Hello, my name is Charlotte. I have been working for BAS as a volunteer trainee counsellor since spring 2025… and am proud to announce that I recently passed all my college requirements and am now a fully qualified counsellor!

 I have completed my counselling training from Bath Centre for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BCPC) with a Diploma in Humanistic and Integrative Counselling. 

It has been an amazing and challenging journey: my training has been over six years in total and was dramatically punctuated in 2024 by my having a stroke. 

I have had my own firsthand experience of the value of counselling both more recently and over my life. It helped me with so much including anxiety, relationships, bereavement as well as coming to terms with my stroke. 

Because of my experience of counselling and my desire to work with people needing the kind of support I received I felt a powerful pull to retrain as a counsellor. 

Despite having a variety of rewarding placements, my own experience made me even more determined to work with stroke survivors - and for a charity like BAS. 

In offering me a volunteer trainee placement BAS has both enabled me to develop my experience and skills and means more stroke survivors can be offered counselling. BAS delivered over 300 counselling hours last year alone.

The impact of stroke

This is my second career: before retraining to be a counsellor, I worked for over 35 years in health and social care as well as university education where I taught medical students communication skills.

The impact of being a stroke survivor – living with fatigue and peripheral vision loss – has meant that, until recently, I had to work online. However, I am looking forward to working face-to-face again soon! 

As we know, every stroke is different, and so are the lives and circumstances of every stroke survivor - both before and after stroke. 

However, one of the things I have been most struck by since my own stroke and working for BAS is the impact of stress, anxiety and emotional distress on the lives of the many people and their families who experience stroke. 

A “wake-up call”

Personally, my stroke has been an awakening, a wake-up call, and this is something I also hear from other stroke survivors. It has given me new perspectives and clarity on what is important in life. 

I am very fortunate to have found a second career as a counsellor: a role that I love and feel ready and able to do. 

I also know the importance of family and friends as well as health, statutory and voluntary services in stroke recovery and life after stroke. 

Bristol is incredibly fortunate to have a thriving charity like BAS offering outstanding services and commitment to stroke survivors and their families. 

I wish every part of the UK could have the same.