The journey
Before moving into sport psychology, Nia completed a law degree and spent two years working in the legal industry. She then pursued a masters in psychology at the University of Surrey, before completing a masters in sport and exercise psychology at Loughborough University.
Her research focused on psychological safety and negative coaching in aesthetic sports, which was presented at two international sport psychology conferences. Her work has been featured in the British Psychological Society's The Psychologist and on the British Dancesport Association's website. Other research focused on the policy-to-culture translation in elite UK gymnastics, and how psychological safety is understood, experienced, and enacted within the athlete ecosystem.
Mission
Creating Space was born from Nia's desire to help athletes as she once was, and to create safer environments for individuals to thrive.
It acts as the practical extension of everything Nia has studied, experienced, and observed. It exists to bring psychological safety out of academic journals and into the everyday moments that actually shape sporting and organisational culture, because that is where change happens.