Why Life After Change exists

Michael Everett founded Life After Change after a personal observation that changed everything. Through his own journey and conversations with practitioners and people who had completed behaviour-change programmes, he noticed something striking: support ends abruptly, exactly at the point where maintaining change becomes hardest.

This gap troubled him. People who had done the difficult work of taking accountability and changing their behaviour were left without support at the most critical moment — when the real challenge of maintaining that change, rebuilding trust, and navigating professional systems begins. Michael realised that this absence of support served nobody well: not the people trying to change, not their families, and ultimately not the communities they were part of.

That observation became the seed for Life After Change. It is why we exist.

To support people who have taken genuine accountability for harmful or abusive behaviour to maintain that change, understand professional processes, and build safer futures — without minimising abuse or compromising safeguarding.

Safeguarding is embedded in everything we do, from our moderation standards to how we describe our work. Read our full safeguarding approach for detail on how concerns are raised and handled.

Life After Change is an independent UK initiative founded and operated by Michael Everett. It is currently at an early stage of development and is not a registered charity. Any future governance arrangements, professional advisers, moderators or organisational partnerships will be published transparently once they are formally in place.

Life After Change was founded by Michael Everett—a father and campaigner with lived experience of confronting past behaviour and making a serious, sustained commitment to change.

Michael understands that genuine change does not erase the past or remove responsibility for harm. Accountability must come first. However, through his own experience, he discovered how little support exists for people trying to rebuild after taking responsibility and doing the work to change.

Michael’s experience of the family-court system has been particularly difficult. Proceedings have not gone as he had hoped, and he has felt that assessments and reports produced by CAFCASS and social-work professionals have focused heavily on historic information. In some cases, the same concerns and accounts have continued to be repeated more than a decade later, while the changes he has made and the person he is today have not always felt equally represented.

Michael fully recognises the importance of safeguarding children, listening to victims and carefully assessing risk. However, he also believes assessments should be balanced, evidence-based and capable of recognising sustained behavioural change rather than treating someone’s past as their permanent identity.

Old records, reports, stigma and assumptions can continue to affect family relationships, mental health, housing and a person’s future long after the original events. Michael created Life After Change so people living with these consequences would not have to face them alone.

Life After Change does not exist to excuse abuse, minimise harm or blame victims. It stands for accountability, safer behaviour and honest reflection. It also asks an important question: if someone genuinely accepts responsibility and demonstrates lasting change, should there be a fair and responsible path forward?

Michael’s vision is for a society that protects victims, expects accountability and still leaves room for genuine, evidenced change.