Question: What impact are you trying to make?

Debbie Stevens-Gill answered on 28 Jun 2022:

That’s a good question Ollie!

I sort of wear two hats – Occupational Psychologist (practitioner) and lecturer (academic), one of the things that I hope to achieve in my career is to make working lives more fair, diverse and positive for the people and organisations I work with.

I hope that the psychologists I train enter the workforce and influence positive change to the well-being of those they work with. But closer to home and something that I can see more immediately is really one of the best bits of my job; working with students! Most of the students I teach are the first of their families to go to university, and/or are mature students with families themselves. It is so rewarding to get emails back from those students telling me about a job they’ve just gotten thanks to them completing their masters degree, or a few years down the line meeting them at a conference, or hearing influential practitioners talking about the amazing work one of my graduates is doing and thinking “I am so proud to have been part of that psychologist’s journey, look at the positive difference they are making!”