My professional experience encompasses 20 years of teaching in schools, initially training and then teaching in Birmingham. For 12 years I worked in a 3 to 18 school as a specialist Art teacher in Cumbria.
In 2015 I began my training as a Counsellor and Psychotherapist, at the University of Cumbria, marking the start of a new career. Initially I trained at the Eden Valley Hospice and then went onto work as a counsellor at the Eden Valley Hospice and Jigsaw, Cumbria’s Children’s Hospice, as part of a large counselling team within a clinical and medical setting for 7 years supporting families, adults, and children.
I set up my first private practice in Carlisle in 2019 and more recently Counselling and Psychotherapy work has involved, establishing a private practice in Shrewsbury.
My therapeutic work involves working as part of a multi-disciplinary medical team, supporting patients and their families, both adults and children whilst facing diagnosis of life limiting and terminal illness. I offer bereavement counselling as part of my work in the hospice, supporting patients and their families through grief, loss and pain. I have experience within the same clinical setting of working with clients through complex childhood trauma and loss.
My work has encompassed working with young people and children, counselling within the same clinical setting. I have worked with teenagers to help them to find coping strategies whilst facing the challenges of family illness and bereavement, at the same time as working towards exams and supporting them with the challenges of life as a teenager.
Where children may not have the vocabulary or awareness to understand or express their emotions or what is happening for them, this can create distress and confusion. I offer experience of working with children and young people creatively, enabling them the opportunity to communicate their feelings and felt senses in a way which feels natural to them.
