24/10/2025

5 mins

Jo’s Story

The term “Super Mum” hardly does justice to Jo from York.

jo-family-income-protection — Psychologist Jo

Jo’s a forensic psychologist who runs a thriving non-profit consultancy, called PETROS. She founded the business while bringing up her daughter Madison and her foster son Jordan, as a single parent and still finding time to ride her beloved horse, Shadow.

Jo started her career as a psychologist with a 20-year stint in HM Prison Service.

“As you can imagine,” she says, “this is a pretty high-stress environment.

“It was my experiences here that helped me to become a specialist on resilience, namely those strategies that we all employ in order to cope with demanding situations.”

Resilience and Building a Business

“It was only natural that ‘resilience’ became the subject of the PhD I completed in 2000,” says Jo.

“From there, I began to develop my research into a series of practical programmes of resilience coaching that could be applied by people from all walks of life.

“Once these began to grow it was only a matter of time before PETROS, our non-profit consultancy was born.

“After spending eight years attached to the University of York, I started to build PETROS up from the ground in 2013. We’re now a business with two directors and eight full-time associates,” she says.

“We’re all certified practitioners in a variety of different programmes and we deliver these programmes to our clients.

“We like to say that we help people to ‘not just survive but to thrive’,” she says.

“Today we have corporate clients in sectors such as engineering, energy and leisure as well as a thriving family practice that helps parents and children with challenging behaviour to develop better coping strategies.”

Why Jo Turned to Income Protection

“I’d never given Income Protection much thought before as I’d always had full-time salaried benefits when I worked for the Prison Service and the University of York,” Jo explains.

“But as our business has grown over the years I’ve gradually reduced the number of salaried days I work. By September of last year I was down to one day a week and now I’m fully self-employed at PETROS.

“I began to realise that I needed to put some proper sickness insurance in place,” she says, “and it was then that a colleague in the Prison Service recommended that I talk to Drewberry.”

Making Sure Income Protection Worked for Her

“My Drewberry adviser was fantastic. He managed to be supportive and helpful but without being intrusive.

“He helped me to personalise my Income Protection plan, to find cover that was based on my ‘own occupation’ and which included a number of valuable additional benefits.

“I was thrilled to learn that my policy also covers me for horse riding, as riding’s always been a love of mine,” says Jo, “and it’s become one of my own survival strategies. However, not every insurer offers cover due to the risks involved,” she says.

Family Income Protection Insurance

“Because I’ve managed to build up some savings my policy has a six-month deferral period,” she says.

“This keeps the premiums down but it means that if the worst should happen,” she says, “it won’t become a crisis.

“I’ve always been a single parent so I’ve always had to stand on my own two feet.

“With a daughter about to go to university and a foster son still at school, my policy has given me peace of mind.”

“Whatever might happen, I know our family will always be protected,” says Jo.

Need Income Protection Advice?

If you find yourself in a similar position to Jo and are looking to set-up suitable financial protection to look after you and your loved ones then please don’t hesitate to get in touch.

If it’s all getting a little confusing and you need some help – we’re here. Call 02084327333 or email help@drewberry.co.uk to chat through your options.

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