Paula was an NHS therapist specialising in trauma before moving to work for the Witness Service. She then spent five years working for Victim Support’s national centre, supporting policy and skills development for victim and witness services across the UK and, more recently, re-joined the organisation as a training manager.

Paula has been employed as victims’ expert on numerous high-profile European Commission and Ministry of Justice projects, assisting governments in Romania, Croatia and Turkey in developing their support to victims and witnesses of crime so that they are in line with EU standards. She jointly led a major 2-year EU research and training project around the service needs of victims of terrorist attack and acted as the UK expert for the European Forum for Restorative Justice and the International Institute Tilberg, developing EU standards for assisting victims. She was an adviser to the Social Care Institute of Excellence on the production of their published guidance, Caring in a Crisis, and is an expert member of the European Forum for Traumatic Stress.

Paula has designed accredited learning programmes on an extensive range of crime and justice related issues, and delivered training to the Police, and a range of other public, private and voluntary sector organisations.