Who is Ella Marie Defreitas?
Ella Marie Defreitas is a public-sector leader, coach, and author with over 20 years of experience supporting families, parents, and young people. As the founder of Mum’s Circle by EMD Life Coaching, she helps modern mothers find calm, clarity, and steadiness through intentional, supportive spaces that prioritize reflection over pressure. Alongside her coaching work, Ella serves in senior leadership roles within early help and parental mental health services and is the author of The Busy Parent’s Guide to a Stress-Free Routine. Her work has been recognized by Community Care and the WAG Awards, reflecting her impact at the intersection of leadership, wellbeing, and social care.
Building Balance That Holds
Balance, for Ella Marie Defreitas, has never been an abstract ideal or a wellness trend. It is something built deliberately, often quietly, through experience, reflection, and the courage to pause when the world insists on momentum. After more than two decades working alongside families, young people, and parents navigating complex emotional and social landscapes, Ella has emerged as a leader whose work sits at the intersection of professional rigor and human care. Her leadership is not about commanding space, but about creating it.
That philosophy lies at the heart of Mum’s Circle, the coaching community she founded through EMD Life Coaching, and it reflects a broader shift in how leadership, particularly among mothers, is being redefined: not as endurance, but as steadiness.
A Career Rooted in Early Help and Human Systems
Ella’s professional foundation was built within public service, where she dedicated her career to early intervention, parental mental health, and youth support across London boroughs including Richmond, Wandsworth, and Kingston upon Thames. Beginning her journey as a youth worker and mentor, she supported care leavers, young people at risk of exploitation, and families experiencing crisis, often at moments when systems were under strain and individuals felt unseen.
Over time, her work expanded into senior leadership roles. As a Service Manager for Targeted Early Help and Parental Mental Health, Ella has led multidisciplinary teams, overseen quality assurance frameworks, and helped shape service models designed to intervene early and prevent long-term harm. Her leadership has consistently balanced operational excellence with relational depth, ensuring that policy, practice, and people remain aligned.
Underpinning this work is a strong academic and therapeutic foundation. Ella holds postgraduate qualifications in Youth and Community Work and advanced training in Systemic Family Therapy, equipping her with a whole-family, whole-system lens. These frameworks shaped her belief that sustainable change does not come from fixing individuals in isolation, but from understanding the environments, pressures, and relationships they carry.
From Systems Leadership to Purpose-Driven Creation
While Ella’s professional ascent followed a clear trajectory, from practitioner to advanced practitioner to service manager, her evolution was also deeply personal. Becoming a working mother brought new clarity to patterns she had observed for years. Even highly capable women, she noticed, were running on empty, not because they lacked resilience, but because they were holding too much for too long.
One moment, in particular, crystallized this insight. A mother she supported described feeling as though she was failing at everything, despite doing everything she could.
“That really stayed with me,” Ella has reflected. “It wasn’t that she needed another plan or solution. She needed space, to pause, to feel seen, and to breathe.”
That realization became the seed for Mum’s Circle: a space intentionally designed not to optimize mothers, but to support them. Launched alongside her continued leadership in public service, Mum’s Circle reflects Ella’s ability to hold dual roles, system leader and community builder—without compromising either.
Redefining Support Through Mum’s Circle
Mum’s Circle is a monthly membership and coaching community for busy mothers seeking calm, clarity, and connection. It offers guided reflection sessions, practical wellbeing tools, reflective workbooks, and a private peer network rooted in psychological safety. The model is intentionally gentle, resisting the productivity-driven language that dominates much of the personal development space.
“This isn’t about fixing yourself,” Ella often emphasizes. “It’s about having space to breathe, regain clarity, and reconnect with what matters most.”
Her approach resonates because it mirrors how she leads teams and services: with intention, evidence-based practice, and deep respect for lived experience. It is no surprise that her work has been recognized beyond the coaching world. Ella has been featured in Community Care magazine for leadership and named a finalist for a WAG Lifetime Achievement Award—acknowledgments that reflect both her professional credibility and her sustained impact.
Alongside her coaching work, Ella is also the author of The Busy Parent’s Guide to a Stress-Free Routine, a practical resource for families seeking calmer, more manageable daily rhythms. Like Mum’s Circle, the book avoids perfectionism, focusing instead on realistic structures that support wellbeing without overwhelm.
Leadership Philosophy: Steady, Human, and Sustainable
At the core of Ella’s leadership philosophy is a redefinition of balance. For her, balance is not about equal distribution of time or flawless execution across roles.
“It’s about allowing work, family, and wellbeing to exist without one constantly overpowering the others,” she explains.
That belief informs how she supports mothers in setting boundaries that work in real life, and how she models leadership herself.
Rather than positioning herself as an expert with answers, Ella leads as a facilitator of reflection. She understands that for many women, even a small pause can create meaningful change. By removing pressure and reframing rest as a leadership skill, she helps mothers reconnect with themselves not as roles, but as people.
Expanding the Circle
Looking ahead, Ella’s vision for Mum’s Circle is both grounded and expansive. In 2026, she plans to introduce in-person and virtual events designed to deepen connection and restoration, creating moments away from the noise of daily life. Yet the true measure of success, for her, lies in long-term impact.
“I hope women feel lighter, calmer, and more connected to themselves years down the line,” she says. “That they remember it’s okay to pause, to put themselves first without guilt, and to know they’re enough.”
That aspiration reflects a leadership model rooted not in visibility, but in continuity—where the ripple effects of care extend quietly into families, workplaces, and communities.
Editorial Note
Ella Marie Defreitas represents a new model of leadership for modern mothers—one that values steadiness over strain and presence over performance. Through her work in public service and her creation of Mum’s Circle, she demonstrates that leadership does not require self-erasure to be effective. Instead, it begins by making space—for reflection, for connection, and for sustainable change.
As organizations, communities, and families rethink what support truly looks like, Ella’s work offers a compelling reminder: balance is not a luxury. It is built—intentionally, collectively, and with care.
