The Board of ACC


tonyruddle Rev. Tony Ruddle is Chair of ACC. As a Baptist minister Tony has worked in Dallas, Texas; Chelmsford; London and Grantham. His current job is Deputy Head of Chaplaincy for Leeds Teaching Hospitals NHS Trust based at St James´s ("Jimmy´s"). Tony´s involvement in counselling is through his job and involvement in Pathways Counselling Services, Leeds. He has an Honours degree (London) and a Masters in Applied Theology (Wales) and holds a Graduate Diploma in counselling with York St John University. Tony is married to Maureen who is also an ACC Accredited Counsellor. They have two grown up children and are grandparents.

Lynn Farr is Deputy Chair. She is Principal Counsellor and co-Founder of Restore, a Counselling and Training Agency based in North Belfast, employing a team of 7 counsellors.
Originally trained as a nurse, midwife and health visitor Lynn began her counselling training 18 years ago and worked in a church-based team, as a GP attached counsellor and also in private practice.
Lynn is also an experienced supervisor and trainer. She has served both as a committee member and rep on the Northern Ireland committee and on the national board of ACC and held the portfolio for pastoral care from 2007 to 2010.


sue Sue Monckton Rickett is the Board member for Business and Finance and also the Company Secretary. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Association of Certified Accountants and works for an international Bank in the City of London. As a counsellor Sue has worked within church settings and private practice and is a pastoral team leader and speaker at Spring Harvest.
Sue is a trustee and treasurer for Claybury International, a Christian charity, which provides support, training and counselling for church leaders, missionaries and full-time Christian workers. She is also a member of the Bridge Pastoral Foundation and licensed to practice sandplay by the British and Irish Sandplay Society. With her husband, Sue leads an organisation called WINGS (Wholeness in God's Son), which is involved in counselling, pastoral care, retreats and healing.

david David Depledge has rejoined the Board following his retirement from the role of Chief Executive of ACC. He was previously a Board member in the formative days of ACC in the early ‘90s. His particular oversight responsibility is Communications. David, who is a Fellow of ACC, counsels as a volunteer at the Light House in Coventry. He is a former President of ACC Europe, a director of the International Network for Christian Counselling and a non-executive director of Coventry Primary Care Trust. He was a founder and is still Chairman of CITEE, a charity which provides life skills training for those recovering from mental health problems, spells in prison, long term unemployment etc. David is married to Barbra who is also an ACC accredited counsellor.



tony Dr Tony Hobbs is Director for Spiritual and Ethical matters. Tony has been married to Anne since 1980. They are joint directors of Mission to Marriage & Christian Marriage Ministries, and authors of Marriage Masterclass. As well as running teaching events, they are increasingly involved in direct couple counselling and therapy. Tony has a PhD in Old Testament Studies. He works part-time as a Distance Learning Tutor for the London School of Theology, tutoring OT and the Masters course in Hermeneutics. His preferred denomination is Brethren but he currently belongs to a small English Presbytherian church in rural Wales.
Tony says he “is delighted to have joined the Board of ACC as he is passionately committed to the importance and value of effective pastoral care and Christian counselling.”

Amanda Georgiou is the ACC Regional Representative for the North East England Region and is Director for the Regions on the Board. Her background is in psychology, research and public health where she has a long-standing interest in psychological therapies. She completed her Diploma at Sheffield Hallam University in 2004 and has studied the CWR model of Christian Counselling. She is also a member of the British Association of Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP). Her experience of counselling covers a range of areas including bereavement and loss, post-traumatic stress, depression, anxiety, relationships and self-esteem.

pam Pam Smith was born and bred in Nottingham and has been involved in the ‘counselling world’ for over 20 years in a variety of ways. She has been in private practice as a therapist and supervisor for most of those 20 years and is also involved in a local counselling centre called New Dawn, a community interest company (CIC); in essence, this means the 18+ counsellors who work there own and run the centre. Pam is on the board of ACC as Director of Counselling Standards and involved as a counsellor, supervisor, assessor etc. She says, “Part of my passion is around training and I am course provider and trainer, up to diploma level, for South Nottingham College. I am currently in the process of setting up a training agency called East Midlands Counselling Training (EMCT) to provide courses that will include Level 5 Diploma in Psychotherapeutic Counselling and Level 6 Diploma in Counselling Supervision."

Bill Merrington Canon Dr Bill Merrington has been an Anglican Priest for 26 years. Formally a Forensic Chemist, he has worked in city (St.John's, Harborne), town (St.Paul's, Leamington Spa) and country (Ilmington) parishes. He was Rural Dean of Warwick and Leamington Spa before becoming the Area Dean of Shipston-on-Stour. Bill has been involved in the counselling world for 30 years. As a chaplain of a Maternity and Children's Hospital he began to research into the long term effects of the loss of a child. Since then he has gained an MPhil in theology from Birmingham University and PhD in psychology from Warwick University.
He has written a number of self-help books for bereaved parents and children. Bill is now the lead chaplain at Bournemouth University, from where he lectures both nationally and internationally on loss issues. He is currently carrying out research from a cross-cultural perspective. Bill runs Counselling Care, which provides counselling for bereaved parents, play therapy in schools and supervision for clergy, counsellors and pastoral workers. He has worked on a number of committees, including Chair of School Governors and the Board of Cord (Christian Outreach, Relief and Development).


Jonathan Clark is Manager of Premier Lifeline, and Director of Mind and Soul at Premier Christian Radio where he has been for over 11 years. He is actively involved with ACC. Lifeline and ACC jointly published the UK Directory of Christian Counselling and Care. He first undertook Christian counselling training with CWR in 1986. Jonathan qualified as a Mental Health social worker specialising in suicide and self-harm. He has worked in the statutory, voluntary and church sectors. He is an active member of a local church. He has been the minister of a couple of Free Churches and has an interest in the healing ministry. He is married to Miggs and they have two adult children.