Joy Jefford

Joy grew up in Hong Kong, Shoreham, York and Sunderland - an unusual cocktail of places that cultivated her breadth of perspective and compassion for those on the margins.  She always loved music and remembers being enchanted as a child when she heard the Carpenters' ‘Yesterday once more’ on the small radio in the kitchen.  Whenever the family visited her grandparents she would head straight for the piano and make up soundtracks to imaginary film scenes.

Although she enjoyed playing the recorder and later the flute at school, it never occurred to her that music could be a career. Instead she followed her passion for making a difference through work that spanned the fields of homelessness, overseas development, research and consultancy for voluntary organisations and, eventually, the creation of an innovative and widely used tool to enable and measure personal change called the Outcomes Star.  Her own personal development has also been an important thread. She studied with Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield to become a Mindfulness Meditation Teacher,  is a qualified Focusing Practitioner, and recently completed the Soul of Leadership with the Shalem Institute.

She had a few piano lessons as a teenager and taught herself guitar in her twenties in order to play along as she sang her favourite songs in her bedroom.  Then, to her great surprise, one day she found herself playing a song of her own.  From that point onwards song-writing became a precious hobby, providing a outlet for self-expression, healing and creativity in her busy life as a working mother.  Now that life has become more spacious, she is taking the opportunity to share her songs with a wider audience.