ABOUT US

Read stories. Build empathy. Make a better world.

Young people are growing up in a polarised society and amidst major world concerns, from war to climate change. Every child deserves the chance to be surrounded by empathetic adults, and to develop the crucial life skill of empathy.


We believe empathy is a beacon of hope in a divided world. We are the first organisation to build children's empathy and social activism through a systematic use of high-quality literature. Our strategy is based on scientific evidence showing that empathy is learnable and that books are a powerful tool to build it.


Our mission is to raise an empathy-educated generation, inspired to build a better world for everyone. By 2026 we aim to benefit 1 million children, helping them learn more about empathy and develop their empathy skills. 


Imagine every single child knowing what empathy is, and isn’t, and why is matters. Being skilled at putting themselves in others’ shoes, able to articulate and share their feelings. Being wonderful listeners, inspired to put empathy into action. Imagine the world being run by such a generation, with empathy a priority in their decision making and leadership! We dream of that world. 

Our Story

Miranda McKearney OBE on our first steps 


In 2014 l really thought I was retiring from The Reading Agency, the charity I’d previously founded.


But the scientific research I’d seen building, about reading’s effect on real life empathy, kept poking at me. 


With my four fellow founders we held a big Think-In at the Royal Festival Hall asking whether society and the education system was making the most of this link. We envisaged a systemic change in which the books and book-talk happening in schools, libraries & homes could be used more deliberately to the transformative life skill of empathy. 


The Think-In feedback was that harnessing stories’ power to develop empathy was a sound idea, and much needed. And so EmpathyLab began. 

Since 2015 the organisation has been experimenting, lab-like, building on that Think-In guidance. Senior founders have made a significant pro-bono commitment to testing a range of interventions, supported by a team of expert advisors and volunteers. There is clearly a demand and a need for this work, because each of these interventions have had more interest and impact than we founders could ever have dreamt. 

What do we do?

Our programmes now form an Empathy Year 

Our annual Read for Empathy collection is launched every February. The 2024 book collection is here!


Empathy Day is now established as a national day with mass involvement  from children's authors, publishers, library services and schools. Empathy Day 2024 is on 6 June. View our list of partners.


Empathy Action Month, a month devoted to social action, is held every November and is a chance to revisit the Resolutions made on Empathy Day.


We’ve Got This: in 2023 we worked with author Rashmi Sirdeshpande and publisher Quarto to provide a powerful new resource – a handbook for children with six steps to build their empathy superpower


Underpinning this is our year-round support for schools through our Schools Programme and our short training courses.


We are working with an ever growing army of publishers, authors and illustrators who are helping us spread the empathy message. 47 publishers belong to our Empathy Builders scheme. 

 Our Values Statement 

  • We believe everyone has the right to live in peace without hate or prejudice and that all individuals should be valued and respected.


  • We are an inclusive organisation that welcomes people of all genders, sexualities, races, cultures, classes and backgrounds. 


  • We are of course an organisation that promotes empathy and listening.


  • We particularly try to listen and understand where people’s feelings and views are coming from. This applies especially when we encounter those that challenge our own thinking. 


  • We believe we should be open to a range of personal viewpoints as long as they are respectfully and empathetically expressed.

Founders and Directors

  • Miranda McKearney

    Miranda is a social justice entrepreneur who has spent 35 years turning kitchen table ideas into nationwide campaigns, culminating in founding The Reading Agency, a national charity, in 2002. The charity’s Summer Reading Challenge now involves 800,000 children every year.


    Having “retired” to go trekking, she became fascinated by the building body of research showing that reading builds empathy. This has led to her founding EmpathyLab. 


    Twitter - @MirandaMcK

    Email - miranda@empathylab.uk

  • Craig Hill

    Craig has 20 years experience developing pioneering digital agencies, specialising in the the children, teens and family audiences. In that time he has helped guide leading brands and charities on their digital strategies including The Walt Disney Company, Comic Relief, Unilever and the BBC.


    He is a School Governor, and has a particular passion for the role stories play in children’s development and innovations in how families embrace stories.


    Twitter - @craig_s_hill

    Email - craig@empathylab.uk

  • Sarah Mears

    Sarah Mears is Programme Manager for Libraries Connected, a national development organisation supporting public libraries.   She is a member of the Society of Chief Librarians’ National Executive, and is a past Chair of ASCEL (The Association of Senior Children’s and Education Librarians). 


    Her work in children’s libraries has long convinced her of the power of stories to change children’s lives. In 2018, she was awarded an MBE for services to Children and Young People. Her rich experience (nationally and locally) of innovating to engage reluctant readers is vital to our work.


    Twitter - @sarahmears10

    Email - sarah@empathylab.uk

  • Caroline Scott

    Caroline Scott has 38 years’ teaching experience, latterly as an Assistant Head with responsibility for inclusion and behaviour. She now tutors in a Pupil Referral Unit, working to inspire disadvantaged/special educational needs pupils. 


    Caroline has a continuing and passionate belief in the next generation and the importance of their capacity to communicate effectively. 


    Twitter - @scotty_caroline

    Email - caroline@empathylab.uk

  • Roy Brown

    Roy is a qualified senior finance professional, with years of experience providing businesses with support and services to maximise growth and realise potential. 


    ​Much of his extensive experience was achieved as a financial director working with a fast-moving entrepreneurial managing director. Together, they achieved year on year growth. 


    ​Serving as a pension trustee for 25 years ( including 3 years as chairman) has given him a deep understanding of complex arrangements & compliance issues.


    He is the founder and director of RLJB Business Consultancy. 

Our Policies

  • Privacy Policy

    EmpathyLab is committed to keeping your information secure and managing it in accordance with our legal responsibilities under privacy and data protection laws.   


    You can download our Privacy Policy here.

  • Safeguarding Policy

    EmpathyLab is committed to safeguarding and promoting the health, safety and well-being of children. 


    You can download our safeguarding policy here

  • Cancellation Policy

    As a small not-for profit, we need to operate a cancellation policy if you book a place on a training course and then cancel it.


    If we are able to fill a cancelled place with someone else, we will not make a charge.


    If we’re unable to fill the place, we will charge 85% of the fee.

To discover more about our wonderful team of volunteers, click here.


To find out how you can get involved yourself, click here.

Expert Advisors
  • Professor Robin Banerjee

    Robin Banerjee is Professor of Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology at the University of Sussex. He directs the CRESS (Children's Relationships, Emotions, and Social Skills) research lab, which investigates children's social and emotional development, and involves close working partnerships with practitioners and policymakers in the areas of education and mental health. 


    Recent studies have examined the social and emotional dimensions of school ethos, factors involved in peer acceptance, rejection, and bullying, the social and cognitive processes involved in childhood social anxiety, the psychosocial development of children in the public care system, and the connections between consumer culture and well-being in school children. A core applied focus of the CRESS lab is the development and evaluation of strategies to support young people’s social and emotional functioning. 

  • Professor Teresa Cremin

    Teresa Cremin is Professor of Education (Literacy) at The Open University. Teresa is a Fellow of the English Association and the Academy of Social Sciences, a Director of the Cambridge Primary Review Trust, a Trustee of UKLA and the Society for Educational Studies, a Board Member of Booktrust, co-convenor for the BERA Creativity SIG and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. 


    Her socio-cultural research is frequently co-participative, involving teachers as researchers within and beyond the classroom. Her research interests relate to teachers’ literate identities and practices, pedagogies which foster building communities of readers and writers and the role of creativity in teaching and learning. 


    Teresa has written and edited over 25 books and numerous papers and professional texts, most recently Building Engaged Communities of Readers: Reading for Pleasure(2014, Routledge) Researching Literacy Lives : Building Home School communities (Routledge , 2015) and editing Learning to teach in the Primary School (3rd edition) (Routledge, 2014) and The International Handbook of Research into Children’s Literacy, Learning and Culture (2013, Wiley Blackwell) with colleagues. 


  • Anne McNeil

    Anne founded Anne McNeil Creative Limited in February 2022 after almost forty years’ experience working in Children’s Publishing – for the last thirty as a Publishing Director at two of the UK’s most prestigious imprints,  Hodder Children’s Books, part of  Hachette, and Bodley Head Children's Books, part of PRH.


    Known for her unique vision, editorial flair, business insight and commercial awareness, she has developed and led the careers of some of the UK’s most prestigious writers and illustrators.

  • Rashmi Sirdeshpande

    Rashmi Sirdeshpande is an award-winning children's author who loves taking big ideas and making them accessible and exciting for young readers. Rashmi writes non-fiction picture books that ignite children's curiosity, as well as fictional stories that crackle with imagination.


  • Louise Johns-Shepherd

    Louise Johns-Shepherd has a wealth of experience in education leadership and in primary schools, and is currently the CEO for the Centre of Literacy in Primary Education (CLPE)


    She was a Senior Director at the Primary National Strategies and Headteacher Consultant at the National College of School Leadership. She was also the director of an Education Action Zone. Louise trained as a primary school teacher at Homerton College Cambridge and has taught for her entire career in London. 


    She studied for her MA at the Institute of Education. Louise has been the headteacher of two schools, a nursery school and children’s centre in Lambeth and, most recently, a primary school in Southwark. Under her leadership the school moved from a very challenging position to one of the fifty most improved schools in England. 


    Louise’s interests are in assessment, progression and curriculum development as well as all aspects of organisational leadership. In 2014 Louise was pleased to be recognised by The Education Foundation as an Education Reformer of the Year.

  • Jon Biddle

    Jon Biddle is a senior teacher at one of EmpathyLab’s pioneer schools, with a passion for developing genuine reading cultures.


    He is the 2018 winner of the Egmont Reading for Pleasure Experienced teacher award and coordinates the national Patron of Reading initiative, which supports authors and poets in developing relationships with schools. 


    Jon is a member of the UKLA National Council, a regular contributor to the Open University Reading For Pleasure website and a reviewer for Books for Keeps and Just Imagine Story Centre. 


    He writes a blog on building reading communities in schools and talks about books at every possible opportunity.

  • Rachel Snape

    Rachel Snape was the Headteacher at one of our EmpathyLab pioneer schools, The Spinney School, since 2007.  She is now Headteacher of Milton Road Primary School, Cambridge. She is passionate about the positive and transformative power of Arts, Culture, Creativity and Connection in young people’s lives. 


    In addition to her busy role as Headteacher, Rachel is the Chair of Cambridgeshire School Improvement Board, a member of Cambridgeshire Culture and is Festival Designer of the Cambridgeshire Festival of Education, an annual optimistic celebration of teachers and teaching that takes place at the Faculty of Education, Cambridge University. 


  • Dr Helen Demetriou

    Dr Helen Demetriou is a chartered psychologist and currently teaches at the Faculty of Education of the University of Cambridge. Her research here and also at the Institute of Psychiatry in London has covered areas in developmental psychology and education. 


    She has researched for OFSTED, QCA and DfE and published widely on topics including friendships, pupil consultation, teachers’ professional learning, empathy, and currently, ways of developing creativity in the design and technology classroom. Helen is on the editorial advisory board for journals including Improving Schools, Social Development, and Educational Studies. Her book, Empathy, Emotion and Education (2018) was published by Palgrave Macmillan Press.

  • Sonia Thompson

    Sonia is the Head Teacher at St Matthew’s C.E. Primary School, in Nechells, Birmingham: the first winner of the OU/UKLA Whole School Reading for Pleasure School of the Year. 


    She is passionate about evidence-based reading for pleasure practices and places these at the heart of the school. 

  • Meeta Thareja

    Meeta is an entrepreneur with over 20 years of international experience in Business Strategy Consulting, Operations and Marketing. She co-founded consulting firm MetaValue in 2012 with the vision to be an antidote to austerity by helping more businesses grow and thrive. Since founding, MetaValue has delivered projects across the private, public and not-for-profit sectors. The company has been a leading supplier to the Cabinet Office on two flagship programmes that aimed to support the redesign of public services with innovative new models of delivery. MetaValue’s work has been recognised and presented at the Cabinet Office as best practice in the sector. 


    Meeta is also a well-established business mentor for start-ups and SMEs in the UK. She has worked with Universities, Business Accelerators, Local and Central Governments and the European Regional Development Fund to support over 300 start-up, SMEs and social innovators to bring bold ideas to life and amplify their impact. She has been a specialist advisor at innovation foundations such as Nesta and The Young Foundation to support social innovators addressing some of the most pressing issues of our times. 


    Meeta is Chairperson of the Advisory Board of award-winning social enterprise - Auticon - that creates employment opportunities for autistic people in the technology sector, placing them on projects with large Fortune 500 companies. Meeta is also on the Board of Money A+E, a non-profit working to support disadvantaged minority communities with money advice and education. Previously she was a Member of the Independent Advisory Panel for the British Army’s Defence College of Logistics, Policing & Administration. 

    Meeta was one of six women in the UK named Asian Women of Achievement (Entrepreneur) in 2014. She is part of Women of the Future Network - a national forum for high potential women in business.


    A believer in the unlimited potential for good in every human, for over 20 years, Meeta has been an active local community volunteer with SGI – an international organisation committed to peace through dialogue, education and culture. She is also an amateur painter with an ambition to ace her game in watercolour.

Our Team

  • Emily Somerville

    Emily joined Empathy Lab in late 2021 with a background in anthropology, working with young people, and writing. After her first job as a bookseller she's gone on to do all sorts of weird and wonderful things, including working in start ups, supporting SEN students, copywriting, volunteering on a creative literacy programme for young people, performing her own writing, and orchestrating intimate live music events. 


    She has often worked supporting smaller organisations as they grow, and has made her working and volunteering choices on the basis of work that feels valuable for the world she hopes to help build. She never has fewer than a dozen or so books on the bedside table that she's part way through... 

  • Paul Jenkins

    Paul is a former secondary teacher and Head of Drama who joined the EmpathyLab team as Project Manager in May 2019. After leaving full time classroom teaching, Paul developed his skills as a writer and performer, writing children’s poetry books and touring the UK delivering workshops in schools to inspire a new generation of creative writers. 


    He has also developed classroom resources for among others; The National Literacy Trust, 14-18 Now, The Literacy Shed and BBC Learning. Paul firmly believes that literature is a huge tool for bringing about social change and constantly strives to develop new narratives for readers to explore the world we share. 


    paul@empathylab.uk 

  • Kirsten Grant

    Kirsten Grant is a freelance brand and marketing consultant. She is the former Director of World Book Day (2011-2020), running the world’s biggest celebration of reading for pleasure.



    Previously, Kirsten spent 15 years at Penguin Books, latterly as Puffin Marketing and Campaigns Director, spearheading and delivering campaigns for some of the biggest brands in children’s books including Roald Dahl, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Puffin’s 70th anniversary.

  • Mari Bowen

    Mari has 25 years of teaching experience and for much of that time was a Literacy Coordinator. 


    She recently spent 2 years working for Regional Consortia developing the Curriculum for Wales within schools. 


    Mari is passionate about developing a culture of reading for pleasure across schools. She now works part-time as a supply teacher and also for the EmpathyLab team spreading the message of the empathy revolution!


  • Vanessa Browne

    Vanessa joined EmpathyLab in 2022 as Marketing & Digital Communications Officer. With a background in children's publishing, bookselling, tutoring and more, the connection in all her roles is that she believes there's no space quite as magical as the world of children's and YA literature.  


    She loves working for a small team with big dreams to help the next generation thrive. Outside of EmpathyLab, she freelances as a proofreader, and works part time as a children's bookseller, where she loves chatting to local families and schools about the books they're enjoying. 



  • Helen Mulligan

    Helen first joined EmpathyLab as Deputy Head of one of the Pioneer Schools in 2017. With a background in and passion for leading literacy, reading for pleasure, drama and social and emotional learning, she embraced the role of Empathy Lead. Since then, around having a young family, she has worked with EmpathyLab as a consultant helping to develop the schools programme, write core materials, support training and report on the impact of EmpathyLab’s work and, currently, as a Schools Engagement consultant. After 15 years teaching and leading schools both in the UK and internationally, Helen now works as a freelance consultant and coach, working with young people and adults to get the results they want.


  • Sarah Christou

    In 2019, Sarah won the FAB Prize for Illustration, a competition hosted by Faber. Sarah's debut picture book, Blue was published by Faber in January 2023. Working with a mix of hand drawing and digital editing, Sarah aims to express emotion through the body language and facial expressions of her characters. After going through a challenging childhood, Sarah has taken a particular interest in children's mental health in her work. She believes in the power of storytelling for healing, building empathy or for simply enjoying a moment with a book. She is in the final year of an MA in Children's Book Illustration at the Cambridge School of Art. 



    Before becoming an author/illustrator, Sarah worked in marketing and publishing. She has two CACHE Level 2 qualifications in children's mental health for early years and for older children/young people. Sarah is delighted to be supporting EmpathyLab as a volunteer. 

  • Roy Brown

    Roy is a qualified senior finance professional, with years of experience providing businesses with support and services to maximise growth and realise potential. 


    ​Much of his extensive experience was achieved as a financial director working with a fast-moving entrepreneurial managing director. Together, they achieved year on year growth. 


    ​Serving as a pension trustee for 25 years ( including 3 years as chairman) has given him a deep understanding of complex arrangements & compliance issues.


    He is the founder and director of RLJB Business Consultancy.  

  • Anne McNeil

    Anne founded Anne McNeil Creative Limited in February 2022 after almost forty years’ experience working in Children’s Publishing – for the last thirty as a Publishing Director at two of the UK’s most prestigious imprints,  Hodder Children’s Books, part of  Hachette, and Bodley Head Children's Books, part of PRH.


    Known for her unique vision, editorial flair, business insight and commercial awareness, she has developed and led the careers of some of the UK’s most prestigious writers and illustrators.

  • Maxine Battle

    Maxing provides finance support for the EmpathyLab team. She is Director at English Experiences and Bourne Valley Accounting Services


EmpathyLab is a not-for-profit Community Interest Company. Our registered company number is 10876747.

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