About | AffirmCoachAssess

More about me

I’m an Occupational Psychologist, but that is not all I am. Hopefully, it is not even the most interesting thing about me. I was born and bred in the north-west and, although I have lived in a few different places over my life, I now live in my hometown, in fact on the same street I grew up on! I’m part of a close nit family and being involved in the lives of my nephews and niece is very important to me. I still spend a lot of my time studying as I am completing my doctorate in Occupational Psychology, but I also manage to fit in a few hobbies. I have a campervan, which is likely to make an appearance on my social media, and I love anything to do with water.

Why have I mentioned these things so close to the top of my ‘about me’ section? Well, I think that people are more than their jobs. We have families, hobbies, passions, that all need to be fitted in around our work. While my work quite often focuses on a persons experiences of the workplace, I don’t think it can be looked at in silo. Good Work means the ability to fulfil your passions alongside, and maybe even facilitated by, work.

My passions

My passions can be summed up in one sentence: Good work, accessible to all. I want everyone to have access to good work. This doesn’t mean we all get to be professional footballers, or pop stars, or billionaire entrepreneurs. It does mean that we all have access to work that pays fairly, is secure, includes social protection and personal development, treats people fairly, and allows them to express concerns.

I've spent a good deal of my career developing and streamlining processes to make them more efficient, and supporting businesses to change their cultures. However, I now want to bring these skills to improve the worklife of employees and in turn the efficiency of organisations.

Due to my personal experiences I have a particular passion for neurodiversity inclusion and social mobility. However, that doesn't mean that is all I care about. Everyone should be able to bring their best self to work.

My neurodivergent journey

Since a lot of my work focussing on neurodiversity, it is only fair I share my expereinces. My school story is typical of a lot of neurodivergent women of my age. I was a daydreamer and chatterbox. As long as I could limit myself to daydreaming in class, the teachers would pretty much ignore me. I was able to hold my own until about 13 years old where things started to get harder and my grades dropped off a little. However, this was put down to me ‘not applying myself’. It is hard to blame the teacher at the time, they didn’t know any better. Back in the early 90s ADHD was a ‘naughty boy’ disorder, no one would have thought about a girl daydreaming in case having ADHD.

College and university were a struggle for me. The lack of structure wasn’t good. While my hyperfocus helped with some of the topics, others I just couldn’t get myself to work. At 22, I decided to have another go and enrolled on an access to higher education course, which was designed hand in hand with the universities to prepare you for entry. It was the best move, I got diagnosed with dyslexia and dyspraxia, which gave me an explanation for a lot of my issues. Enough that I manage to get through an undergraduate degree at Open University.

It wasn’t until I was 38 and starting my MSc where I started to really struggle again. The step up to MSc level, with all the academic journal reading , was hard. I started to realise there was something else going on as well as my dyslexia and dyspraxia. It wasn’t until my PgDip in Psychology when reading a textbook on abnormal psychology, when I realise that some of the abnormalities they were describing applied to me! I joined the long wait list to be assessed for ADHD. I eventually got impatient and was lucky enough to be able to pay for a private assessment. My experience of this process made me determined to help people along this journey.

My qualifications and registration

While it is not the most interesting thing about me, it is still something we need to talk about.

I am a registered Occupational Psychologist which means I am registered with the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC). You can check my registration on this page using either my name (full name: Victoria Maxfield) or my registration number (PYL044001).

I have the following qualifications:

BSc Natural Science – Open University
MSc Organisational Psychology – Birkbeck, University of London
PgDip Psychology – Manchester Met
PgDip Management - Open University