HE Angels

I have written before about the way that some home educators are convinced that there must be money to be made from their expertise in this subject and their attempts to cash in on the market. Sadly, nearly all fail. Most home educating parents are too hard-up and suspicious to pay somebody to tell them how to go about educating their own child or dealing with their local authority. A few enterprising souls try to get money from local authorities by training them about home education. Both Mike Fortune-Wood and Alison Sauer do this of course. I want to write today about a scheme which is running in the midlands and north of England and which is supposed to be a cross between a support group and, it is hoped, a source of employment for one or two lucky souls. I am referring of course to the HE Angels.

     Some years ago, Alison Sauer was briefly a director of a company with the strange name of the Little Angels Support and Wellbeing Community Interest Company. She filed away the word ‘angels’ in her memory and decided to use it for a new project of hers, which was to be called ‘HE Angels’. This has not been set up as a company, although the idea has been mooted, nor is it a registered charity. Essentially, it consists of Alison Sauer, Cheryl Moy, the Hafod Witch and one or two other like-minded souls. Cheryl Moy, AKA ‘Pink’, is of course Alison Sauer’s current best friend. 

     The idea is that Cheryl will raise her profile as a home education activist by making a nuisance of herself with various local authorities many miles from her home in Doncaster. She also lets people know on a one-to-one basis about HE Angels and explains how this group can help them. The impression given is that this is a thing of the future. One optimistic person even claimed that it could one day rival Education Otherwise! The association with Alison Sauer is enough to put many people off and for this reason, Cheryl plays that aspect down a little. A few months ago, it cost her the friendship of Maire Stafford, who was one of her chums, but hates Alison Sauer like the plague. When she realised that Cheryl was working hand in glove with Alison, it led to a falling out.

     Although accounts are not published for this group, sporadic attempts are made at fundraising; for example to pay for Cheryl Moy’s car to be repaired and that sort of thing. A Facebook group was set up for HE Angels, claiming that it was a company, but nothing yet seems to have come of this. I would be interested to hear of anybody’s experiences with HE Angels, either good or bad.