Nicola Benyahia Speaker | New Speakers & Women & Well-being & Anti-Bullying & Drugs/Alcohol & Mental Health

Nicola Benyahia

Its not what happens to you that defines who you are, but actually how you respond and what you do with it after.

An extremely skilled, hard working and highly motivated qualified counsellor whose work has led to her being awarded an MBE in 2022 for Services to Education .

Nicola is an accredited BACP Counsellor specialising in trauma, extremism, family counselling and youth counselling and mentoring with an accreditation in Clinical Supervision and further training as a qualified EMDR Therapist.

She has an impressive and extensive track record of delivering bespoke and tailored training, workshops and focus groups to a variety of audiences - from local communities to practitioners and stakeholders. Nicola has delivered to both National and International audiences on issues around mental health, wellbeing and extremism including but not limited to the following:
- United Nations Geneva Conventions
- May Chidiac Foundation/Queen Rania of Jordan ‘Women on the Front Lines’ in Jordan
- Maasticht Universiy – ‘An honest conversation with Islam and Terrorism’,
- Public speaker International Work – facebook and Twitter in San Francisco,
- The Global Philanthropy Forum – World Affairs Council in Washington ‘Citizens Power- waging peace’
- UN Youth Development Forum – MISK in New York
- RAN – Portugal, Netherland, Belgium, France, Italy – Police and Families and engagement.
- DARE Project in Poland
- National work with police, social workers, NHS workers, Universities, colleges, schools, and community groups
- Training provider to practitioners around safeguarding, mental health and extremism

Further to this she works tirelessly to educate and further the reach of counselling services working with the media extensively through TV and Radio interviews across a multitude of platforms such as the BBC, History Channel, Hardtalk, This Morning, Good Morning Britain, ABC, NPR, The Independent, Sky, The Economist, National Geographical, Al Araby, Radio 4 and many more.

Nicola has also published articles for Forward-Henry Jackson Society ‘ signs of radicalisation’, The New York Times ‘My son the Jihadist’ and helped produce awareness videos with EACT – an interview Contribution to Home Office Governmental, short awareness videos with Connect Futures and with Noami Varga. She aims to use her exposure and reach to educate on mental health, trauma and extremism and provide pathways to understanding, building bridges between communities and fostering relationships to tackle global issues.

Nicola is also the founder and Director of Families for Life, setting up her counselling service for families in 2016, and further to this, a girls mentoring scheme for 14-19 year old – ‘Mentoring 4 Life’ – in 2019. The mentoring scheme is a 6 month one to one mentoring programme in Birmingham that is aimed at young women aged 14-19 year with the purpose of heling develop their motivation, confidence and self esteem, enabling them to fulfil their potential and to become the women they aspire to be.

Nicola possesses strong leadership skills with a positive and hardworking outlook, striving always to achieve the highest possible standards. She relishes new challenges and ensuring positive outcomes whilst enjoying the process to achieving this.

Testimonials from Teachers

'I am still moved and bowled over by your presentation and have had so many messages from people expressing the same sentiments. One delegate wrote saying he had never heard such a powerful presentation before and was hugely affected by your story. We all were. Thank you so much for joining us and for sharing your experiences. It gave many of us food for thought and a whole new dimension on the whole issue of radicalisation and the personal effect it has on the people closest to that individual.'

– Cllr Mimi Harker OBE, Member for Missenden and Prestwood, Armed Forces Champion Buckinghamshire

‘I was particularly moved by the story – a terrible cautionary episode, illustrated in an amazingly accessible manner, which encapsulated what the day was all about.’
‘it really helps to have holistic and informative approach explained in such detail as to how to increase support from young people against the pressures of modern life.’
‘Thank you for sharing your story with us. Lots for all of us to take away and will help to make what we all do so much more impactive whilst putting the families at the hear of any investigation.’

– Hertfordshire Constabulary and 6 police forces in Eastern Region.

'Thank you again for coming to the book launch yesterday and sharing your experience – I can’t express enough how much I appreciate it. I was approached by a lot of people who said they were absolutely fascinated with the work you are doing and your expertise.'

– Dr Anna Kruglova, Lecturer in Terrorism Studies, Programme Leader MA Terrorism and Security, The University of Salford,