Annex A > Chapter 16 - Support and Counselling > Helen Vegoda > Qualifications
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Qualifications
172 Mrs Vegoda told the Inquiry that she first qualified as a teacher. She then took a qualification as a social worker and worked for nine years in the Child and Family Psychiatric Unit in a hospital in the West Midlands where she had been seconded. She told the Inquiry that this work was very much `hands on' work with families. [218]
`I worked very closely with both adults and children ... the expression that was used was a "therapist" ... the children were actually referred, because they had some sort of psychiatric or psychological problems ... I worked as one of a team of people doing an assessment of what the problems were and the family background, and then working with either the parents or the children, often in very long-term commitments ... That was the main part of the work.' [219]
`I also worked with parents or children who may have been bereaved ...' [220]
173 Between 1981 and 1986 she undertook training in child psychotherapy at the Tavistock Clinic in London whilst also employed as a trainee child psychotherapist in Bristol. She explained that the training that she undertook at the Tavistock Clinic was part-time and she did not obtain a qualification in child psychotherapy as she did not complete the course. She stressed to the Inquiry, however, that she underwent a considerable amount of training during the course. [221] She then spent two years working with the mental health charity Mind, as a Regional Administrator for the South West.
174 She stated she had a diploma in sociology from London University. [222] She told the Inquiry that she had also been on a bereavement course organised by Cruse [223] and subsequently became a member of the West Midlands Institute of Psychotherapy and she took a qualification with them. [224] She was also a member of the Bristol Association of Psychotherapy. [225]
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Footnotes
[222] WIT 0192 0001 - 0002 Mrs Vegoda
[223] Cruse is a national voluntary organisation which offers free bereavement counselling services