Caroline's career has always been focused on supporting families, first within the education sector as a qualified teacher and headteacher, and then within maternity services as a pregnancy and parenting expert and as a champion for service user voice. Her Ph.D. thesis spanned both of these interests, looking at the role of early reading in the development of parent-child relationships, parental engagement and the academic impact of the Imagination Library book-gifting scheme.    

Caroline's freelance work spans maternity, parenting and education with a focus on service user engagement and evidence-based support.  She is also an associate researcher with Swansea University, with a particular interest in sharing lived experience through qualitative methodologies.

Maternity
Consultancy

Alongside chairing an award-winning Maternity & Neonatal Voices partnership and leading on training for National Maternity Voices, Caroline was engaged to advise the Chief Midwife's office in NHSE as an 'Expert by Experience'. 

Caroline  supports Trusts and ICBs to research, understand and improve their service user engagement. She is also a certified mediator, supporting effective relationship building within the maternity sector.
Consultancy, research, training and mediation services can be found at CZD Consultancy.

Parenting Support 

Caroline is a newborn and parenting specialist, providing families with antenatal education, birth doula and postnatal support with a focus on infant feeding and sleep.  She is a certified doula, maternity nurse, breastfeeding counsellor and holistic sleep coach. She trains childcare professionals and delivers courses on supporting parenting with an evidence-based, responsive ethos.

Doula and parenting support can be found at DoulaMamaBaba.

Education Consultancy

Caroline holds  Bachelors and Masters degrees in Education from the University of Cambridge, alongside a Doctorate from Swansea University in the field of shared reading and parental engagement. 

She holds the NPQH headship certification alongside the NPQSEN, having been Special Needs Co-ordinator in four schools and head/acting head in two schools.  

Caroline has experience of lecturing at an undergraduate level and providing Continuing Professional Development for teachers.

Caroline is the Educational Director for Cambridge Academic Consultancy.  

PhD

Caroline's PhD and related materials can be found here. This includes an animation (in English and in Welsh) explaining the key messages from her research alongside summary and full research reports, a one page summary and a parent leaflet. Caroline's academic profile can be found at Academia.edu.