Suzie Hayman
Suzie trained as a teacher, is a Relate-trained counsellor, an accredited TripleP (Positive Parenting Programme) parenting educator, a broadcaster and author of thirty one books. She has been a national agony aunt for almost 30 years, now writing for Woman magazine, and has written weekly columns in The Times, the Guardian, Woman’s Own magazine and BBC Health Online and was the counsellor seen guiding five families through their family dilemmas on the major BBC1 series, Stepfamilies. She was a trustee of Become, for “looked after” children and wrote agony pages in their magazines for LAC. Suzie was one of the founding agony aunts in the Kids In The Middle alliance, lobbying for increased support for children caught up in family breakdown, and edited the KITM website. She is alsp patron of Unique Kidz, which offers support to children and young people with disabilities and has worked for the Family Planning Association, Brook and Family Lives when it was Parentline Plus.
Suzie makes frequent appearances on national and local television and radio on programmes such as BBC Breakfast, You and Yours and Women’s Hour and is a regular on BBC Scotland and BBC Wales as well as many local BBC and commercial stations, often as a spokesperson for Family Lives. She is a freelance journalist and has written features, mainly on sex, relationship, parenting, health and counselling matters, for a wide range of national magazines and newspapers. She has conceived and written leaflets and website material for many organisations including Family Lives, the NSPCC, One Parent Families now Gingerbread, the Family Planning Association, ParentingUK, Drinkaware and Brook Advisory Centres. She is regularly asked to give expert comment in the national press.
Suzie was previously Vice-Chair of Parentline Plus.