About Me
After growing up in rural Norfolk, I left home at 18 for university, where I studied Politics. After graduating, I had a lot of fun being the singer in a 6-person university Indie Band. I loved singing and performing but unfortunately commercial success proved elusive and after three years I moved to London in search of a career and some financial stability!
For the next 20 years, I built my career in the recruitment and talent management space, both in-house and agency side, in the UK and Internationally. I helped to build teams and plan the careers of mid, senior, and executive managers across a range of industries. I ran my own recruitment business for three years, which I brought to a close when my children came along.
In 2016, following a change in family circumstances and my own life-changing experience with counselling, I decided to take my experiences and retrain as a counsellor myself. I spent several years in a variety of helping roles including supporting survivors of domestic abuse in a refuge and working within a community service supporting individuals struggling with alcohol misuse. I also spent four years helping to manage a children’s mental health charity, working with young people and their families.
After time spent within these organisations and charities, I found the courage to take a risk and establish my own private counselling practice, which is now successful and thriving. In 2023 I accepted my first teaching role, becoming a tutor on a counselling skills course. I loved this work and plan to teach more when time and circumstances allow. I value self-development and life-long learning and in keeping with this, have embarked on further training in recent years to become a couples therapist, which I find immensely fulfilling and rewarding.
I am currently training to become an EMCC (European Mentoring and Coaching Council) Senior Practitioner Coach. EMCC is one of the three major professional bodies for coaching and is recognised both in the UK and Internationally. My goal is to support people who are ready to make changes, discover new insights about themselves, and embark on personal or professional development and transformation.
Qualifications, Training and Memberships
- I have a BA (Hons) degree in Politics. I have a level 4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling (awarded by CPCAB) from a BACP accredited training provider (three years’ training, with several supervised placements) and a Level 5 Certificate in Relational Counselling (18 months training, including supervised placement hours).
- I am a registered member of the BACP (the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy), the main professional body for the counselling professions in the UK. This means that I am trained to a high standard, adhere to their ethical framework and am accountable to their professional standards and expectations.
- My training has been integrative, which means that I work with present-day problems (the ‘here and now’) while considering how the past shapes the present. I can help people think about unconscious processes and the influence of early experiences on current difficulties.
- I am required to undertake extensive CPD (Continuing Professional Development) each year. Recent trainings have included Artful Coaching and Counselling (creative methods), Working with Relational Trauma, a Foundation Certificate in Positive Psychology Coaching, Traumatic Bonding and Attachment Disorders, Tools for Couples in Crisis, Working with Shame, Systemic Approaches when working with families and many more.
- I have regular supervision for my work with a highly experienced senior therapist and supervisor. I am DBS-cleared and fully insured.
