Meet the Team
Our team
The NEECS team is made up of our dedicated staff, counsellors, supervisors and trainees. The charity is overseen by our board of trustees
Our staff
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Julia spent many years working in comms and marketing in both large corporate organisations as well as smaller non-profits, with a large proportion of this time spent working in the city's arts sector. Eventually she started branching out into operational roles as well as fundraising. Julia joined NEECS in 2022, where she now gets to wear all those hats. With a ‘mixed bag’ of lived experience, she’s passionate about increasing access to counselling and fighting health inequalities. She’s also keen to deepen her knowledge of EDI, intersectionality and social justice. Julia lived in Leith for many years before making a move to East Lothian to be closer to the local beaches.
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Mairi has worked for NEECS for over 11 years, firstly as Administrator and then Service Co-ordinator. She has worked for counselling agencies in Edinburgh for 20 years. Prior to that she worked as a Paralegal in Edinburgh.
Mairi is originally from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles and prior to moving out of Edinburgh seven years ago she lived in Leith for 16 years. Mairi’s favourite thing to do in her spare time is walking her dog, Eddie. He is a rescue dog who was adopted by Mairi and her husband six years ago, lighting up their lives since then.
Mairi is originally from the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles and prior to moving out of Edinburgh seven years ago she lived in Leith for 16 years. Mairi’s favourite thing to do in her spare time is walking her dog, Eddie. He is a rescue dog who was adopted by Mairi and her husband six years ago, lighting up their lives since then.
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Our counsellors and supervisors
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John is a UKCP registered Core Process Psychotherapist and a Social Worker. He has been a supervisor for NEECS counsellors for 15 years. John has extensive experience as a psychotherapist, organisational consultant, trainer and supervisor. He has spent many years working with children, young people, adults, therapeutic groups, couples and families.
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Andrew is a counsellor with NEECS.
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Liz joined NEECS as a counsellor in 2022. Liz also works with Aditi, a service for women of colour who have experienced domestic abuse. Liz's background is in the third sector and she specialises in conflict resolution.
Liz grew up and went to school in Edinburgh and later studied in England and worked in London. She lives with her husband and dog. Her interests include being out of doors, travelling in Scotland and sharing food with people she cares about. Liz is a member of the Religious Society of Friends by conviction.
Liz grew up and went to school in Edinburgh and later studied in England and worked in London. She lives with her husband and dog. Her interests include being out of doors, travelling in Scotland and sharing food with people she cares about. Liz is a member of the Religious Society of Friends by conviction.
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Olan is a counsellor with NEECS offering confidential sessions designed to build trust and connection to work through a client's needs. Olan's work addresses issues such as anxiety, depression, PTSD, relationship issues, confidence issues and more. Olan has a particular interest in working with neurodiverse individuals.
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Barbara has been a counsellor since 1999 and she has been working with NEECS since then. She is an integrative therapist working with clients to explore and understand how their thoughts, feeling and ways of coping are linked. Integrative also refers to the bringing together of different approaches in response to individual needs, to support this process of growth and connectedness. After two and a half years teaching English to adults and children in Spain in the late 80s, Barbara developed a great love of Spain, its culture and language, and still likes to return there as often as she can to visit friends.
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Vasiliki is a Core Process Psychotherapist with more than ten years of experience working with mental health within the Social Care sector. Vasiliki is Greek by birth, perceiving the world and humans from an integrated point of view, as opposed to just looking at parts of it, or life events as being separate. The view that everything in the world is connected is ingrained in the culture she was raised in, where she gains insights on the importance of the body and mind connection. Vasiliki finds the Greek guiding principle of “Know Thyself” that refers to “Know Yourself” very inspirational. This understanding led her to pursue a psychotherapy training that uses a psycho spiritual approach.
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Paul undertook his initial training in the 90s at Spectrum in North London, at the time considered one of the most experiential training centres in the world - there was a lot of screaming and hitting cushions with a bat! He then moved to Canada where he studied psychodynamic counselling at the Counsellor Training Institute in Vancouver and he was accredited by the BACP in 2000. He is a trained psychotherapist, supervisor and trainer. Paul has also trained with The Karuna Institute and Mindfulness Scotland.
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Alison is a trainee counsellor with NEECS.
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Graeme is currently working on completing his Masters in Counselling at the University of Edinburgh. He has trained in Person-Centred and Psychodynamic counselling, which are non-directive approaches that aim to facilitate collaborative exploration and understanding. This means he'll offer a safe non-judgemental space where you can take the lead, and you'll explore what matters to you.
He's worked with a variety of counselling services across Edinburgh and the Lothians working with individuals to address issues of anxiety, depression, to help navigate difficult relationships, develop confidence, support with bereavement, and much more.
Graeme's particular interest is working with individuals that have been impacted by abusive or problematic relationships, to support them on their path rediscovering a sense of self confidence and personal power.
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Kerry has over twenty years’ experience working in private practice, community and agency settings, offering individual and group therapy. Kerry’s approach to counselling is drawn from a wealth of formal and informal study, trainings and life experience. The theoretical orientations that inform Kerry’s practice are many and most significantly underpinned by person centred and the humanistic tradition.
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Siobhan is trained in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and works as an integrative therapist - bringing in aspects of different therapy styles into her work. This includes person centred therapy, compassion focused therapy, strength based therapy as well as mindfulness. Siobhan takes an individualised approach to each client working with them to help them work towards acceptance or goals of change and always offering a safe, confidential and non-judgemental space. She has particular experience working with anxiety, self-esteem, low mood and burn out and often works with clients who are neurodiverse, struggling with work or students.
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Helen is a BACP registered therapist who trained at Iron Mill College in Exeter. She is an Integrative Counsellor, using different approaches to support the individual needs of each client. Helen originally studied Literature and Philosophy at Edinburgh University and spent many years in education before retraining as a therapist. Her work is grounded in her belief in the relationship between counsellor and client and her commitment to compassionate and open enquiry.
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Patrick is an experienced counsellor working with a diverse range of clients and issues that encompass depression, anxiety, addiction, loss and bereavement, relationship problems and gay/lesbian and transgender issues, to name but a few. His counselling work is underpinned by over fifteen years of working in the voluntary sector working with children, young people and adults. As well as being a counsellor at NEECS he is also a member of the teaching team at the University of Edinburgh within the department of Counselling, Psychotherapy and Applied Social Science.
His practice is very much influenced by his training in the dialogue between the Person -Centered and Psychodynamic approaches. In this he works in a relational, collaborative way believing in the capacity of the client to construct their own solutions to the issues they present. In doing so he pays attention to and works with the client’s significant relational history and life experience and how this maybe impacting the client in the present. He works within the ethical practice guidelines of COSCA and the BACP as supported by NEECS.
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Our trustees
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Craig is a senior manager working in the banking and finance sector. He has a background of leading teams/people through significant change and improving operational performance.
Previously, Craig worked as Regional Fundraising Manager for CRUK (Scotland). In this role, he was responsible for the delivery of multi million pound fundraising goals
and expanding the charities reach within local communities.
Craig has lived experience of mental health challenges which drives his commitment to change. He credits support received as being the reason for overcoming chronic anxiety and is passionate about ensuring that everyone can access the support they need, when they need it.
Craig lives very happily with his partner and Westie in Central Scotland. He is most likely to be found marathon training, scaling a Monro, or spending a night in one of Scotland's beautiful bothies.
Craig has lived experience of mental health challenges which drives his commitment to change. He credits support received as being the reason for overcoming chronic anxiety and is passionate about ensuring that everyone can access the support they need, when they need it.
Craig lives very happily with his partner and Westie in Central Scotland. He is most likely to be found marathon training, scaling a Monro, or spending a night in one of Scotland's beautiful bothies.
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Stewart has been volunteering with NEECS since 2019. He is a software engineer with over 30 years of experience. Stewart uses his skills to support others, having used his IT skills to support NEECS, he was asked to join the board in late 2019. He has recently taken on the role of treasurer.
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Jess Crichton joined the NEECS Board in 2018 and has undertaken the Chair role for several years. Jess’ professional background is in HR. She has generalist HR experience in the oil and gas industry as well as financial services and now specialises in Reward for a bank in Edinburgh.
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Jenny joined NEECS as a trustee in 2021. Having benefitted from extensive counselling herself when her partner died, Jenny wanted to help champion counselling services in Edinburgh and found NEECS to be a perfect fit. Jenny works as a Policy Officer in Research & Innovation at the Scottish Funding Council in Edinburgh. She is also a chartered member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Unite Equalities Rep with a particular interest in the women's movement.
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Nicola is a chartered psychologist with clinical experience in public and private health care. Nicola has supervised and trained psychologists and was head of the psychology department at a Midlands University ahead of retirement. Nicola also has extensive experience sitting on boards and committees for universities and professional bodies.
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A Leith resident of 20 years, Michelle has worked in the Scottish voluntary sector and beyond in a variety of roles. She is currently Edinburgh Service Manager at LGBT Health and Wellbeing. She has a keen interest in helping build the capacity of small charities and has been a trustee on a number of boards. She is pleased to be able to give back to a charity that impacts the community in Leith and the wider North East and to help strengthen and develop NEECS in its journey.
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