About
Stronger foundations, before crisis.
Her Best Steps is a London-based Community Interest Company helping young women aged 18 to 25 build stronger foundations before they reach crisis. This is the fuller story of who we are, how we work, and where we're going.
Why we exist
Early adulthood can feel like being expected to know the answers before anyone's shown you the map. Relationships get serious, money suddenly matters, family shifts, careers begin, and for many young women it all happens at once.
Most support arrives after something has already gone wrong. We think that's too late. We work with young women at the point where the right conversation, the right knowledge and the right support can change what happens next. We teach young women the things no one teaches, before adulthood becomes overwhelming.
Our ambition is simple: to equip young women with the knowledge, confidence and practical tools to navigate adulthood safely.
The Four Foundations
Everything we build sits across four foundations, because life doesn't happen in separate boxes. When one is shaky, it usually shows up in the others.
01 · Relational
Healthy relationships, boundaries, consent, and recognising unhealthy or controlling dynamics early.
02 · Internal
Confidence, self-worth and identity, and making decisions from a place of strength.
03 · Family
Support systems, belonging, and understanding the patterns we carry from home.
04 · Financial
Money, work and independence, and spotting financial control.
Every young woman who works with us leaves with her own Her Map™: where she is now, where she wants to be, and one next step.
Our model: one journey, not scattered support
Everything we do connects. At the centre is Safe Futures™, our flagship programme across the four foundations. Around it sits an ecosystem that begins by listening and continues long after the programme ends:
- Her Voices — we listen first, so the programme is shaped by young women, not our assumptions.
- Her Map™ — the framework the programme is built on, and the personal plan each woman leaves with.
- Safe Futures™ — the core programme at the heart of it all.
- Educational workshops — standalone sessions for campuses and community settings.
- Future Leaders — the graduate pathway into mentoring, ambassador and facilitator roles.
- In universities and beyond — bringing the programme to young women where they already are.
Where we are today
Safe Futures™ is being shaped alongside young women, founding partners and subject-matter experts, to make sure it reflects the realities of early adulthood. We believe building it well matters more than launching it quickly.
Informed by evidence. Shaped by experience.
Our work draws on research into healthy relationships, early intervention and wellbeing, alongside the lived experience of young women themselves. We listen before we build.
Safe by design
Safeguarding isn't an add-on for us. It's the condition of the work. Every session runs with a named safeguarding lead trained in safeguarding adults, trained facilitators who signpost rather than counsel, clear signposting to specialist support, and consent and privacy respected under UK GDPR. Read our safeguarding statement.
Already bringing young women together
Moments from our recent event: real women, honest conversations, and the kind of room we're building more of.
Our founder
Jasmin Barrett, Founder
Her Best Steps is what its founder wishes had existed earlier: relatable, informed, emotionally honest, and human rather than out of reach.
Jasmin Barrett came through this stage of life without a map, shaped by a home that came apart and a relationship she had to find her way out of. She trained as a Croydon Domestic Abuse Ambassador and turned what she'd lived into an understanding of how unhealthy dynamics, environment and access quietly shape the choices young women make.
She kept seeing younger women hit the same walls, and the same gaps in support and guidance, a place that meets young women earlier, and because they trust it, they reach out sooner.
That's why Her Best Steps exists.