Sophia Alexandra Hall - The Churchill Fellowship
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Fellow's Profile

Sophia Alexandra Hall

Fellow's Profile

Sophia Alexandra Hall

Media toolkit for journalists working with care experienced people

Fellowship

Themes
Focus

Designing a trauma-informed toolkit for journalists working with care experienced people.

Countries
Fellowship year

2023

Supported by
Locality

London

Contact

Biography

I am an award-winning journalist who spent my teenage years in the UK's foster care system. I am particularly interested in trauma-informed practice within my industry. As both a care experienced person (CEP) who has been interviewed by the media, and a journalist in my own right, I have a unique first-hand perspective on issues that can arise without proper training. When interviewing someone about their lived experience, this conversation can trigger a range of emotions, behaviours and sometimes long-forgotten memories. As a recently qualified journalist, I know that few schools or courses in the UK teach professionals how to deal with these realities.

My Fellowship focuses on the creation of a toolkit which will help prepare journalists for an interview with someone from a CEP background. The trauma-informed toolkit will also advise CEP interviewees on their rights when working with the media, and detail self-care practices to ensure their safety. I am grateful to the Churchill Fellowship for giving me the opportunity to travel to the USA and realise this toolkit. I also hope to turn the toolkit into accessible training sessions available to both media professionals and CEPs.

Activity

editorial

In Conversation with Sophia Alexandra Hall: Empowering care-experienced voices in the media

We spoke to Churchill Fellow Sophia Alexandra Hall about how her Fellowship helped shape her trauma-informed interviewing toolkit, now used across major UK newsrooms. Drawing on her lived experience and 50 interviews in the USA, she reflects on the need for safer, more empowering media practices for care-experienced and other under-represented people. She also shares how this work has grown through training, conference speaking, and an expanding public platform at Big Issue.

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, 4 December 2025

Disclaimer

All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.

Activity

editorial

In Conversation with Sophia Alexandra Hall: Empowering care-experienced voices in the media

We spoke to Churchill Fellow Sophia Alexandra Hall about how her Fellowship helped shape her trauma-informed interviewing toolkit, now used across major UK newsrooms. Drawing on her lived experience and 50 interviews in the USA, she reflects on the need for safer, more empowering media practices for care-experienced and other under-represented people. She also shares how this work has grown through training, conference speaking, and an expanding public platform at Big Issue.

By Sophia Alexandra Hall, 4 December 2025

Disclaimer

All Reports are copyright © the author. The moral right of the author has been asserted. The views and opinions expressed by any Fellow are those of the Fellow and not of the Churchill Fellowship or its partners, which have no responsibility or liability for any part of them.

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