E-Bulletin: University of Leicester

Tina Williams, Head of Counselling Service (as from July 1, 2002) and Veronica Moore, Staff Counsellor (as from March 2002)

Tina Williams joined the University's staff as Head of Counselling Service on July 1. Working here means a return to Leicester for Tina, as this is where she began her counselling training at Vaughan College in 1990. She had previously graduated from Aberystwyth University with an LLB and has recently completed a Master's degree in Integrative Psychotherapy.

Tina has worked as a therapist in a number of different settings including community alcohol and drugs services, probation, victim support and education. Her most recent experience has been in palliative care, where she ran a counselling service for adults and children in a nursing unit, a day hospice and a community service.

Tina feels that the University environment will bring new challenges as well as some famiiar ones, and she wants to use her wide range of experience to develop the
counselling service further, building on its already well-established reputation.

Tina Williams

Plans include more integration of the Service with University life, increasing the accessibility of the Service to the whole student population and the development of group work and workshops.

The Service intends to hold monthly meetings where visitors from all parts of the University are welcome to come and meet and talk with the team.

Another area of development that Tina is particularly looking forward to working with is the staff counselling service, which began in March this year with the appointment of Veronica Moore as Staff Counsellor.

Veronica originally trained as a qualified Social Worker. She began her counselling training in 1993 at Vaughan College and went on from there to work in a variety of settings including couple and marital therapy, counselling around identity issues and counselling students and staff in further education.

Prior to joining the University she was Deputy Head of a West Midlands-based team offering counselling, training and consultation services to Local Authority and University staff.

Veronica will be beginning an MSc in Integrative Psychotherapy this autumn. This reflects her belief in lifelong learning and personal development.

She is looking forward to developing a service that supports staff by offering widely accessible counselling, consultation and training, the eventual aim of which is to be responsive to the diverse needs and interests of staff.

Veronica Moore

Tina would like to visit as many departments as possible to introduce herself and to talk about the new developments in the Counselling Service. Shse look forward to requests for such visits from departments.

New staff for the University's Counselling Service