Growth Through Collaboration

This year marks a milestone that feels both professional and deeply personal: I’ve been awarded full BACP accreditation. Reaching this point has given me a quiet moment to pause and reflect on what the journey has meant not only in terms of meeting professional standards, but in recognising the people, collaborations, and communities that have supported me along the way.

Accreditation is often viewed as a formal recognition of competence and ethical practice, and it is that. But for me, it also symbolises years of learning, listening, and growth. It’s a marker of the hundreds of conversations, the supervision hours, the reflective notes written late at night, and the courage it takes to hold space for others with authenticity and care.

Becoming accredited has not been a solitary achievement. My work has always been shaped by collaboration, through projects like Factory International’s The Welcome, Myriad’s SPARKS programme, the Portraits of Recovery partnership with Divine Southgate Smith and Manchester Museum, Black Mary’s Pleasure Garden, Rekindling Nello James, and many others. Each collaboration has deepened my understanding of how creativity, community, and therapeutic practice can meet to create spaces of belonging and transformation.

Accreditation has given me the opportunity to look back, and forward with renewed purpose. It’s affirmed my commitment to ethical practice, reflective growth, and the integration of creativity into counselling and wellbeing work. It’s also reminded me that professional recognition, while important, is only meaningful when it’s rooted in community and compassion.

I see every milestone, whether earning a certificate, joining a steering group, or contributing to a project as a thread in a much larger tapestry of community and care. These experiences have deepened not just my professional competence, but my sense of belonging within a network of people who value compassion, creativity, and collective progress.

To those who have supported me, supervisors, peers, clients, collaborators, family and friends, thank you. Your trust, dialogue, and encouragement have been part of this achievement.

Accreditation is not an ending; it’s an expansion, an invitation to keep growing, sharing, and co-creating spaces where people can feel seen, valued, and connected.