Meet the Diploma Tutors
Jo Oxley
Jo is an experienced psychotherapeutic counsellor, supervisor, and trainer with a thriving private practice and over 35 years of teaching and tutoring experience. Despite her extensive qualifications, including a formal teaching credential, Jo’s professional journey began much like many of the practitioners she now supports—full of questions, self-doubt, and the uncertainty that often accompanies complex client work.
A pivotal shift in her practice came over a decade ago when she rooted her clinical work in attachment theory. This framework brought clarity, confidence, and purpose to her therapeutic approach. Training with the renowned Linda Cundy had a lasting influence on Jo’s development, and she remains passionate about sharing this powerful knowledge with others.
Through Optima Health Services, Jo has cultivated a learning environment that champions attachment-based training for counsellors and psychotherapists. Optima has grown into a trusted hub for professionals seeking to deepen their clinical thinking, particularly in relation to complex attachment trauma. The service offers Level 5 and Level 7 Diplomas designed not only to educate but to empower—blending theory with the kind of grounded, real-world integration that transforms therapeutic practice.
Jo’s teaching is marked by a warm, down-to-earth presence and is deeply informed by her clinical experience and expertise in mental health and supervision. She supports practitioners to become more attuned, ethically grounded, and confident in their therapeutic voice.
At the heart of Optima’s mission is a commitment to ensuring that counsellors emerge from training not only more knowledgeable, but also more self-assured, purposeful, and ready to make a meaningful impact—both in the therapy room and beyond.
Outside of her professional role, she is a proud Grannie to three beautiful granddaughters, a role that brings her immense joy and perspective. She enjoys relaxing breaks in her caravan with her husband, cherishing the simplicity and peace of those getaways. Holidays and quality time spent with family and friends are especially important to her, offering balance, connection, and the grounding presence of the people she loves most.
Wendy Widdrington
Wendy has over 15 years of experience working as a Humanistic counsellor, supervisor, and trainer within a hospice environment. This role has taught her to really appreciate life, and she brings this attitude as well as a wealth of knowledge, experience, nurture, and enthusiasm to her tutor role. She has a deep passion for learning and her favourite way to share information is through a relaxed, engaging, conversational approach.
Initially her own academic path and passion for learning led to a Law Degree (LLB) and Post Graduate Diploma in Legal Practice. This developed her skills in critical thinking, structured communication, and problem-solving.
However, a deep sense of fulfilment and really being ‘at home’ in her work, came later in life, with her Foundation Degree in Humanistic Counselling and therapeutic work with clients navigating life-changing loss and trauma. The Level 7 course with Optima reflects her deep respect for Attachment Theory and the personal and relational insights it can bring at the times we feel most lost.
Wendy has years of experience as a facilitator of groups, leading lively discussions and workshops for a wide range of professionals, on sensitive topics such as childhood bereavement, life loss, transitions and change, resilience, loneliness, and self-care. She is committed to creating safe, engaging, fun and supportive learning environments where every participant feels heard and valued. Her desire is to see you not just grasp the material but really flourish, both academically and personally.
Wendy loves cafe culture, and exploring the outdoors on long walks, growing flowers from seed and being with family and friends. These interests reflect her love of making connections, her patience and passion for growth – qualities she brings to each teaching session.
Joanne Kay
Joanne is a psychodynamic counsellor and supervisor who works primarily with adults, with a particular focus on depression and the deeper emotional patterns that often underlie it. Alongside their client work, they have long held a deep interest in how we use verbal, non-verbal, and even pre-verbal language to make sense of ourselves and our relationships. This fascination naturally led to a specialism in attachment-based therapy.
Before becoming a counsellor, Joanne spent time teaching adults and facilitating learning in a wide range of settings—from origami workshops to poetry seminars. This diverse educational background, combined with a longstanding academic interest in communication and human development, informs both her therapeutic and teaching styles. Joanne believes that learning is most impactful when it is collaborative, reflective, and rooted in real-life experience.
A lifelong learner herself, Joanne views teaching as a natural extension of curiosity and passion for growth. Within the course environment, she sees her role as a facilitator—someone who delivers rich, well-informed content while also nurturing the learning that emerges organically from the group. Joanne values shared reflections, clinical insights, and varied experiences that each participant brings, seeing these contributions as integral to the depth and richness of the training.
Whether learners are newly qualified counsellors continuing their development or experienced therapists exploring new relational frameworks, Joanne’s aim is to foster an open, inclusive, and supportive space. Focusing on helping practitioners from all modalities deepen their theoretical understanding and feel confident applying it meaningfully in their clinical work.
Uruj Anjum
Uruj is an experienced genetic counsellor, attachment therapist, supervisor and educator. She runs an online private practice that offers compassionate, specialist support in attachment-based psychotherapy, with a particular focus on perinatal clients and individuals navigating genetic diagnoses.
Her therapeutic and educational approach is rooted in the belief that healing happens through connection—whether in the therapy room or a learning environment. With a professional background in genetic counselling and years of experience supporting families through complex and uncertain times, she brings a trauma-informed, relational lens to all her work.
Uruj is deeply passionate about attachment theory and its power to illuminate how early relationships shape our sense of self, our experiences of parenting, our connections with others, and our ways of processing loss. She holds space for the many intersecting layers that influence emotional life, including family systems, genetics, culture, beliefs, and neurodiversity.
Teaching the Level 5 Diploma in Attachment-Based Psychotherapy is a role she values deeply. She creates a collaborative and welcoming online space where theory and clinical practice come together and where counsellors can safely build confidence, insight, and depth.
Outside of her professional life, Uruj is a mother of two. She enjoys nature walks and playing badminton and is continually engaged in learning—about herself, others, and the transformative power of human relationships.
Gavin (Gav) McKee
Gav is an attachment-based psychotherapist and trainer with a flourishing private practice. He works with adults who have experienced challenging pasts—often shaped by childhood trauma, neglect, or emotional disconnection—supporting them to navigate painful emotions, self-sabotaging behaviours, and unhelpful thought patterns that can hinder a fulfilling life. His therapeutic offerings include both online sessions and walk-and-talk therapy, reflecting his belief that healing can occur in diverse environments.
Although Gav trained initially as an integrative therapist, he consistently found himself drawn back to attachment theory. For him, it serves as the thread that weaves together a wide range of approaches, offering a powerful framework for understanding emotional suffering and transformation. He values its capacity to provide structure, track therapeutic progress, and decode the defensive dynamics that often arise within the client-therapist relationship.
As a trainer, Gav is passionate about sharing his knowledge and experience. His teaching style is relaxed and collaborative, aimed at fostering a safe, supportive environment where learners feel confident to ask questions, reflect deeply, and connect theory to their clinical practice. He hopes participants leave his courses feeling inspired, empowered, and more grounded in their identity as therapists.
Outside of his professional role, Gav enjoys walking in nature and spending quality time with the people who matter most to him. He looks forward to supporting others on their journey into this meaningful, challenging, and profoundly rewarding profession.
Georgina Sturmer
Georgina is an Integrative Attachment-Based Therapist, Supervisor, and Lecturer in Counselling. She works primarily with women, supporting them as they navigate anxiety, loss, relationship difficulties, and life transitions. Her approach is warm, compassionate, and curious, rooted in the belief that when we understand our story and our relationships, we can make meaningful changes to our everyday lives.
Her journey into counselling began through volunteering with Home-Start, where she witnessed first-hand the power of empathy and active listening. Inspired by this experience, she enrolled on an Introduction to Counselling course – the first step in a career she finds deeply fulfilling. Since then, she has worked as a counsellor for Home-Start and the Watford Women’s Centre, as a crisis volunteer with the SHOUT helpline, and now runs a successful online private practice. Alongside her therapeutic and supervisory work, Georgina comments regularly for the press on a range of subjects relating to mental health and wellbeing. This has included appearances on BBC London, Radio Four Women’s Hour and a whole range of newspapers and publications. She is a Media Spokesperson for the BACP and a magazine advice columnist.
Although her initial training was Integrative and rooted in Person-Centred theory, attachment theory became a major lightbulb moment during her studies. It offered what felt like a key to understanding the self, illuminating why we behave as we do and how our early relationships shape our emotional world. This inspired Georgina to complete the Level 5 Diploma in Attachment-Based Therapy and the Level 7 Diploma with Optima, deepening her relational work with clients and her understanding of herself.
Coming from a long family line of teachers, Georgina feels at home in the classroom, whether in-person or online. Her career has gone full circle, and she is now a lecturer on CPCAB courses at West Herts College, where she originally trained, along with being a course tutor on the Optima Level 5 diploma. She finds great joy in exploring and explaining counselling concepts, weaving theory into practice, and learning from her students’ reflections and experiences. Her teaching style is warm, collaborative, and inclusive – and she brings curiosity and enthusiasm to her work without taking herself too seriously, creating a space where learning feels both supportive and alive.
She believes that therapy, supervision, and teaching have an enormous amount in common – each offering lifelong opportunities for growth and development.
Darren Sharpe
Darren is an Attachment-Based Psychotherapist, Trainer, and experienced therapeutic Foster Carer with a counselling background rooted in humanism, particularly the person-centred approach. With over two decades of experience in training and assessment across various educational and therapeutic settings, he also runs a thriving private counselling practice in Kent.
He works primarily with men, neurodiverse individuals, and counsellors or trainees, offering a warm, congruent, and open therapeutic presence that fosters meaningful relational work. Darren is an accredited member of the BACP and is deeply committed to supporting clients and learners in developing greater insight, resilience, and self-awareness.
Attachment theory became central to his clinical identity after he observed its powerful impact on client outcomes—unlocking stuck processes and enabling profound, lasting change. His professional understanding is enhanced by personal experience: for over 13 years, he and his husband have been therapeutic foster carers, providing long-term care to children with complex emotional and developmental needs. Darren also coordinates the Mockingbird project for a fostering agency, managing a support model where hub carers provide structured support to networks of foster families—living the principle that it takes a village to raise a child.
These combined personal and professional experiences deeply inform his approach to therapy and teaching. Darren’s training style is reflective, inclusive, and gently humorous. He fosters a safe, welcoming environment where learners are invited to bring their full selves—bridging theory and lived experience to make the work authentically human and transformative.
Beyond his professional life, Darren enjoys travel, theatre, and spending quality time with his family. He believes in the deep interconnection between personal and professional growth, a perspective that shapes his work with learners—encouraging them to explore not just what they do as therapists but who they are in a relationship.
Jane Brown
Jane is an experienced relationship counsellor working online with individuals and couples both within a busy private practice and also for the relationship organisation – relate, where she also teaches within a diploma program.
Jane adopts an integrative approach which is firmly rooted within attachment theory.
Jane’s passion for understanding and working with people began by studying Psychology at University, graduating with a BA Hons degree. Following that she spent a year solo travelling around the world across many different countries including Indonesia, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand. Her love of the learning environment began when she joined a media company and remained there for 12 years, growing a career in training and development, working within the UK and in South Africa.
Experiencing an episode of (what would now be recognized as) post-natal depression following her first sons’ birth, she was inspired to want to retrain as a counsellor.
She gained her essential counselling qualifications before completing a 2-year Diploma in Relationship Counselling.
Jane offers an enthusiastic, encouraging and inclusive learning environment, where she prides herself on enabling others to reach their full potential.
Outside of her professional roles, Jane enjoys getting out in nature with her family, running and cycling.