What has shaped my passion for this work? 

My previous experience includes working as a Healthcare Assistant in a hospice, a Teenage and Young Adult Cancer Youth Support Worker and a Palliative Care Support Worker. These roles gave me the opportunity to work alongside people and families experiencing some of life's more challenging times and helped shape my understanding of grief, loss and the many ways they can affect us.

One thing I came to understand is that grief doesn't always begin when someone dies. It can start much earlier, with a diagnosis, a change in circumstances, the loss of the future we had imagined, or the many other changes life can bring. Grief can also be part of experiences that have nothing to do with death, and it isn't always recognised or understood by others.

These experiences have played an important part in shaping my passion for counselling and supporting people through their own experiences of loss and change.

What I particularly enjoy about my counselling work is building a trusting relationship where someone feels comfortable enough to be themselves and explore whatever is going on for them. I feel privileged to walk alongside people as they begin to make sense of their experiences, understand their feelings and, in their own time, find a way forward that feels right for them.I feel privileged to be able to offer people a space where they can feel heard, understood and supported, whatever their experience of grief or loss may look like. I know that everyone's journey is different, and I hope to help people feel a little less alone as they find their own way through it.