HOW Inspire is a unique, exciting membership hub for teenage girls age 11-16 years old
"Exposure to role models, intergenerational and peer to peer mentoring is the most powerful way to inspire the next generation; building confident, forward thinking, innovative and passionate young people"
Dr Jo Watkins, co founder The HOW People
A safe, fun, community, connecting girls to other girls of the same age all over the world. Bringing role models, mentors, experts and coaches into weekly, interactive live Zoom calls.
We use the pillars of The HOW People (Happiness, Opportunities and Wellbeing) to create the framework for all our courses, workshops and live events.
HOW Inspire is our signature digital membership for teen girls consisting of weekly LIVE calls on Zoom (Thursday 7pm BST) with co founders Polly and Jo.
Featuring a combination of:
HAPPINESS
Mentoring Calls or Pow Wows
OPPORTUNITIES
#likeTEDtalksforteens with guest speakers
WELLBEING
The Know HOW framework of life skills and wellbeing
These are inspiring, relaxed, inclusive and most of all FUN!
We chat to all sorts of incredible people and bring some amazing content to your teens. Bringing young role models along with older experts, we focus on personal development, mentoring, positivity and enjoyment. Your teen will learn from others about the paths their lives have takes. What they are passionate about. Their struggles. Their advice.
All this, whilst making new friends around the world.
We reach out to speakers and experts from all walks of life: their career path, things they'd do differently and what advice they would give to their teenage self.
Sign me up to the waiting list
Happiness
Mentoring Calls
- Mentoring calls or HOW Chats kick off the month
- Facilitated by co founders plus HOW Researcher Emma Clift, a secondary PHSE Teacher and previous Year 7 form tutor
- Sessions start and end as a group with co founders and all the girls
- Games, chats, open forum time for discussions around important topics
- Smaller group work for ages 11-13 yrs and a focus on mentoring for 14-16 yrs
- Discussing weekly wins, goal setting, any issues, together
- Encouraging peer to peer support
- One session a month
Opportunities
TED talks for teens
- A special guest is invited to chat about their role, their journey, their advice to their teenage self
- Covering all sorts of careers and role models
- Learning from people who you wouldn't meet in everyday life
- Be inspired by role models who are passionate about their subjects
- Encouraged to ask questions with mic or in chat box
- #likeTEDtalksforteens
- Two sessions a month
Wellbeing
The Know HOW
- The building blocks of teening and adulting: our own framework
- Run as a discussion with Q&A
- These sessions will take a subject from The Know HOW course and stimulate a discussion
- Sleep, nutrition, worry, social media, connection, friendship, body confidence, self confidence
- Positivity, breathing, journalling, stress, entrepreneurship and more
- Co founders will lead and invite a guest, if suitable, for the subject
- One session a month
Here is a sneaky peak into our HOW Inspire membership calls with guests Caroline Millington, Ria Chatterjee and La Chun Lindsay
What advice would you give your teenage self?
This is a question we put to all of our guests
This is something that has given us some brilliant answers over the last year
Surround yourself with good people
Just have a go
Build up the other people around you
Don’t try so hard
Don’t worry about the things you can't control
Celebrate the little things
Be yourself and don’t change for anyone
Don’t sweat the small stuff
Know you are good enough just the way you are
Behind the scenes at HOW HQ and a preview of HOW Inspire membership with co founders Jo and Polly
This is what one of our amazing guests, actress Aimee Barrett had to say about coming to speak to our HOW Inspire Membership girls...
You have to see it to be it.
Those people ahead of you can show you the way and light up a path you didn't know existed.
HOW Inspire is now CLOSED
HOW Inspire connects teenage girls aged 11-16 years old to role models, mentors, coaching and community.
Growing confidence and resilience while inspiring girls to carve their own path with the help of mentors and role models.
The first of its kind in the UK, evolved during lockdown from live and in person events to a thriving digital membership. GP, flexi-schooling mum of four, Dr Jo Watkins and mum of two, design, strategy and design queen Polly Crook deliver weekly sessions via fun, interactive, LIVE calls (Thursday 7pm) which are recorded and stored exclusively for members in easy to use software.
"Like a weekly digital hug"
Here are two of the girls from our membership telling you a little bit about what they love about what HOW Inspire membership.
Two very different answers going to prove that each girl takes different things away from each session.
Bethan (aged 12) and Claudia (aged 14)
What have others thought about what we do?
"The confidence you have given the girls, the way you both treat them as important individuals with voices that will be heard and the bonding you encourage between them is fantastic. This is a tricky age when they are on the cusp of being a teenager as well as discovering who they are. I remember feeling so socially awkward at this age, difficult to know where your place is.
Anna, North London. Mum of 12 year old HOW founding member
“I’m not sure where to start with ‘general’ feedback - I’m so thankful that both my girls have been a part of The HOW People. I think that this is going to be life altering for so many young girls. At this tricky time when self esteem is being formed, you are showing young girls that there really is more to life than the fake reality that social media is creating."
Rhian, South Wales. Mum of twin 13 year old girls, HOW founding members
MEET YOUR HOW FOUNDERS
Hey there, we are Jo and Polly.
Here is a little more about us...
JO WATKINS
Co founder of The HOW People, freelance GP, Mum of 4, Home/World/Flexi schooler. Lover of road trips, travel, friends, start up businesses and the great outdoors. Jo knows how important role models are to her own daughter and how they influenced her own path in life.
Happiest in the mountains or by the sea with husband Davey and the kids. She wants to see as much of the world as possible with her family.
One of her daughters is 13 yrs old. She is a lover of adventure, her friends and TikTok. Like every teenage girl.
Jo understands exactly what goes on in a teenage house!
Passionate about making and taking opportunities, Jo is excited about all the HOW plans. "HOW is having a really positive impact on the girls we have worked with so far and we are so excited to continue building on this."
POLLY CROOK
Co-founder of The HOW People with a background in design, a career in sales and strategic development for a global sports brand and currently working for a charity in the 'Sport for development' sector. Polly is a beach obsessed Mumbles native, with two small children who are never happier than slightly feral and exploring rock pools.
Polly and her husband Dan try to be as environmentally conscious as possible, whilst teaching their kids how they can have a positive impact on the world.
Polly is the first to admit that growing up, education was her Kryptonite. People are always shocked when they find out that the incredibly ambitious, confident, spreadsheet queen they know today, actually left school with only three GCSE's!
After finding out she was dyslexic at an early age, those school years were pretty tough. No matter what anyone told her, she always felt like a bit of a 'thicko'.
Everything changed for Polly when she met an unlikely mentor in sixth form who saw straight through her outer shell, and taught her the difference between being confidence and self confidence. That you can in fact be outwardly confident, yet have low self confidence. This pivotal moment gave Polly the confidence to resit her GCSE's finally go on to University to study design. Something she thought a 'thicko' like her could never achieve.
That is the reason that Polly believes in the incredible impact that a mentor or role model can have on the lives of young people. Because for her, it was the moment she began to believe in her abilities. That you don't have to be great at spelling to achieve great things.
"Tell me I can’t do something. I dare you."
"Some might call me a bit bossy, but I like to think I’m being assertive!"
"I can’t argue with the people that say I talk a lot."
Polly's Dad’s mantra about his children growing up was ‘Give them roots, and give them wings’ That’s why she is doing this.
"I love making things happen."
This is our real life.
Life can be messy and wonderful and scary and changing all the time. We embrace the chaos, and turn it into memories and conversations that our children will remember their entire lives.
Honest. Funny. Driven. Inspirational. Ridiculous.
Apparently, these words describe us both very well.
With very different stories to get us to this place.
A place where we are here, doing this, together.
Both following our passions and loving every minute of what we are doing.
Our stories. Our paths to get here...
Intertwined in strange ways along our lives despite growing up 200 miles apart.
We will tell our stories along the way, and to try and paint the picture of what got us to now.
We get by on crazy work hours, maternal guilt, silly sleep hours and wondering if we are getting it all 'right'.
Well, if you have read this far, and you are thinking this is it! Please get in touch with us [email protected] for more information or join the waiting list. Membership will reopen for a pop up over the next few months at some point!