Tessa Denham
Tessa is our CEO at WCTS, and passionate about supporting women experiencing deprivation and trauma with specialised psychological therapies. As well as taking overall responsibility for service delivery and research here, she represents WCTS and the third sector on the Leeds Strategic Mental Health Partnership Board. She’s also the third sector advocate for sexual violence services to the West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner. Tessa’s day-to-day role involves working with staff and service users, partners, funders and our Board of Trustees to promote the mental health recovery and wellbeing of the women and girls we work with.
Laura Pierrepont
Laura is a caseworker working as part of the perinatal team and has experience in working with women and families in the perinatal period. Her role involves working with women in pregnancy and the first year of baby’s birth who are currently in therapy or wanting to access therapy. Laura works in a holistic and compassionate way to support women practically and emotionally with a range of difficulties which could include challenges with housing provision, access to finance and benefits and liaising with other support services and signposting alongside brief interventions for anxiety.
Gemma Ridge
Gemma is an accredited psychotherapist and EMDR practitioner working in our 8-16 session team. As an integrative therapist, she uses a variety of approaches and modalities depending on what the client needs. She believes the most important part of her work is building a warm and compassionate relationship with her clients so they can talk in a safe and trusting space. She has experience of working in a variety of settings including the probation service and working for an adoption support service. She also has experience of working in the private sector and as a clinical supervisor.
Lorraine Fothergill
Lorraine is an integrative person-centred psychotherapist with additional training in Dialectic Behaviour Therapy and other therapeutic approaches. She has extensive experience working in many different settings including Mind, NHS, and educational settings. She also has a private practice in York. She has great resolve to help clients make meaningful, lasting change and enable a resilient sense of well-being. She is a person with natural warmth and cares very much about the work clients are able to do with her. She has worked with a broad profile of clients bringing many different issues, none of whom are less important than another.
Andrea Campbell
Andrea is our Clinical Lead and works to ensure the safety and excellence of the service through facilitating clinical learning, staff development and ethical practice. She has over 22 years’ experience of working as a therapist, trainer and tutor and is deeply committed to the values of counselling and therapy.
Kirsty Grant
Kirsty is a BACP accredited therapist working with clients referred to the core WCTS service. She works in an integrative, relational way, tailoring her approach to suit the needs of each client and has had experience working within the NHS as well as Further and Higher Education settings. She is passionate about supporting clients in developing further understanding of themselves and their needs, as well as working towards making positive changes in their lives.
Alison Herbert
Alison is a qualified Art Psychotherapist. She is registered with The Health Care Professionals Council (HCPC), The British Association of Art Therapists (BAAT) and a member of BACP (MBACP). She works with clients with a wide range of needs and adapts her approach to meet the individual’s needs. She has a trauma informed approach to her work and is experienced with working with vulnerable adults with complex needs, such as childhood trauma and abuse, attachment difficulties, neurodiversity, stress, anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and relationship difficulties. Her approaches and training include working creatively, a sensorimotor body mapping approach and Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT). Her everyday role includes supporting clients individually as well as delivering a long-term art psychotherapy group.
Services offered: Counselling and Wellbeing through learning
Mbola Holisoa
Holisoa Andriambolanoro, also known as Mbola, is a qualified person-centred therapist, BACP registered. Her experience includes working with vulnerable adults with complex needs, such as attachment difficulties, domestic violence and histories of sexual abuse, and she also has experience of working with anxiety, depression, low self-esteem and relationship difficulties. As well as English, Mbola is fluent in French and Malagasy, her native language.
Mbola works closely with her clients, creating a supportive and non-judgmental environment to explore whatever is troubling them. To help her clients move forward on their journey, she combines her therapeutic knowledge with body awareness, mindfulness and creativity, all gained from experience of working in the NHS, the voluntary sector and being an ex-professional dancer.
Abi Rowan
Abi is a Psychotherapist/Counsellor working in the Perinatal team. She works with pregnant women and women with babies up to a year old, supporting them to explore what is meaningful to them, to search new ways of relating to themselves and others, and develop a greater sense of inner safety, as they go through the life changing experiences of pregnancy, birth and early motherhood. She has worked for various third sector organisations in Leeds and has spent much of her working life working with children, young people and families often with creative play based therapy. She is a member of the BACP.
Board of Trustees
As a charity registered with the Charity Commission, we are led by a voluntary Board of 10 Trustees chaired. The Board is currently looking for women with expertise in marketing, charity law or counselling to join. If you are interested in applying, please email us at info@womenstherapyleeds.org.uk