Lucy Russell is a freelance consultant currently working as the Gender Specialist for the National Education Union, the largest education union in Europe. She is the creator of the It’s Not OK: Preventing Sexism and Sexual Harassment Toolkit for the union which features a whole school approach to preventing sexual harassment as well as advice and guidance. Prior to that, Lucy’s work specialised in women and girls’ rights, sexual and reproductive health and ending gender-based violence. She worked for the Malala Fund for Malala Yousafzai, for Women's Aid and Bloody Good Period and she has worked on education issues across Africa and the middle east with the Global Campaign for Education and the UN body Education Cannot Wait. She has published work on young women’s sexual health, girls’ apprenticeships and careers, period poverty and sexual harassment in schools.
Lucy was previously Head of Girls’ Rights and Campaigns at Plan International UK where she created their UK girls' rights work and ran their international campaigns. Her work included campaigns on child marriage and sexual exploitation and trafficking in Uganda, Malawi and Nepal, campaigns to secure a period blood drop emoji on keyboards worldwide, creating Plan’s campaigns to end period poverty and taboos, the campaign for statutory relationships and sex education and becoming Deputy Co-Chair of the Government Equalities Office’s Period Poverty Task Force. In the past she was also elected as Vice Chair of the Sex Education Forum and appointed as an Independent Ministerial Advisor on Teenage Pregnancy to Baroness Huges in the Department for Children Schools and Families.