why do we keep sending young people into life's biggest transitions such as university, moving countries, starting careers with little to zero preparation for the psychological chaos that comes with change?
Elizabeth had spent thirty years as an Education Psychologist watching brilliant students stumble during transitions. Louise had coached adults through international relocations, thinking the same thing:
"If only someone had taught them this before they struggled and fell apart."
That's when it clicked.
What if we stopped waiting until people were struggling?
What if we actually prepared them for the predictable patterns of transition?
What if we gave them the tools before they needed them?
So here we are.
Elizabeth Gillies
Elizabeth Gillies is an Education Psychologist based in London. Over three decades, she's lived, worked, and raised her family in America, Japan, Australia, and the UK.
Which means she doesn't just study transitions, she's lived them, parented through them, and watched her own kids navigate them.
Elizabeth's worked in schools at every level: one-on-one with students in crisis, running groups for anxious teens, and advising entire school systems on how to better support young people. She's a specialist in CBT and ACT, and yes, she absolutely uses these tools herself when her life gets wobbly.
These days, Elizabeth works both in schools and online from her home base in South London. She's also known for her walking therapy sessions in green spaces because sometimes the best conversations happen when you're moving your body.
At the pressure-cooker moments of the school year, Elizabeth runs workshops for students, teachers, and parents about transition patterns and how to navigate them without losing your mind.
Louise Wiles
Louise Wiles is a wellbeing, change and transition consultant, trainer, coach, author, and parent to two teens—which means she's currently living the exact challenges she helps other families navigate.
Louise has spent years watching young people hit university or cross-cultural moves relatively unprepared for the emotional whiplash. The recent explosion of wellbeing challenges among teens especially during exam years and transitions alarmed Louise enough to make this a key focus of her work.
Louise holds an MSc in Organisational Psychology, but what really sets her approach apart is how she combines academic rigour with real-world experience. She's lived the internationally mobile life and coached people through relocations. She understands both the research and the 3am panic about whether you've made a terrible mistake.
Louise's training courses and coaching programmes draw on positive psychology, strengths-based approaches, and transition frameworks that actually work in the messy reality of human experience not just in theory.
Louise is also the author of Thriving Abroad: The Definitive Guide to Professional and Personal Relocation Success.
Why We Work Together
Between us, we bring psychological expertise, relocation experience, evidence-based frameworks, and decades of working in the field of transitions both professionally and personally.
We've both lived internationally. We've both parented through major moves. We both have the academic credentials and the lived experience and we are able to combine our different perspectives and experiences: Elizabeth's expertise is in school systems and working with young people at every level. Louise's is in preparing people before the wheels come off and building resilience through evidence-based wellbeing frameworks.
Together, we've built something neither of us could create alone: programmes that prepare young people for transitions using psychological rigour, real-world experience, and an understanding that no two transitions look the same.
'We don't do toxic positivity. Sometimes transitions are hard, scary, lonely, and overwhelming and that's completely normal'
How We Help
Prevention over Crisis
Give people tools before they're drowning, not after.
EVIDENCE MEETS REALITY
Theory that actually works in messy, real-world situations.
TOOLS NOT PLATITUDES
"It'll be fine" is not a strategy. Here's what actually works.
We run workshops, create resources, provide coaching, and train others who work with young people in transition. We work with students heading to university, families moving internationally, schools trying to better support their students, and anyone navigating the messy middle of major life changes.
Ready to Work Together?
Whether you're a student heading to university, a parent supporting a child through a major transition, or an educator looking for better ways to support your students, we're here to help.
TW10 6SE
United Kingdom
