Carina has spent her career as a therapist and teacher, promoting all aspects of beauty, holistic and spa therapy at a local, national and international level.
Her goals are the same as the FHT. She has spent her entire professional career working to improve the regulation of the beauty and holistic therapy professions, and the development of further and higher education routes for therapists, to promote and protect the status of therapists and the industry.
Carina was a founder member of FHT Ireland and was Executive Director until Feb 2009. She is proud of the many things it accomplished including bringing down the cost of insurance by over 60% and also introducing a new standard of ethical and professional practice.
Internationally, Carina is happy to promote the industry on a global scale. She is President of the Executive Bureau of CEPEC which is the Pan European Council for the sector. Her work so far has taken her throughout Europe including Belgium, Malta, Greece and the UK. As a result of this work Carina has recently received EU approval and funding on behalf of CEPEC for the development of a European Standard for Beauty, Holistic and Spa Therapy Business. She is confident this will make a huge positive impact in the UK, as well as other countries in Europe.
She has over 10 years teaching experience, lecturing students towards ITEC, CIBTAC and CIDESCO qualifications. It is this passion and enthusiasm which drives her forward to develop training that will improve the knowledge of therapists and the status of the industry.
In 1999 Carina designed the first ever teacher training course delivered in Ireland, specifically for the holistic beauty therapy sector. This course has now developed to higher Diploma level with both national approval and international accreditation.
Carina has been instrumental in setting up the National Standards Authority of Ireland's (NSAI) Beauty School Management Committee. Chairing the expert committee from 2004-2007, she ensured the successful publication of the IS 380 standard for the Management of Beauty and Holistic Therapy Training Centre, giving Ireland a world first in the industry.
In partnership with VTCT, Carina brought VRQ qualifications to Ireland and played a key role in establishing the continuous assessment model. She also helps deliver Assessor and Internal Verifier training for assessors and verifiers working towards VTCT and City and Guilds qualifications. In addition to her industry training, Carina has worked as an external verifier for City and Guilds International Beauty and Holistic Therapy Qualifications in the Republic of Ireland, making up to 40 visits per year to the various colleges in Ireland that offer this training.
Carina is an ambassador for the industry, promoting it worldwide. She has worked with one of the main private beauty colleges in Malta and assisted their teaching and assessment staff, in gaining their Assessor Qualifications and in setting up the continuous assessment model.
She is a regular participant on the Seminar Programme at international trade events such as Professional Beauty Ireland. In 2006 and 2007 she was a key speaker at the National Aesthetic Science Congress in the Technical University of Athens hosted by the Greek Federation. She also takes the time to represent the industry in exhibitions as far away as Hong Kong such as the Cosmoprof Asia exhibition in 2006, which is the largest industry gathering in the world, seeing over 60,000 beauty professionals walk through over three days.
Commenting on the future and the FHT Carina says "Going forward I hope that the FHT can gain more of a presence internationally and improves the support of FHT overseas members. I will be working to establish more support networks overseas for UK therapists who may wish to work abroad. I also hope to be involved in the further development of the FHT Accreditation Scheme which is highly valued and recognised by the industry."
Carina also loves her home life, spending time with her husband and her beautiful daughters Molly and Rosie. As you can imagine, being under the age of 3, they demand lots of their mum's attention - something which Carina loves every minute of!