My Story

I started my professional career late on in life and before that lived close to nature and found healing in the solitude and meditation of basic living. A good few years later, I started working as a teaching assistant and the inequalities I noticed there drove me to want to make a difference. I ran a nurture programme and saw the difference it made to the children and their ability to engage in the classroom, later starting counselling training and eventually becoming the school counsellor. 

I promoted a school wide trauma informed approach and ran training on attachment and the Adverse Childhood Experiences Study for staff, but there were too many other competing priorities for it to become fully embedded.  I enjoyed facilitating groups, drop-ins, parent groups, dyadic therapy with parents and children together, 1:1 therapy, running assemblies and teaching the children poly-vagal theory to build compassionate self awareness and support emotional regulation. I worked with children living with family challenges found in most primary schools, such as parental separation; a parent in prison; parents with their own childhood trauma, addictions and/or mental health issues; domestic violence; bereavement; sexual abuse; children living in care; along with those whom little was known about other than a sense that they needed more support. 

From school counsellor, I moved on to my current job as a Children and Family's Trauma Therapist in the voluntary sector supporting people to process their experiences of childhood sexual abuse, traumatic grief and other Adverse Childhood Experiences.

I have always factored time into my working week for private practise where I offer therapy to children, young people and adults.