Meet the team…
Colin Michel
Co-founder and Co-director
Colin is most delighted when entrusted with facilitation and research. He has had the privilege of collaborating with thousands of practitioners and leaders in scores of organisations across the helping sectors in England.
Until 2016, Colin worked on facilitating learning opportunities with practitioners in community, education, and youth work settings.
After that, Colin got involved in projects around transformation and reviews with local government, the NHS and education. On a good day, Colin felt he was building a legacy in consultancy with safeguarding partnerships, as a trusted facilitator around inclusive schools, relational practice and multi-agency working. He did his best to influence policy impact and positive outcomes.
But, by 2024, something was… off.
Colin felt he had reached the end of an eight-year detour, mostly behind a screen, editing different versions of the same strategy!
There was not enough space in his working life for the deep connectedness, collaborative learning and change-agency that he loves to be involved in.
So, he decided to create some more space. He approached Rachel and together they established Resonant Collaboration…
Resonant Collaboration’s Colin Michel wanted to create a social enterprise to help practitioners connect deeply with each other to learn, develop and flourish.
Over the years, Colin has been an English tutor with young people (2002-2016); a learning manager in three charities (2004-2014); and a facilitator for accredited courses in work with families (2008-2015). As a consultant, he has created partnership strategies and practice guidance (2016-2024).
Rachel Ringham
Co-founder and Co-director
With over 25 years in youth safeguarding, Rachel is dedicated and passionate about promoting the youth welfare and safety.
Respected across regions for deep knowledge and expertise in safeguarding children facing harm outside the home and relational practice, Rachel has led multidisciplinary teams and shared expertise across all professional sectors.
Rachel works side-by-side with young people, their families, and communities to design and facilitate learning and development opportunities.
Rachel has produced policies, protocols, practice recommendations, and partnership strategies to prevent harm and promote the rights of young people.
Rachel is a professional development leader who loves to support the growth, learning and professional development of practitioners at all levels and across all sectors. Drawing on research and best practice, Rachel refines approaches and arrangements to respond ethically to the emerging challenges faced by youth today.
With a career-long dedication to kindness, curiosity, understanding, and making a meaningful impact, Rachel has earned a reputation as a trusted advisor and a compassionate advocate for youth welfare and those experiencing harm outside the home. With special expertise in service audit, Rachel is highly skilled in implementing quality service processes and effective improvements.
Rachel feels joy in working alongside children, young people and families, recognising and valuing teens for who they are. Rachel contributes to safeguarding forums, writes thought-leadership articles, and collaborates with policymakers to shape safeguarding systems that prioritise the needs of young people in an ever-changing world.
Throughout a rich career, Rachel has worked with a variety of organisations, including local authorities, police, voluntary sector and education, developing and implementing safeguarding frameworks that promote protection, agency, wellbeing, and flourishing.
Our Resonant Collaborators…
…are highly-skilled practitioners, facilitators, researchers, and consultants from a broad variety of backgrounds.
We share a passion for relational practice, imagination, and social action. We draw on our rich expertise of leading professional development, service review and improvement programmes across children, youth, family, care, and community sectors.
We have many years of combined experience in practice, management, leadership and research in the contexts of adult and community learning, early help, education, family support, social care, and youth work.
Profiles and pictures coming soon!
The Resonant Collaboration story…
Colin and Rachel founded Resonant Collaboration in early 2025, after many long chats about their shared delight in creating spaces for sharing knowledge, building capacity, and developing practice guidance for youth safeguarding.
They both recognise, like so many in our field, that our institutions, agency cultures and service structures are sometimes exacerbating harm to young people, even while they promise to alleviate or prevent it.
With a pinch of pragmatism, creativity and humour, Colin and Rachel decided to set up a new organisation to create Resonant Spaces that contribute to youth safeguarding by adding some professional love.
Colin and Rachel hugely appreciate the thousands of children, young people, family members, volunteers, practitioners, managers, leaders, policymakers, and researchers whom they have had the privilege to work alongside over the last two decades and more. These people have shared a wealth of wisdom that has inspired Colin and Rachel to create Resonant Collaboration.
We love to collaborate by sharing stories, co-writing articles, co-creating resources and co-facilitating workshops.
Get in touch if you have an idea for a collaborative project, and if you’d like to create conducive conditions for connectedness, learning, resonance and collaboration.