The Best Guide for the Sudbury Area

Students to receive inspirational talk from award winning counsellor and charity leader

Author: Patrick Lowman

Published: 9th July 2018 10:17

Glenda Roberts at TGS

Students to receive inspirational talk from award winning counsellor and charity leader

Sixth-form students from the Thomas Gainsborough School are to receive an inspirational talk from one of the UK's leading psychotherapists.

Glenda D Roberts will tell the students how she overcame an abusive and violent background on a tough south London council estate to achieve success.

Ms Roberts will tell the students how she was bullied as a child as she was mixed raced, her father black and her mother white. She suffered from watching her parents fight and argue through drinking alcohol and she was physically abused by her brother. One of her best friends was murdered on the estate where she lived when she was a teenager.

After leaving school at the age of 16 with no qualifications, Ms Roberts started working on market stalls. She later gained a job working as a concessions manager for a fashion company eventually launching her own business with a friend designing and selling clothes to brands such as Harvey Nicholls and Harrods. She brought her own house at the age of just 22.

Ms Roberts travelled across Europe until her brother was left with a devastating brain injury following a racist attack. Ms Roberts returned to her Deptford roots to care for her brother. It was this experience which led her to become a qualified counsellor and psychotherapist.

Ten years ago Ms Roberts set up the ExploringU Well-Being Centre in Sudbury. The company has won several national awards and now has additional centres in Castle Hedingham and the Wirral near Liverpool.

Today, Ms Roberts is also a member of and a media spokesperson for the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP)

She also founded the Just Talk Campaign launched in the Sudbury area following a number of local suicides. To date, The Just Talk Campaign has helped hundred of people struggling with their emotional well-being.

"I hope by sharing my story will inspire the students to go on to achieve great things in life. I will explain despite a very difficult start in life how I developed a plan to help me escape my background and to achieve success.

"I want to show the students that with the right attitude, determination and work ethic great things can be achieved despite the many obstacles which may stand in your way, after all, we only learn by making mistakes," said Ms Roberts.

Kenny Alexander, Director of Sixth Form at the Great Cornard School, said: "I believe that we provide a fantastic provision for academic studies, work related learning opportunities and the development of transferable skills to all of our students. We also want our students to be happy and engaged in what they are doing, and having a presentation from Glenda will inspire, enthuse and reassure them that it is good to talk."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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