About Andrew Cheers

I'm Andrew Cheers. I run Headstart Mental Health from In Motion Clinics in Chester, and I've been doing clinical work for over thirteen years now. I grew up in North Wales, served in the Royal Air Force, and eventually found my way into mental health through a route that wasn't exactly textbook.

That's probably a good thing. Most of what I know about helping people didn't come from a lecture theatre.

The RAF years

I joined the RAF when I was young. It's the kind of thing that either breaks you or shapes you, and for me it did both in different ways. The military teaches you discipline, obviously. But it also teaches you how to read people fast, how to stay calm when things go sideways, and how to cut through nonsense to get to what actually matters.

Those aren't bad skills for a therapist, as it turns out.

I also saw firsthand what happens when people don't get the right support. Lads I served with who were struggling but wouldn't talk about it. The culture was different then. You just got on with it. I watched good people fall apart because nobody gave them the tools to manage what was going on inside their heads. That stuck with me.

Clinical training and qualifications

After the RAF, I went and got my BSc Honours in Psychology. Then a Diploma in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. Then a Postgraduate Diploma in Mental Health Science. Three qualifications, years of study, thousands of clinical hours.

I'm not telling you this to show off. I'm telling you because when you're trusting someone with your mental health, or your child's mental health, you deserve to know they actually know what they're doing. There are a lot of people out there calling themselves therapists after a weekend course. That's not me.

I'm fully DBS checked, professionally insured, and registered with the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) for data protection. Your privacy matters. I take it seriously.

The B.I.R.D Centre

Before opening Headstart, I spent years working at the Brain Injury Rehabilitation and Development Centre in Chester. The B.I.R.D Centre is one of those places that changes how you think about the brain entirely.

I worked with children and adults whose lives had been turned upside down by neurological conditions. Acquired brain injuries. Developmental disorders. Cases that other services had given up on or couldn't figure out. It was demanding, sometimes heartbreaking, and absolutely the best education I could have asked for.

What the B.I.R.D Centre taught me, more than anything, is that the brain is far more adaptable than most people realise. I watched children who'd been written off make progress that their parents had been told was impossible. Not through miracles. Through targeted, structured work that respected how the brain actually develops.

That experience is why I now offer primitive reflex integration therapy alongside CBT. It's rare in the UK. Most therapists haven't even heard of it. But I've seen what it can do for children who are struggling with coordination, focus, reading, emotional regulation, all of it, and I couldn't in good conscience not offer it.

Why I opened Headstart

Honestly? Frustration.

I got tired of watching people wait months for NHS treatment that might be six sessions of watered-down therapy delivered by someone who's overwhelmed and underpaid. The NHS is full of brilliant people doing their best in a broken system. But the system is broken. I'm not going to pretend otherwise.

I wanted to offer something different. Proper therapy, at a fair price, with someone who's actually got the time to do it right. No six-month waiting lists. No being discharged after a handful of sessions because the funding's run out. No rushing through a cookie-cutter programme because that's all the service can afford to deliver.

At Headstart, I work with you for as long as it takes. Some people need four sessions. Some need twenty. The work takes as long as it takes, and I'm not going to cut you loose before you're ready just because some spreadsheet says I should.

How I actually work

I'm a CBT therapist at heart. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is the most researched, most evidence-based talking therapy in existence. It works for anxiety, depression, PTSD, OCD, phobias, anger, low self-esteem, the list goes on. It's not about lying on a couch talking about your childhood for years on end. It's practical. You learn skills. You do the work between sessions. Things change.

But I'm not rigid about it. Thirteen years of clinical work has taught me that people aren't textbooks. Sometimes the standard CBT model needs adapting. Sometimes you need to spend a few sessions building trust before the real work starts. Sometimes someone walks in with anxiety and it turns out the real problem is something else entirely. You have to be flexible enough to follow the person, not the manual.

I also have extensive experience working with neurodivergent clients. Through my years at the B.I.R.D Centre and in private practice, I've supported children, teenagers, and adults with ADHD and autism, including many who have only just received a diagnosis. A new diagnosis can be a lot to process, whether it's your own or your child's. I help people make sense of it, develop practical strategies, and address the anxiety, low mood, or overwhelm that often comes alongside neurodivergence.

For children, I also offer primitive reflex integration therapy. If your child's struggling and nobody can tell you why, retained primitive reflexes might be the missing piece. It's a specialist area, and I'm one of very few practitioners in the North West who offers it.

What you won't get from me

Jargon. Vague reassurances. Nodding and saying "and how does that make you feel?" for fifty minutes while you do all the heavy lifting. I'm not that kind of therapist.

You'll get someone who's direct, who'll challenge you when you need challenging, who'll explain things in plain language, and who genuinely cares about whether you get better. I'm not interested in having clients for life. I want you in, sorted, and out living your life. That's the whole point.