She advises Prince William on his campaign to end homelessness and features in the Prince of Wales’ new ITV documentary about his quest.
But before meetings with royalty at Windsor Castle, Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, 41, was living on the streets of Wales aged just 15, following a heartbreaking childhood in which her father died when she was nine.
With her mother struggling ‘terribly’ with her mental health and ‘unable to cope’ with her family’s ‘abject poverty’, Sabrina turned to selling the Big Issue at the age of 17 to scrape a living.
For her, it was the turning point that ‘saved her life’ and led her into a career in the fire service, where she flourished becoming Britain’s youngest female fire chief.
In 2023, she was appointed the Prince of Wales’ ambassador for his Homewards project. She features in her role on tonight’s ‘Prince William: We Can End Homelessness’, which gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the first year of the programme.
Dr Sabrina Cohen-Hatton, 41, was living on the streets of Wales aged just 15, following a heartbreaking childhood in which her father died when she was nine
Speaking ahead of the two-part documentary, neuroscientist Sabrina praised the royal’s commitment to ‘listening to people who have been there so we can try and do things that are really practical’.
She told This Morning yesterday: ‘He’s amazing and I’m one of several advocates, we’ve all got our own experience of homelessness or we’ve been touched by homelessness in some way.
‘One of the things he was really keen on was making sure that he’s listening to people who have been there so we can try and do things that are really practical.
‘Every time I’ve met the prince, he has been so focused on the human impact of homelessness and I think it’s really easy when you’re trying to do a programme as big as this and a challenge as big as ending homelessness to just focus on the strategy and forget about the people.
‘But he’s so focused on the trauma and the complexity and the impact on individuals and that for me has been a real privilege to be able to see that in action.’
The heir to the throne launched his most ambitious public project to date last year, inspired by the legacy of his late mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who began taking him to shelters as a young child.
Homelessness has soared in recent years with 100,000 families in temporary accommodation – affecting 144,000 children – and almost 4,000 people sleeping rough every night.
But those looking to tackle it believe it can be combatted with a joined-up approach that stops people and families falling through the net in the first place.
With her mother struggling ‘terribly’ with her mental health and ‘unable to cope’ with her family’s ‘abject poverty’, Sabrina (pictured) turned to selling the Big Issue at the age of 17 to scrape a living
For her, it was the turning point that ‘saved her life’ and led her into a career in the fire service, where she flourished becoming Britain’s youngest female fire chief
In 2023, the mother-of-one (pictured) was appointed the Prince of Wales’s ambassador for his Homewards project
She features in her role on tonight’s ‘Prince William: We Can End Homelessness’, which gives viewers a behind-the-scenes look at the first year of the programme
Homewards is a five-year project based around six areas around the UK. That includes Newport in South Wales – where a 15-year-old Sabrina used to sleep rough after the death of a parent and problems at home.
Describing her trauma living on the street, Sabrina wrote in the Big Issue: ‘My father died when I was nine and I was in a single-parent household with a mum who found it incredibly difficult to cope and struggled terribly with her mental health.
‘We lived in abject poverty for several years as a result. When somebody goes to war with their demons, everyone around them gets hit by the shrapnel.
‘We were in a really volatile situation by the time I was 15, a crisis point where it was just too much. My mum loved me dearly but she didn’t have the capacity to be able to look after me properly. It was then that I started to sleep rough.’
Sabrina was in the middle of her GCSEs when she took the decision to live on the streets.
She would stash her books in a box in a derelict building after studying on the street – as she was fearful that asking for a school locker would ‘alert social services’ and plunge her family deeper into crisis.
However, her books were eventually torn apart by a ‘proper neo-Nazi skinhead’, who saw her surname Cohen on her gramma book and attacked Sabrina.
‘He put out a cigarette out on my arm. He really went to town on me. It was a horrible experience. After that I kept my books in a box in the Big Issue office. And I kept studying. I think I saw qualifications as a ticket out of there,’ recalled Sabrina.
Speaking ahead of the two-part documentary, Sabrina praised the royal’s commitment to ‘listening to people who have been there so we can try and do things that are really practical’
Homewards is a five-year project based around six areas around the UK. That includes Newport in South Wales – where a 15-year-old Sabrina used to sleep rough after the death of a parent and problems at home. Pictured, Sabrina in the documentary
Describing her trauma living on the street, Sabrina wrote in the Big Issue : ‘My father died when I was nine and I was in a single-parent household with a mum who found it incredibly difficult to cope and struggled terribly with her mental health’
She credited the Big Issue with ‘saving her life’, as it led to her finding secure accommodation and then joining the fire service.
She became West Sussex’s fire chief in 2019, aged 36, and was one of just six females in the UK to hold the title – as well as being the youngest.
The mother-of-one, who now has a PhD, has spoken widely about her own journey, telling the Lorraine programme in 2019: ‘I spent so many years hiding it and pretending it didn’t happen, it was the most difficult thing.
‘But there are thousands of people who are in the same position today as I was back then, and I wanted to be able to tell these people “your circumstances do not define you, they don’t determine where you end up, only you can”‘.
While homeless, Sabrina lived in a derelict building and said she had to fend off strangers’ attacks. She said she once woke up to someone urinating on her.
But she never gave up on herself. ‘I think everyone’s got a spark inside them,’ she said, ‘it just depends what you find to fuel the fire.’
‘I could see people all around me who would went straight downhill or wouldn’t survive. I wanted to be able to do something to help other people when they’re feeling vulnerable.
‘And that’s what attracted me to the fire service, because I knew what it felt to be having that worst day of your life,’ she explained.
Sabrina joined the fire service in Risca when she was 18. And while she’s faced some form of sexism, she said her experience was far more positive than negative.
Sabrina (pictured alongside the Prince of Wales) credited the Big Issue with ‘saving her life’, as it led to her finding secure accommodation and then joining the fire service
Sabrina became West Sussex’s fire chief in 2019, aged 36, and was one of just six females in the UK to hold the title – as well as being the youngest
‘I would be doing a disservice by pretending it [sexism] didn’t happen, but I think what I would say is, I had far more positive experiences in the fire service than negative experiences,’ she said.
She said she considered her coworkers as ‘big brothers,’ and said they took her ‘on the strength of who they believed [she] could be.’
Sabrina said she was thankful for her amazing career. In parallel, she also studied the neuroscience of decision making under pressure.
Talking about what motivated her to study the discipline, she said it was an incident that ‘changed everything’ that led her to the role.
She recalled she was once called to a scene of an incident were a fellow firefighter had been severely burned.
The victim could either be one of her coworkers and friends, or her then-boyfriend, who also worked as a firefighter in a neighbouring station and was one of the four firefighter present in the truck at the time of the accident.
‘I remember going to this incident feeling pretty sure someone I loved had been injured, and I found that extremely difficult to deal with,’ she said.
While her boyfriend, who she later married, ended up unscathed, she had to attend to the severe injuries of one of her friends instead.
‘So as much I had this sense of relief, I then felt incredibly guilty, for such a long time,’ she admitted, ‘I felt like a horrible person for feeling relieved.’
Sabrina then decided to turn her guilt into helping others. ‘I started looking at what caused firefighter injury, and I was surprised to find that the majority of the time it’s human error.
‘And that’s when I started looking into what we could do to reduce human error,’ she went on.
Sabrina now has a PHD, and is a honorary fellow at Cardiff University. She features in tonight’s ITV documentary, ‘Prince William: We Can End Homelessness’.
The film will involve stories from those who are currently experiencing homelessness or have previously been homeless, and poignant memories from the prince’s own life.
Cameras started rolling in June last year when the Prince launched his project Homewards.
