The Headlight Project Team

Maxine is the Lead Counsellor on the Project. She is a highly qualified counsellor and has a wealth of experience of working with children, young people and adults presenting with many different and diverse issues. Maxine mainly works with adults and young people and is trained to be congruent (open, honest and genuine), listen without judgement and demonstrate empathy. The environment in which she likes to work is warm, trusting and supportive in a private and safe place which helps individuals to talk in confidence, work through their thoughts, feelings and behaviours about whatever is concerning them, mostly at a pace the individual is most comfortable with.

Claire is a counsellor on the Project. She was a registered nurse for many years and taught counselling within further and higher education organisations. Claire trained as a counsellor at Durham University and works with both children and adults. She truly believes in the concept and process of counselling therapy and finds her role is equally challenging as it is rewarding. She feels immensely privileged to be part of the team and part of such a wonderful project

Lucie is a therapist working for the project trained in a range of therapies including Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR), Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), Interpersonal Therapy (IPT) and Clinical Hypnotherapy.

Lucie has been working with adults from the age of 16 and above for many years. Originally trained as an Occupational Therapist, Lucie has worked across a variety of mental health services from acute services, secondary care and learning disabilities.

Lucie currently works part time for the NHS alongside the Headlight Project delivering primary care therapies; working with people identifying and treating a range of difficulties including depression, anxiety and trauma.

Lucie is passionate about mental health; she focuses treatment on the individual and their needs tailoring sessions to support recovery in an empowering, compassionate and supportive way.

Jade joined the Headlight Project as a student counsellor and completed her clinical training hours with the project supporting children and adults.  She successfully qualified as a counsellor from Sunderland University.

In addition to her work with the Project, Jade has experience of working with other charities, most notably The Bradley Lowery Foundation.  Jade was tragically bereaved when her young nephew died from a rare childhood cancer.  Her personal experience of counselling was her inspiration to seek to support others in moving forward and healing from their traumatic experiences.  Jade feels exceptionally proud to work with such an amazing cause.

Anna is a certified Play Therapist on the project. She has a membership and is registered with Play Therapy UK. She has always had a specific interest in the emotional wellbeing of children. From her background of 20 years of working as a Teaching Assistant and mental health mentor in schools, she has had first-hand experience of how emotional needs can impact on a child’s ability to thrive, manage and function in school.

Anna has always been interested in addressing the needs that drive specific behaviours in children and believes building a relationship based on integrity and trust, forms firm foundations, for this process to occur. Anna trained with the Academy of Play and Psychotherapy, through Leeds Beckett University to become a Play Therapist. Anna is also a certified Autplay Therapy provider, which is a play therapy approach for children and young people with an autistic spectrum condition or neurodevelopmental condition. Anna believes that the voice of the child is central to her practice and works hard to ensure that she provides an environment in which children can feel safe, secure, validated and able to explore difficult feelings and emotions through play and creativity.

Hayley is a counsellor on the project. She qualified in 2019 at Teesside University and has worked with adults and young adults with a diverse range of issues. Hayley provides a warm and safe environment where individuals are able to explore and make sense of their experiences. Hayley is very passionate about the counselling process and is honoured to be a part of The Headlight Project.

Rebecca has come to us as a Specialist Sexual Violence Counsellor working with both adults and young people dealing with trauma. She qualified from Teesside University during the outbreak of COVID, and has therefor learnt quickly how to provide an adaptable therapy for clients.

She has been extremely passionate about working with survivors of rape and sexual abuse. A huge part of this work for her was the Pre-Trial Therapy offered to those facing the extremely tough and daunting task or reporting to the police and seeking justice.

Rebecca whole-heartedly believes in the worth of talking therapy, and in her own practice provides an environment that is completely non-judgemental and relaxed so that the individual can explore at their own pace freely. This is just as important with her work with children and young people, to be given a space where they can explore their thoughts and feelings without the pressures from the rest of their environment. She does this through a wealth of options for the young person including creative arts and play.

Rebecca is a firm believer in equality to all which supports every individual’s right to thrive. This in turn adds to the environment she creates for our young clients, where they can feel safe, comfortable, heard, and understood.

Katie qualified as a counsellor in 2014 and since then has worked in a number of roles supporting people with their mental health.  Katie adopts a person centred approach to her practice and believes that the relationship between client and counsellor is fundamental to therapeutic movement.  Katie strives to create a highly supportive, safe space for clients to explore the range of overwhelming feelings evident following a traumatic experience.

Katie has 6 years experience of working with people who have experienced trauma, having worked as an Independent Sexual Violence Advisor since 2015.  She has supported women, men and children who reported their experience of sexual violence to the Police and were on their journey through the criminal justice process from initial report to attending court to give evidence. 

Since 2018 Katie and her family have experienced 3 significant bereavements to suicide and cancer, which have had an indescribable impact on her life.  It is her personal experience of navigating such traumatic and complicated grief processes on an individual basis, and as a supporter to her family, that has inspired her to work for RDHP.  Katie is really honoured to be able to be a part of the Headlight family, and to be in a position to professionally support people through their trauma and rebuild their lives around their grief.

Suzanne’s early career was in finance, where she worked for over 10 years as a stockbroker at Wise Speke and Merrill Lynch.

Catherine studied law in Leeds and qualified as a solicitor in 2003. She has specialised in employment law and HR practice for 20 years and advises organisations of all sizes on all aspects of employment law and HR matters. At the end of 2017 she left private practice to start her own consultancy. 

Catherine worked as a HR Director for an academy trust and was a director on the board of a local play group and preschool for 7 years.  In 2016, she became a school governor at her local primary school in North Yorkshire. She was appointed Chair of Governors in October 2017 and served as Chair for 3 years. 

From an early stage in Alison’s career she has been involved in supporting vulnerable children and their families. She started working in Education Inclusion, and then completed her professional qualifications as a Youth Offending Officer. Following the birth of her children she moved across to Social Care offering emergency respite care and emotional well-being support to Children in Need within the CATS team. From there she moved into Education Management in the Vulnerable Pupils section of Durham Education Department.

After over a decade of local authority working Alison made the move to the charity sector and spent six happy years with the Prince’s Trust. Firstly as a programme manager in Middlesbrough offering alternative education to vulnerable young people aged between 13-25 and then as the National Safeguarding Advisor. After spending time honing her skills as Head of Safeguarding in a Teesside academy trust, Alison returned to the Prince’s Trust and worked throughout the pandemic connecting young people with support as an Operations Manager across the North East region. Alison has recently returned to the local authority as a Team Leader in a multi agency and coproduction team. Embedded within a deprived community in County Durham the team will be addressing multifaceted poverty in a new way of working. This will involve being closely linked with Mental Health services.

Alison’s support to the project will be to provide strategic safeguarding support to the team on the ground. She considers it an absolute honour to be involved with the Headlight Project.

Anna spent the majority of childhood living in Hutton Rudby, North Yorkshire but moved to London to embark on a career in the media industry where she lived for over 10 years. During her time in London Anna has worked for publications such at The Times, The Sunday Times, Metro Newspaper and The Sun newspaper as a creative solutions specialist.  She has since returned back to the North East where she lives with her husband and two children and now works for a leading property portal as a digital advertising consultant for property developers. Anna has a keen interest in mental health and has had first hand experience dealing with the effects of suicide after losing her boss Adam to suicide in 2015 and in 2018 her friend Russ who’s legacy lives on through the Headlight Project. As soon as Anna was asked to be a trustee she jumped at the chance of getting on board knowing how vitally important the services the Headlight Project provide.

Richard has spent the majority of his career working at Teesside University, in the sport and well being department providing a service for and supporting students. Sport has always been Richard’s main passion and in recent years, golf has taken up a lot of his spare time. It was through golf that he met Russ as a fellow team member and friend.

Richard feels it is an honor and privilege to have been invited to be part of the Project as a Trustee and will provide whatever help he can.

Emma has been an Insurance Broker for over 25 years and works with business owners across the region in a variety of industry sectors.

Emma lives locally with her husband and two sons. She has supported the Devereux family following the tragic loss of Russ to suicide in 2018. Seeing the impact and devastation caused to family, friends and everyone that knew Russ, Emma is keen to help other families prevent suicide or deal with the aftermath of such sadness by enabling the provision of counselling and mental health support offered by the charity.

Emma was honoured to be invited to join the Board of Trustees and is passionate in providing her support to the Headlight Project.