Harriet Williams

Community member of Public Involvement (PPI) Task Group

Biography

Harriet joined the PPI Task Group in 2022 after taking part in the Listening Series. She has lived experience of being a young mother and is the single parent of a teenage daughter. Those experiences have led her to become an independent young parent consultant and advocate, specialising in public speaking, research, and content creation. Her focus is around projects for young parents aged 25 and under, particularly within medical and healthcare organisations and research centres.

Nationally, she has served as Deputy Leader of the Women's Equality Party, while locally, Harriet is an active member of the Camden Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) Board as well as a School Governor at an inner London secondary school. She also contributes to the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Single Parent Families as part of Gingerbread's Elections Campaigns Group.

Harriet has publicly addressed issues such as teenage pregnancy, the digital exclusion of young parents, the effects of COVID-19 on ethnic minority groups, gender equality, racism and anti-migrant sentiments.

Her personal journey in healing from eczema and topical steroid addiction has also led her to become a dedicated skin influencer and advocate for Topical Steroid Withdrawal.

Publications

Bevan, C., Alderdice, F., Darby, S. et al. 'The Listening Series': increasing equity, diversity and inclusion in patient and public involvement and engagement for policy research by listening to and learning from under-represented groups. Res Involv Engagem 10, 71 (2024).
https://doi.org/10.1186/s40900-024-00601-2

She supported Barnardo's on their Care-Experienced Parents Unite for Change Report (2022) which was formed because parents' voices were largely absent in a lot of Barnardo's research.
https://www.barnardos.org.uk/research/care-experienced-parents-unite-change

You can hear Harriet talk about her own personal experience of birth trauma as a black woman in Episode 4: 'Birth' of the Audible series The Bias Diagnosis (2021), where she highlights the fact that black mothers are more likely than white women in the UK to die during pregnancy, childbirth and in the first 6 weeks of giving birth.
https://www.audible.co.uk/podcast/Ep-4-Birth/B08W4Y7541

Foreword co-author and researcher of Young Parents in London: Living with Precariousness report (2018) for Partnership for Young London and 4in10 - a campaigning network of 400 London organisations working to improve the lives of the 4 in 10 children living in poverty in the capital.
https://www.childrenengland.org.uk/young-parents-in-london-living-with-precariousness

Foreword author for https://www.gingerbread.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/manifesto-2024-Digital-Final-30.05.2024.pdf