Caitlin Walker PhD
Director
Caitlin is a director of Clean Learning and the developer of Systemic Modelling™. She is the author of From Contempt to Curiosity, which details many of the innovative and transformational projects she’s led across our community from the most dispossessed to leading think tanks, and has recently been awarded a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University for her thesis on "Using Clean Language Interviewing to model Curriculum Design in Higher Education: Curriculum Design is Like What?"
Caitlin graduated in Linguistics at the School of Oriental and African Studies and completed four years post graduate research in ‘Strategies for Lexical access’ including fieldwork in Ghana. She began modelling teaching and learning while at SOAS, volunteering intermediary classes to translate information presented at lectures into different learning styles for the students. At the same time she was a youth worker in Kings Cross bringing these leading edge tools to groups of young people.
She went on to set up literacy clubs in King’s Cross, where children could come to learn to spell. From 1996 – 1999 Caitlin was an Education tutor with the Dalston Youth Project, a Home Office run experiment to offer accelerated learning to at-risk students, alongside mentoring, to keep them in school. She ran these sessions as NLP modelling workshops and achieved excellent results with the students. The project won a Crime Prevention and Community Safety award for Great Britain. In 1999 she was offered the opportunity to develop her work in a business context and she created the ground breaking metaphors@work process. These techniques are available on the Creative Management section of the Open University MBA program and on a 10 week modular course on Practical Thinking. She has co-designed and she co-delivers a Masters Level module in Coaching and Mentoring at Liverpool John Moores University.
She has since developed her modelling skills from small scale group development to whole scale organisational culture change programmes. She designs and delivers tailor made learning and development programs for addressing diversity, conflict, leadership, managing mergers and creating ‘learning organisations’.
Caitlin practices in a variety of contexts. Clients include: Jeyes Group, Liverpool John Moores University, Pharmacia, Hull City Council, South Yorkshire Police Service, Bexley Care Trust, New Information Paradigms, Work Directions UK, Crime Concern, BT, Police National Search Centre, Celerent Consultancy, Carbon Partners, Ealing LEA, and Working Links. She has trained a number of in-house trainers to carry on and develop the work without creating dependency on her expertise. She has systematically tested and developed her ideas in challenging arenas and her robust products have become sought after learning aids.
Upcoming events
Systemic Modelling Rolling Programme October 2025 - afternoon
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Monday 13 to Friday 17 October 2025, 2pm to 6pm BST each day
Clean for Teams November 2025 - Mornings
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Monday 3 to Thursday 6 November 2025, 8.30am to 12.30pm GMT each day
Clean for Teams November 2025 - Afternoons
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Monday 3 to Thursday 6 November 2025, 2pm to 6pm GMT each day
Systemic Modelling Online January 2026 - mornings
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Monday 19 to Friday 23 January, 2026, 8:30am to 12:30pm GMT each day
Systemic Modelling Online January 2026 afternoons
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Monday 19 to Friday 23 January, 2026, 2pm to 6pm GMT each day
Systemic Modelling In Florida February 2026
- Places available
- Silver Springs area, Florida (venue to be announced)
- Tuesday 17 to Thursday 19 February 2026, 9am to 5pm each day
Body in the Room: Systemic Modelling - Florida February 2026
- Places available
- Silver Springs area, Florida (venue to be announced)
- Tuesday 17th to Thursday 19th February, 9am to 5pm each day
Clean Language Interviewing: Less Bias, Better Data - Spring 2026
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Training sessions: Mondays 2, 16, 30 March, 13, 27 April and 11 May, 9am to 12:30pm BST/GMT. Practice sessions: Tuesdays 10, 24 March, 7, 21 April and 5, 19 May, 9am to 10:30am BST/GMT
Clean Approaches for ADHD Coaches - February 2026 am
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Thursdays, 5, 12, 19, 26 March, 2, 9 April 2026, 7:30am to 9:30am UK times
Clean Approaches for ADHD Coaches - February 2026 pm
- Places available
- Online via Zoom
- Thursdays, 5, 12, 19, 26 March, 2, 9 April 2026, 3pm to 5pm UK times
Systemic Modelling In Person April 2026
- Places available
- The Practice
- Tuesday 21 to Thursday 23 April 2026, 9am to 5pm BST each day
Northern Taste of Clean 2026
- Places available
- The Practice
- Saturday 18 to Sunday 19 July 2026, 9:30am to 5:30pm BST each day
Blog posts
A metaphor for Systemic Modelling
15th Nov 2023
Building a #DramaFree Community
12th Sep 2022
Testimonials
Working in a tumultuous setting as business manager of several schools, I have found myself in need of external expertise to resolve a complex web of interpersonal conflicts from within a Leadership team to a team of catering assistants. The issues were as convoluted as they were detrimental to our workplace harmony, causing ripple effects in several environments. Caitlin, however, demonstrated an exceptional capability to not just understand, but reshape these dynamics into a framework for collaboration and growth. The result? A transformation that not only resolves conflicts but cultivates a culture of empowerment and improvement - meaning the team is left skilled to self-manage. Her services come highly recommended for any organisation in need of ironing out team dynamics and productivity, and promoting a healthier workplace culture.
Stephen Johnson, Business Manager, St John Bosco Arts College
This course was highly enjoyable and I took away a bunch of tools and techniques to support the work I do as a systems coach. Caitlin was really flexible through the programme working hard to meet the needs of everyone and I felt privileged to have learnt from someone who is clearly exceptional in their field.
Louise Yates
Caitlin Walker’s work is hard to describe in a way that does it justice: it’s one of those things that really needs to be seen and experienced in order to understand its power and impact. I rate the impact she has had on the school and the functioning of the people within it as amongst the most significant I have seen. Currently, one of the areas of interest in education is the use of models and coding in order to create shared language and understanding in the organisation. This lies at the heart of Caitlin’s work - she supports teams and individuals in navigating the vagaries of language, enabling them to achieve a common understanding which is free from the bias and ‘loading’ that we all (very naturally) bring to bear. Further, she shows us how to interrogate issues/situations in a clear and objective manner so that barriers and solutions can be clearly seen. Her work is deep and lasting. It’s been more than seven years since she started working with the team and I regularly use the tools she gave us. Only this morning, when setting up a two day training event with 30 teachers, I used the ‘clean set-up’ model to ensure that we all had a common understanding of what was to ensue. Last, her work can transform how pupils think. Working with them directly or through teachers, she can help teachers understand the thinking process and how to optimise it within the curriculum content the school has decided to use.
Mark Cotton, Deep Learning T2M