Yes – I’m a registered member of the BACP. This means that I’ve qualified to their standards and have completed their Certificate of Proficiency exam and abide by their ethical framework and professional standards, including having regular supervision and ongoing additional training. Right now I’m working towards accreditation with them as well as having further training in mindfulness and ecotherapy.

A large part of any counselling relationship relies on trust and openness, and it’s understandable that confidentiality is a big concern of many clients. I’m a registered member of the BACP and am bound by their ethical framework, so I will protect any information you give me as far as I possibly can. However there are some exceptions to this and a few areas where ethically or legally I may need to share information – for example under the prevention of terrorism act. The limits to my confidentiality is something that we will discuss during our initial sessions so that you can understand what / when I may need to raise anything you say with someone else.

We’ll always have a quick free phone call or email conversation before our initial online session which will be £40. After that my standard rate for counselling sessions is £65 a session, however I offer reduced rates for those in need. Discounts are also available for those studying counselling or psychotherapy. Payment can be made in cash, PayPal or bank transfer.

I understand that life can sometimes get in the way so if you have to cancel or rearrange a session then please do let me know. However if we have a session and you have to cancel with less than a day’s notice then the full session cost would still be payable.

For an outdoor focus session (2 hours) I charge £150.

Supervision rates start at £60 / hour, depending on what length of session you’re after.

I’ve a diploma in Person Centred and Experiential Counselling from Glyndwr University in Wrexham – overall my training in couselling took about five years.

As well as my original studies I’ve added additional qualifications, particularly in ecotherapy and working outdoors with clients, and now run workshops for others who want to move their practice outside. I’ve also done training in areas such as anxiety, depression,group work and much more, most recently in supervision.

Absolutely! If you’re interested in working in the outdoors in Telford, Shrewsbury or the surrounding areas then there are a few options available to those who have limited mobility, please contact me to discuss further. These include areas with flat paths suitable for wheelchairs or motorised scooters.

Alternatively we can work online, just give me a call and we can see what options there might be.

No-one comes to counselling to fill in paperwork but it’s important that we’ve got an agreement as to how we work together so you feel safe to explore things that are often deeply personal and sensitive for you. As part of that our initial session will be online, so that we can introduce ourselves, and also for me to outline some of the things that it’s important we agree on before we get started. Confidentiality is a big one, I’ll explain what the limits of my confidentiality are and we’ll look at a few other things about how our sessions might work.

There will be plenty of time for you to start to outline what’s brought you to counselling, and we’ll begin to build a picture of what you want to explore. Towards the end of the session we’ll look at working outdoors or whether you want to stay online and make some plans for future sessions.

I’ve written a blog post about our first sessions, you can read more about it here.

I came to train in counselling outdoors – or ecotherapy – because of my love of being outside and knowing how important spending time in nature was to my own wellbeing. More and more research is showing the benefit of connecting with nature for mental health issues.

Depending on what you are interested in there are a few different options, we can work in a variety of locations from local parks, to woods where we can either walk and talk or choose a spot to sit and talk together. Don’t worry though, I won’t be dragging you on a long hike, nor do we need to commit to every session being outside, however if counselling in the natural world is something you might be interested in then I’d be delighted to discuss further.

Most of my work is outdoors with clients, although I do work online as well. I have various spaces that I use, often these are parks and woods and nature reserves in and around Shrewsbury and Telford. This includes areas around Bayston Hill, central Shrewsbury, Wellington and Ironbridge. A number of the spots that I use are accessible by public transport, and some are also suitable for people with mobility issues.

Working online I can offer sessions for people wherever they are – this is for both counselling and supervision. I use a variety of different platforms, mostly either zoom or doxy.me

It’d be great to hear from you – just drop me an email or give me a call to start with, my details are here. To start with we’ll have a quick phone call and then we can look at getting you booked in for an intial online session. If you find talking on the phone a bit much then we can have an email conversation to arrange our first meeting.