Ceri Davies: Giving Back Through Springboard at Faith in Families

Inside Ceri’s Springboard Programme: Siany’s Experience

Siany Martin, or more locally known as “Siany on the Wave” having been the unmistakeable voice and face of local radio in South West Wales for over 20 years, joined Springboard with a slightly hazy idea of what professional development might look like.

Somewhere in the back of Siany’s mind was an image of emerging from the programme in an immaculate 1980’s power suit, ready to stride purposefully into the next stage of her career like a character from Working Girl. The reality was rather different, although no less transformative.

Instead of teaching Siany how to appear more confident, more polished or more conventionally professional, the Springboard Work and Personal Development Programme for Women gave her the time and structure to look at how she already approached her work, relationships and sense of self. It helped her recognise achievements she had routinely played down, understand why she found it difficult to protect her own time and energy, and begin carrying the responsibilities around her in a way that felt more manageable.

Before the programme, Siany described herself as stressed, tired and confused. Afterwards, the words that came most readily were lighter, more confident and with more belief in myself.

That journey began when licensed Springboard facilitator Ceri Davies decided to offer free programme places to Faith in Families, a Swansea-based charity supporting children and families across the local community.

Programme Context: creating space to give something back

Ceri first became licensed to deliver the Springboard Work & Personal Development Programme for Women in April 2024. At the time she was working at Virgin Atlantic who deliver the programme via a network of internal trainers, where she spent over 15 years in senior leadership and won many prestigious awards including “Most Loved Leader” and the “Red Spirit Award” for LGBTQ+ inclusion and diversity leadership.

Ceri later established her own coaching and training business, SOS Training & Consultancy Services, and decided to deliver the Springboard programme herself directly as a freelance facilitator, which also presented the opportunity to give something back.

Faith in Families was an organisation she already knew by reputation. Having seen the contributions it makes across Swansea and the surrounding communities, Ceri contacted the charity and offered a small number of complimentary places to women who could benefit from the programme.

“When I started working independently, I wanted to create space to gift some of my services to organisations doing important work,” Ceri explains. “Faith in Families is very well known locally for the support it provides to children and families, so I reached out and asked whether there were women in the organisation who might benefit from this kind of personal and professional development.”

The offer removed the financial cost, but Faith in Families still had to make a meaningful commitment. For a small organisation, releasing several colleagues at the same time affects the wider team, particularly when those colleagues are balancing busy roles and responsibilities. The charity nevertheless recognised the value of the opportunity and supported three women to take part.

Ceri delivered the first workshops online in half-day sessions, before bringing the group together in person for the final part of the programme. The format proved particularly effective for a programme that asks participants to reflect deeply on experiences they may not usually have the time or space to explore.

Confidence in public, self criticism in private

Siany was working as Fundraising Manager at Faith in Families when she was offered a place. She had spent much of her career in radio and remained entirely comfortable speaking to an audience, whether that meant addressing one person, presenting to thousands or returning to the microphone for another broadcast.

Her confidence in front of other people did not always extend to the way she assessed herself afterwards.

“I could get up in front of one person or 10,000 people without a problem,” Siany says. “But I could still walk away afterwards and immediately tell myself I had been terrible. Even when I knew I could do something, I would still focus on what I thought had gone wrong.”

By the time she joined Faith in Families, Siany had also been through significant personal and professional change. She had moved from a long career in radio into charity fundraising, fulfilling an ambition to work for an organisation where she could contribute directly to the local community. Alongside her fundraising role, she continued to work in broadcasting, raised her two children and, at the time of the programme, had taken on additional marketing responsibilities while a colleague was on maternity leave.

There was plenty of evidence that Siany was capable, adaptable and resilient. The difficulty was that she rarely gave herself the same recognition she would instinctively offer somebody else.

When Sharon Atkins, Faith in Families’ Chief Operating Officer, explained that Springboard explored women’s confidence, development and tendency to undersell themselves, Siany needed little convincing.

“I thought, ‘Yes, absolutely. Sign me up,’” she recalls. “I knew I needed something, although I did not really know what the programme would involve or what I expected to be different by the end.”

The imagined power suit never appeared. What did emerge was a clearer view of the person already doing the work.

Hearing her own achievements differently

One of the most powerful moments came when the participants were invited to talk about their achievements. It was an exercise that asked them to move beyond describing their job titles or responsibilities and acknowledge what they had genuinely navigated, contributed and accomplished.

As Siany began saying those things aloud, she heard her own story differently.

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh my God, I am actually really awesome,’” she says. “When I looked at everything I had achieved, I could not quite believe I had done it all. If another woman had told me that story, I would have thought she was incredible, but when it was my own life, I still felt as though I should have done more.”

The experience became more meaningful as the other participants began sharing. Although the three women had different personalities and backgrounds, they repeatedly recognised the same habit in one another: significant achievements being described as though they were ordinary, expected or not quite enough.

Siany found that watching another woman acknowledge her value could be as powerful as trying to acknowledge her own.

“You would hear somebody talk about everything she had done and think, ‘That is amazing,’ while she was sitting there as though it was nothing,” she says. “We could see the value in each other much more easily than we could see it in ourselves, and that helped us begin to challenge it.”

The small size of the cohort supported that openness. Ceri was initially conscious that three participants represented a smaller group than usual, but the differences between them created plenty of perspective and discussion. They did not need to have lived identical lives to recognise the pressures, doubts and expectations being described.

“They were three very different women, but there were so many common threads,” Ceri says. “What stood out was how quickly they felt comfortable sharing and how respectfully they held that space for each other. They worked together, but they were able to see one another as people rather than only as colleagues.”

Boundaries that made life feel more manageable

The section on boundaries became the clearest practical turning point for Siany. She had long seen herself as a people pleaser and was accustomed to helping, stepping in and making herself available, whether at work, at home or within her personal relationships.

What she had not always recognised was the extent to which she expected other people to understand limits she had never clearly expressed.

“The boundaries section changed my life,” she says. “I started applying it with my children, at work and in my personal life. I kept wondering why I had not been doing it before, but I realised I had often expected people to know where my boundaries were without me communicating them.”

The programme helped Siany understand that boundaries are not simply preferences held privately in the hope that other people will notice. They need to be articulated, maintained and, when necessary, repeated. For somebody who was used to keeping others happy, that required practice rather than a single confident conversation.

“I had tried to put boundaries in place before, but when people did not respond well, I would find it difficult and fall back into people pleasing,” she explains. “Springboard helped me see that setting a boundary once does not mean everybody will immediately understand it. You have to keep communicating it, and you become more comfortable with that over time.”

This did not make Siany less committed to her work or less willing to support the people around her. It helped her become more deliberate about where she placed her energy and what she accepted responsibility for.

The result was not a quieter life with fewer demands. In some respects, Siany felt able to do more.

“I can take on more work now without feeling as stressed as I did before,” she says. “The responsibilities are still there, but they do not feel as heavy. I keep coming back to the word lighter because that is the best way I can describe it.”

Finding reflection in unexpected places

The programme’s reflective journal was another element Siany had not expected to embrace. She had never considered herself someone who journalled and initially felt unsure about sitting down to write about her experiences.

Once she began, however, the words kept coming. “I felt like I was at Hogwarts and my pen had taken on a life of its own,” she laughs. “I was looking at the page thinking, ‘Where has all this come from, and when is it going to stop?’”

The humour reflected a genuine discovery. Writing gave Siany a way to process experiences that might otherwise continue circling in her head, even when she did not think of the activity as formal reflection.

A later conversation helped her recognise that she had already been doing something similar for years.

“I realised how many times I had written a text when I was angry or upset, got everything out and then decided not to send it,” she says. “I had never thought of that as journalling, but it was still helping me work through what I was feeling. Apparently, I had been doing it all along; I just did not own a journal.”

These lighter moments helped make the reflective parts of the programme feel less prescriptive. Participants did not need to become entirely different people or adopt a fixed version of personal development. They could recognise what already worked for them and use it more intentionally.

A safe space shaped by experience

Siany credits much of the group’s openness to the environment Ceri created. Her facilitation combined the structure of the Springboard programme with her own leadership experience, understanding of mental health and willingness to talk honestly about neurodiversity.

“Ceri listens, and that is a huge thing,” Siany says. “She has advice and experience, but she also gives you space. She helped me understand more about how my own mind works because she was open about her own experiences and there were things I recognised in myself.”

Siany had long described aspects of the way she thought and worked as a superpower, although she had not always understood why her mind operated as it did. Hearing Ceri speak openly about her own ADHD helped Siany view some of those patterns with greater curiosity and less criticism, without the programme attempting to diagnose or label her.

For Ceri, creating that safety is central to the role of a facilitator. Some participants arrive ready to speak openly, while others need more time before sharing experiences they may have carried privately for years.

“There is always a moment when somebody begins to realise she has been holding herself back,” Ceri explains. “It might be fear of judgement, fear of failure, worrying about getting something wrong or believing she is not good enough. The moment comes differently for every woman, and that is what makes delivering the programme so rewarding.”

Ceri jokes that she leaves every cohort ready to bet her mortgage that Springboard will change somebody’s life. Her confidence comes from having seen how much can shift when women are given thoughtful questions, a clear structure and enough time to reach their own conclusions.

“You are not giving people the answers,” she says. “You are creating the space for them to understand themselves and find the answers that are right for them.”

From carrying everything to feeling lighter

Siany described some of the half-day sessions as emotionally exhausting, comparing the experience to therapy because of the amount she had explored and released. Springboard is not therapy, but the comparison captured what it felt like to give sustained attention to thoughts and experiences that were usually pushed aside by work, parenting and the needs of other people.

“I would finish a session and feel completely wiped out, but in the best possible way,” she says. “It felt as though I had unloaded emotional baggage and could suddenly see myself more clearly.”

The programme did not remove the demands in Siany’s life. She remained a fundraiser, broadcaster, parent and colleague with several roles to manage and people relying on her. What changed was the way she understood her own contribution, the expectations she placed on herself and the amount of energy she gave to circumstances outside her control.

Before Springboard, the words that came to mind were stressed, tired and confused. The confusion reflected a wider sense of questioning whether she was doing enough, heading in the right direction or managing everything as she should. By the end, she felt lighter, more confident and more able to believe the evidence of her own achievements.

“The path feels clearer,” she says. “I have more belief in myself, and things do not stress me in quite the same way. It has changed how I approach work, home and life as a whole.”

The impact continued beyond the final workshop. Faith in Families later told Ceri that the participants had not stopped talking about the programme and began discussing how other colleagues might be given a similar opportunity.

For Ceri, that ongoing conversation was an important part of what she had hoped to create when she offered the places. The programme had brought three different women together, but its effect was not limited to the time they spent in the room. It continued through the boundaries they communicated, the achievements they acknowledged and the way they supported one another afterwards.

Siany was also left wondering why so many of the ideas that made the greatest difference felt unfamiliar in the first place. Understanding boundaries, recognising achievements, listening properly and becoming more aware of how we use our energy are not specialist skills reserved for a particular role or stage of life.

They shape how people work, care, lead, communicate and understand themselves.

If those skills can help someone move from carrying everything to feeling lighter, why do so many of us only learn them in adulthood?

Our special thanks go to Ceri for sharing the story behind this special Springboard cohort, to Faith in Families for supporting the women who took part, and especially to Siany Martin for speaking so openly about her experience and allowing us to tell the story through her eyes.

If you would like to find out more about how we could help your organisation invest in its people, contact us today.