Dr Esther Borrett 

Shortlisted for Person of the Year – British Education Supplier Awards 2026 

Dr Esther Borrett is the Founder, Managing Director and Clinical Director of Brimstone Psychology, an educational psychology organisation focused on creating meaningful and lasting change for children and young people and for the education systems around them. 

Esther began her career teaching Psychology in colleges and sixth forms, spending more than 13 years working within post-16 education. She later trained as an Educational and Child Psychologist and has held specialist roles within Local Authorities, including work within Youth Justice. Alongside leading Brimstone, she continues to undertake statutory Educational Psychology work, ensuring that her strategic and clinical leadership remains connected to the realities facing children, families, schools and local systems. 

Esther founded Brimstone Psychology in 2022 with a clear purpose: to use psychology to create change, rather than simply describe difficulty. Her vision was to build an organisation that moves beyond assessment alone, helping education settings understand why children and young people may be struggling and, crucially, what needs to change around them for progress to become possible. This means working not only with individuals, but with the relationships, organisations and wider systems that shape their experience of education. 

Under Esther’s leadership, Brimstone has grown from an Educational Psychology practice into a multidisciplinary psychology and education organisation. Alongside Educational Psychology services, Brimstone develops programmes, training, consultancy and psychologically informed approaches designed to build sustainable capacity within education. 

Brimstone is the home of RESTA (Resilience Support Teaching Assistant), its award-winning psychologically informed programme supporting emotional safety, motivation, engagement and access to education. Developed from Esther’s work in educational resilience, RESTA translates psychological theory into structured and practical approaches that education professionals can use within everyday practice, extending the reach of psychology beyond traditional models of individual assessment and consultation. 

Building on the psychological foundations of RESTA, Brimstone has developed RESTA AP, its psychologically informed Alternative Provision model for children and young people who are struggling to access or remain engaged with education. RESTA AP brings together relational practice, psychological understanding and structured learning to help young people rebuild engagement, develop greater confidence in themselves as learners and create meaningful pathways towards education, training and future participation. 

RESTA and RESTA AP form part of Esther’s wider ambition to make high-quality psychological thinking more accessible within education. Rather than relying solely on specialist professionals working individually with children, her work focuses on developing psychologically rigorous approaches that can be embedded within education systems and extended to greater numbers of children and young people without losing the relational and psychological integrity at their core. 

As Clinical Director, Esther provides the psychological and professional leadership underpinning Brimstone’s work. She leads the development and integrity of its psychological frameworks, including the continued evolution of RESTA and the psychological foundations of RESTA AP. She ensures that Brimstone’s programmes and services remain evidence-informed, ethically grounded and faithful to the principles on which they were developed. As the organisation grows, her role is increasingly focused on setting its strategic and clinical direction while enabling a growing executive and specialist team to translate that vision into practice. 

Esther’s areas of expertise include post-16 education, trauma, educational resilience, adversity and the impact of organisational and systemic pressures on children and young people’s engagement with education. She is a published author on educational resilience and is particularly interested in translating complex psychological theory into clear, practical approaches that enable schools, families and professionals to understand what may be happening and make confident decisions about what needs to change. 

Alongside her leadership of Brimstone, Esther lectures in Educational Psychology on the MSc Applied Psychology programme at the University of Suffolk and remains committed to developing thoughtful, reflective and psychologically informed practice across education. 

As Founder and Managing Director, Esther is now focused on building an organisation capable of extending the reach and impact of Educational Psychology beyond traditional service models. Through Brimstone’s Educational Psychology services, RESTA and RESTA AP, she brings together psychology, education, innovation and commercial sustainability to develop approaches that can grow and be replicated without losing the psychological thinking that makes them effective. 

Her leadership is characterised by clarity of purpose, collaborative thinking and an ability to bring people from different professional disciplines together around a shared ambition. At the heart of Esther’s work is a simple principle: 

Sustainable change happens when we understand not only what a child needs, but what needs to change within the systems around them. 

Jane leads commercial development and business growth for RESTA and RESO, working alongside Dr Esther Borrett and the wider Brimstone Psychology team to bring the RESTA framework to more schools, colleges, and universities.

Jane brings close to 30 years’ experience in strategic leadership, commercial growth and people-centred operations, gained across the UK, Australia and New Zealand. Most recently, she spent eight years as UK&I Board Member at Hays, where she was responsible for shaping strategy, leading transformation, and delivering sustainable commercial growth across an £18m+ region.

Alongside her commercial work, Jane has a long-standing commitment to inclusive growth and community impact,  including founding the Hays Women’s Empowerment Network, chairing the CBI’s East of England Council, and working closely with government, business and education leaders on skills and regional development.

At Brimstone, Jane applies this experience to RESTA’s commercial strategy, building relationships with colleges, universities and organisations, and ensuring the framework reaches the settings and young people who need it.

Jane is a Mental Health First Aider and holds a BA in Business from the University of Stirling.

Jen Nash

Jen is an associate assistant educational psychologist. She is a former teacher and SENCO, with experience from the EYFS up to A-level, specialising in literacy skills and working with neurodiverse students.

Jen is a proven relationship-builder and is passionate about supporting access to education for vulnerable groups, particularly with the travelling community, refugees and children with SEMH needs. She works to reduce barriers to inclusion both practical and psychological. She is sensitive to complex family needs, advocating as the voice of the child with a range of agencies, collaborating effectively to secure the best outcomes for young people.

Jen is dedicated to adapting learning environments to meet sensory, emotional and learning needs for all children. As an assistant EP, she has innovated and co-produced bespoke interventions including RAW (Rhythm & Wellbeing), an evidence-based intervention supporting emotional regulation skills through music.

Working with a Mental Health Support Team, she has co-designed and delivered impactful interventions including Exam Resilience, Peer Mentoring and LGBTQIA+ group facilitation for students.

Jen brings a nurturing, playful and engaging approach to her work with children and young people. Her holistic practice includes training in yoga and mindfulness. She loves working directly with the community, raising mental health awareness through outreach campaigns. She has lead support groups for parents, engaging with schools in a range of contexts to co-produce projects that truly meet the needs of local families. She has experience in supporting schools in times of crisis as part of critical incident response. Jen has trained ELSAs and SMHLs in supporting mental health across whole school contexts and presented her work at a range of National conferences. She will be commencing her doctorate in Educational & Child Psychology at UEL in September.

Kat Fry

Kat is currently undertaking a professional doctorate in Educational Psychology and has spent 11 years working in local government across London, the eastern region, and the south of England. As an Assistant Psychologist, she gained particular experience in gathering children and young people’s’ views; undertaking a range of assessment activities; consulting with schools and families; and contributing to psychological advice with oversight from an Educational Psychologist.

Alicia Shawcross

Alicia began her career in SEND education, developing expertise in inclusive teaching and the psychology of learning. She adapts lessons to individual needs while supporting effective group learning, informed by experience with diverse learning styles and emotional needs.

Specialising in dyslexia, Alicia delivers individualised support that addresses both learning and wellbeing, helping learners build confidence and achieve their potential. Also, as a RESTA practitioner, she integrates relational and emotionally supportive approaches into her teaching and interventions. She works with children and adults one-to-one and in classrooms, while also Lecturing in Education and Psychology. A Dyslexia Guild Associate Member (ADG), Alicia provides practical guidance to teachers and practitioners, focusing on sustainable, lifelong learning outcomes.

What Alicia can offer:

• Deliver targeted dyslexia interventions (Morph Mastery, Kelly & Phillips, Dyslexia Action) learning needs individually assessed.
• Support emotional wellbeing, confidence, and self-understanding for learning.
• Advise teachers and practitioners on dyslexia-friendly teaching strategies.
• Support in bridging, research, assessment, and practical classroom application to create sustainable, lifelong learning outcomes.

Amy Allen

Rhiannon Newby

Rhiannon is both the Brimstone and RESTA business administrator. Having passed her level 2 qualification in business administration, Rhiannon is now working towards her level 3. Rhiannon has firsthand knowledge of SEN, she studied GCSE Psychology, and is the first port of call for any enquiries and manages the RESTA memberships.

Jemima Shute

Jemima is a GCSE Psychology student who joins the team as student consultant for the RESTA project. In addition to producing all our RESTA characters and creatives, Jemima also supports the team to understand the best way to engage young people in RESTA. Having Jemima on the team brings a real collaborative element so that the focus of our intervention really considers what young people want and need.

Jemima is gaining first hand knowledge of how psychological intervention is designed. She already has a wonderful grasp of psychological theory, and her creative talents are a real asset.

In the future, once she has completed her studies, Jemima would love to go into a career in Educational Psychology.