Speaking, writing and media
Thirty one years of direct work, clinical training, lived experience, and no wish to soften any of it.
I speak, write and contribute to media on equitable education, neuroinclusion, SEND rights, intersectionality and the systemic change needed to make all three real.
Speaking
Where I have spoken.
The Parliamentary Review
Speaker.
Royal College of General Practitioners
Conference speaker, on managing drug and alcohol problems in primary care, March 2023.
Westminster Briefing
Seminar speaker, 2016, on the issues facing childminders and what would actually change them.
PDA Society
National events, as a speaker and a former trustee.
Famly
Commissioned and paid webinars, including Holistic Approach in the Early Years, and a series on working with neurodivergence which drew nine hundred and fifty three registrations and four hundred and sixty five people live.
Sector conferences
On SEND, early years and neuroinclusion.
Topics
What I am usually asked to talk about.
- Rights based neuroinclusion, and what lies beyond compliance
- Disability, race, gender and neurodivergence, and how they compound each other in education
- PDA, and what settings and organisations actually need to know
- Early years neuroinclusion, and The Maisie Poppins Way
- The Freedom Approach, a pedagogy for equitable education
- Navigating the SEND system: EHCPs, education otherwise than at school, and the rights families are not told they have
- Psychodynamic perspectives on neurodivergence
- Being a disabled, neurodivergent, mixed race woman inside the UK education system
Personal storytelling outperforms everything else. So the writing carries this, not the pictures.Why this site looks the way it does
Broadcast and film
On screen.
Every item below links to the original. Nothing here is a screenshot of itself.
- 2009
Channel 4, Raised by Queers, with Kieron RichardsonKey contributor, in conversation with the Hollyoaks actor Kieron Richardson about growing up with same sex parents and the permeating impact of discrimination. Rights based work, made by Burning Bright Productions, and still on Channel 4 now. It appears under my earlier name, Maisie.
Watch - 2011
PACEY, The benefits of home based childcareThe film PACEY made about the setting, published on their own channel as a showcase of what home based childcare can be.
Watch - 2021
BBC News, on running out of HRTMedical menopause and hormone replacement therapy. My words, in a national health story that has run and run.
Read - 2021
Maisie Poppins Nursery and Preschool, virtual tourThe setting itself, filmed, so you can see what the model looked like in a room rather than on a page.
Watch - 2016
Good Morning Britain, ITVInterviewed in March on the funding shortfall facing childminders delivering the free hours. A live broadcast interview, so there is no permanent link to hold.
Published writing and press
The back catalogue, with the receipts.
Some of it appears under earlier professional names. Same person, same work.
- 2022
Famly webinar, How to adopt a holistic approach in the Early YearsNine hundred and fifty three people registered, four hundred and sixty five came live, eighteen questions asked and a hundred and ninety three messages in the chat. The full write up is still on Famly's site.
Read - 2022
Connect Childcare, W is for WellbeingContributing author to The ABC of Nursery Management.
Read - 2018
PDA Society, the national PDA families community groupThe group I founded, listed by the only specialist PDA charity in the UK. I was also a trustee, 2017 to 2018.
Open - 2022
Famly, Wellbeing is the key that unlocks everything elseEarly Years Voices. Commissioned and paid, as a named Early Years Expert on an international platform.
Read - 2022
Famly, Outstanding ways to bring your setting's vision to lifePart of the Outstanding Ways To series.
Read - 2022
Famly, Outstanding ways to support meaningful engagement with staffStaff wellbeing as structure rather than sentiment.
Read - 2022
The Forward Trust, Autism Month guest blog seriesFour parts, written across the month.
Read - 2020
Hackney Citizen, families take SEND funding challenge to the Court of AppealQuoted on what the cuts were doing to disabled children in the borough.
Read - 2020
PACEY, Making the leap, childminder to nursery founder and managerHow the setting grew, written for the national membership body.
Read - 2019
PACEY, Teaching children about their private partsSafeguarding written plainly, for practitioners and parents.
Read - 2019
PACEY, Childcare Champions, not a babysitterThe campaign to have early years work recognised as a profession.
Read - 2018
Made for Mums, how to design the perfect safe nurseryExpert contributor.
Read - 2018
The Independent, east end traders join forces on fair rentThe East End Trades Guild campaign, of which I was a founding member.
Read - 2017
PACEY Childcare Professional, Spring 2017Top tips on creating a healthy setting, a full page in the magazine that goes to the whole membership. Published under my earlier name, Maisie Collin.
Read - 2017
Hackney Council, Sugar Smart campaign to make Hackney a healthier boroughFounding signatory, and the borough's first early years Sugar Smart ambassador.
Read - 2017
Nursery World, PACEY teaming up with health visitors to promote childmindingQuoted on the value of home based care.
Read - 2016
Nursery World, Spotlight on Maisie CollinThe Spotlight interview, published under an earlier professional name.
Read - 2015
PACEY, members celebrated at the Nursery World AwardsChildminder of the Year nomination.
Read - 2014
Nursery World Awards, Newcomer of the YearJoint winner.
Read - 2013
East London Lines, Hackney 2013, the year of the freelancerOn building a business in the borough.
Read - 2009
New Journal, on the children's rights workLocal press coverage from the Action for Children years.
Read
What the people who commissioned it said
Not my description of the work.
Rebecca Burrell, Burning Bright Productions
“Maisie gives Kieron great advice about being equipped to deal with prejudice and shows him around her wonderful child-minding service and how they embrace difference in all forms.” And separately, “her contribution was key.”
Victoria Flint, Director of Communications, PACEY
“Maisie has been a central focus for the launch of PACEY's Childminder Champion campaign and has worked with us to develop a series of videos to showcase what home-based childcare can bring for children and families.”
Kate Halliday, Addiction Professionals
“Yasmin has provided great expertise to our charity, Addiction Professionals, in providing webinars and conference workshops on neurodiversity.”
Operational Director, Action for Children
“You should be proud of your pioneering contribution to this important initiative which the organisation recognises and commends.”
On the page
On the ground
Not written from a distance.
Two of the things on this page did not happen at a desk. The first childminding setting in the UK certified by the Living Wage Foundation, and the SEND crisis campaign in Hackney.
The public record
Where a stranger can check me.
People often do not believe this record. So here is the paperwork, held by other people, not by me.
- Ofsted
Maisie Poppins Ltd, on the Ofsted registerThe registered provider. Now closed, since the settings were sold in 2021.
Open - Ofsted
Maisie Poppins Nursery and Pre-school, on the Ofsted registerRegistered address, St Joseph's Hospice, Mare Street, Hackney. The nursery was inside the hospice. That is where the intergenerational arts work happened, and where Bones of Broadway was photographed. The two Outstanding judgements sit under the earlier childminding registration, and Ofsted removes childminder reports once a registration ends, so the certificates signed by Sir Michael Wilshaw are the evidence for those.
Open - 2026
The Scope AwardsWinner, Purple Pioneer, presented at the Kia Oval on 30 April 2026, confirmed in writing by Scope's Interim Chief Executive.
Open - 2026
The National Arts and Cultural Education AwardsShortlisted for the Mighty Roots Award, run by Curious Minds. More than two hundred and fifty submissions across ten categories. Ceremony 21 October 2026. Shortlisted is not won.
Open
In progress
The Freedom Approach, as a book
The flagship. A sixty five page pedagogy already exists and is in live use, with a full proposal behind it. Essay segments were verified at Distinction level by Dr Luke Beardon and Professor Caroline Lear.
The Early Years Ecosystem, as a book
A settings model written as a full proposal with a chapter synopsis and a first chapter drafted. The closest of the two to finished.
Bones of Broadway
Documentary photography of the pandemic, shot on the daily walk to the nursery inside a hospice. Written testimony captured alongside it. The same building where our preschoolers made art with people who were dying.
Field studies
The Offering, a designed field study of the spiritual marketplace in Stroud and the Five Valleys, completed June 2026.
Enquiries
Speaking, writing, media and press.
I take on a small number of commissioned writing projects a year. If you are a publisher, an editor or an organisation with a brief that fits the work, please write.