The prevalence of ill health is real. Become an expert practitioner in treating
individuals using a truly holistic approach.
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A MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR
The great need for practitioners is emphasised today, not only by the prevalence
of well-established diseases, but also by the appearance of quite new conditions
which are not necessarily regarded as being nutritional illnesses. In fact many
students come to Nutritional Therapy after experiencing and their own health
problems and seek to help others with similar difficulties. We know that
nutrition lies at the very heart of these problems and it is our absolute
intention to share that knowledge with you. Every person's nutritional needs
differ and our courses teach students to recognise this at the outset - there is
no haphazard approach. We are absolutely certain that you will find this a
fascinating course as you train to become a practitioner of the highest degree.
DR. LAWRENCE PLASKETT
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Course Duration
3 YEARS
Study Hours
3,000 HOURS
Course Content
14 FOLDERS
Course Fee
£1,995
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COURSE OVERVIEW
The Plaskett Professional Diploma in Nutritional Therapy is the most scientific
and advanced practitioner level course that we offer. Nutritional Therapy is a
form of therapy that uses food, supplementary nutrients and cleansing procedures
to alleviate or prevent chronic health problems and this course will train you
to practise as a Nutritional Therapist of the highest degree. You will:
* Receive a training which is truly holistic in nature
* Be presented with the unique teachings of Dr. Lawrence Plaskett whose long
experience working in the borderlands between nutrition and medicine enables
him to offer a synthesis between many fields that are not often brought
together: nutrition, pathology, biochemistry, toxicology, pharmacology, cell
biology, naturopathy and homoeopathy
* Develop the professional skills and specific diagnostic insight to be able to
apply nutrition to health effectively, a training for successful practice
that should be applicable anywhere in the world
* Be trained to offer help with a wide range of conditions, the majority of
which are not necessarily regarded in conventional medicine as being
nutritional illnesses. These encompass an extremely wide range of chronic
conditions, including most diseases and a vast array of symptoms - physical,
emotional, mental - which can frequently be experienced outside the range of
conventional medical diagnostic 'labels'.
* Develop the necessary expertise in nutrition which is often lacking in other
fields of complementary or alternative medicine. Any programme of nutritional
supplements and diet needs to be matched exactly to individual needs by a
well-trained practitioner
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BREAKDOWN OF THE COURSE SECTIONS
The Nutritional Therapy Diploma includes the following 14 folders:
FOLDER 1
THE HOLISTIC MODEL OF HEALTH CARE
This Folder starts with a suggested programme of study and some simple hints on
how to make best use of your study time.
It then teaches an understanding of basic principles that underpin your entire
grasp of nutrition as a biological process. The naturopathic emphasis is upon
freeing the body tissues of toxins and the damaged cell components that drag
them down to the chronic level.
The Folder looks closely at the nature of toxins and their sources. It looks at
their behaviour and effects when they enter the body, the character and
mechanisms of the damage they do and, above all, the mechanisms by which they
can be removed and the damage repaired.
These are no flights of fancy, as orthodoxy would often have us believe. Rather
they are strongly supported by medical science, as the course material will
demonstrate. In order to develop a grasp of these processes they have to be
visualized as they really happen, on the cellular level.
A Side Book is included covering the structure and life of the cell.
Areas Covered
* Study skills
* Looking after the body
* The Life Force
* Stopping the rot and starting to recover
* Movements of toxins within and around the body
* Our relationship to medical orthodoxy
* The nature of natural and unnatural chemical toxins
* The concept of toxin-free food
* Organic growing and water purification
* Free radicals and anti-oxidants
* Routes of toxin entry and elimination
* Damage caused by toxins lying in the tissues
* Detoxification
* The relationship between toxic burden and toxic damage
* The energy reserve role of fat
* The lipoproteins of the blood
FOLDER 2
MINERALS AT WORK IN NUTRITION - PART 1
The minerals come forward as the strongest contenders for pride of place among
the nutrient classes because they are so critically vulnerable to deficiency and
imbalance in today’s western world.
“Get the minerals right before anything else” is a penetrating summary of their
necessary priority. You will learn how the bulk minerals (those we need in
greatest amount) depend upon each other and how the micro minerals cannot fulfil
their function correctly without a correct balance of the bulk ones.
This Folder takes “first things first” by laying the soundest possible
foundation for the study and management of the bulk metals – sodium, potassium,
calcium, with magnesium to follow in Folder 5.
We believe that few course providers deal as thoroughly with this absolute
cornerstone of nutrition as we do. The effects of these mineral balances
permeate the entire subject of nutrition. You will look at many aspects of the
subject that affect health.
Areas Covered
* Composition of the human body
* Overview of macro minerals
* Sources of nutritional minerals
* Biological concentration of minerals
* Micro minerals as catalysts
* Toxic minerals
* Digestion, absorption and storage
* Mineral/mineral antagonisms
* Sodium and potassium balance
* Symptoms of sodium and potassium excess or deficiency
* The sodium pump
* Sodium and potassium in foods
* Potassium administration in therapy
* Calcium in the human skeleton and teeth
* Calcium in body fluids
* Hormonal control of calcium
* Osteoporosis and disputes over calcium requirements
* Calcium in foods
* Calcium “mishandling”
* Calcium in supplement
Side Book: The Chemistry of Nutrition
Whilst it is possible to teach nutrition to some degree without studying the
chemical nature of the nutrients, it is much better that you have at least a
superficial understanding. Folder Two therefore includes a side book on
Chemistry for those who are new to the subject. However, no one expects you to
become highly informed on chemical structures. Access to the facts and to an
explanation is what is important. This side-book will free you, as a future
practitioner, from the need to manipulate the nutrients without understanding
them as many others try to do.
* Elements, compounds and molecules
* Valency
* Ions, acids and salts
* Combining proportions and moles
* Carbon compounds and functional groups
* Oxidation and reduction
* Calculating the vitamin or mineral content of supplements
FOLDER 3
THE BULK NUTRIENTS – PROTEIN, CARBOHYDRATE, LIPIDS AND ENERGY
These nutrients provide both the fuel and the building materials for the body.
Orthodox nutrition teaches these topics very thoroughly. As to the structures
of the compounds, we teach the same things they do.
However, all three main classes of bulk nutrients have their distinctive
“wrinkles” when examined from an alternative viewpoint.
With the proteins this has to do with avoiding excesses and, to some degree
eschewing animal sources for naturopathic and other reasons.
With the carbohydrates it involves recognizing at a sensitive level the
long-term harm that can be done by free sugars and the crucial importance of
blood sugar maintenance and control. Orthodox treatments may claim to do these
things but there is a vast difference of emphasis and effect.
Among the lipids the “wrinkles” have to do with intricate management of the
balance among the essential fatty acids and the importance of the phospholipids
in the diet.
You will also learn about the propensity of fats to form toxins and the need to
moderate fat intake. All of these so-called alternative “wrinkles” have weighty
scientific support, which you will have explained for you.
The chemical nature of these bulk nutrients is fully presented for those who
wish it, with a “faster track” through for those who do not.
Areas covered
* Different kinds of proteins
* The amino acids in proteins
* The structure of proteins
* Proteins in foods
* The essential amino acids and protein quality
* Nitrogen balance and protein metabolism
* Proteins in therapeutic policy
* The simple sugars and sugar derivatives
* Di, tri and polysaccharides
* Transformations of carbohydrate
* Sugars and starch in diets
* Blood sugar control
* Metabolic energy
* The make-up of fats
* Different kinds of fatty acids
* Essentiality of omega 6 and omega 3
* Lipids and coronary thrombosis
* Cholesterol, Inc. blood cholesterol levels
* Fats in western diets
* Toxins from fats by chemical damage
* Lecithin and other phospholipids
* Quantifying energy – units of measurement
* Energy content of foods and fuels
* Human expenditures of energy
* Basal metabolic rate
FOLDER 4
FOODS AND FOOD CLASSES
Properties, Composition and Naturopathic Effects
The merits and disadvantages of wheat, milk and meat are carefully analysed and
exposed from the standpoint of both scientific and also naturopathic
considerations.
There will be much here to ponder, whilst the scientific evidence leaves little
to doubt. You will look rather exhaustively at the merits, nature and
composition of vegetables and fruits, not only as groups but also as sub-groups
and down to the individual plants.
You will find yourself in a position, when it comes to prescribing, to be
directive when necessary about which individual fruits and vegetables it will be
best to use.
The groups of pulses, nuts, seeds, fish, shellfish and other seafood’s, as well
as beverages, will be closely examined for their composition and suitability for
prescription in treatment diets.
Acidity and alkalinity in foods is carefully examined. This Folder is “all
about food” but it is also food for thought from beginning to end.
Areas covered
* The wheat grain and its milled fractions
* Types of bread
* Nutritional problems of wheat and wheat allergy
* Sprouted wheat and wheat grass
* Barley, oats and rye
* The composition of milks
* Milk as infant feed
* The variety of dairy products
* Nutritional and health problems associated with milk
* Milk allergy and intolerance
* Hidden milk in foods
* Vegetable mineral content and vitality
* Eliminatory effect of vegetables
* Composition of 49 different vegetables
* Potential hazards of plant foods
* Composition and nature of pulses, nuts and seeds
* The composition of different meats
* Naturopathic negatives associated with meat
* The composition of different fish types
* Fish as an omega 3 source
* Shell fish and crustacea
* Nutritional problems of tea and coffee
* The composition of fruits
* Strongly eliminative properties in fruits
* Acid and alkali-forming foods
* Using the food composition tables
FOLDER 5
MINERALS AT WORK IN NUTRITION - PART 2
Each and every member of the micro minerals group will prove a fascinating area
of study and will face you at times almost with disbelief that such minute
amounts of substance can exert such extraordinarily powerful effects upon the
way the body works and therefore upon health.
Each micro mineral displays its own particular pattern of effects arising from
either deficiency or excess. This is almost like a personal signature of the
mineral. These will be learnt now but employed later in diagnosis to help
determine the likely patterns of micro mineral imbalances in your patients.
The role of all-important magnesium is examined together with the principles of
using magnesium in therapy. This element plays a key macro mineral role and
exerts decisive control over naturopathic elimination.
Areas covered
* Iron, zinc, copper, manganese, selenium, chromium, molybdenum, iodine,
silicon, fluorine, vanadium
* For each of the microminerals where appropriate:
Body content; physiology functions; effects of deficiency or excess; toxicity;
factors promoting retention or loss; occurrence in foods; different chemical
forms; associated diseases; the use of the appropriate supplements
* Roles of magnesium in the body
* Magnesium in foods
* Effects, diseases and symptoms of magnesium deficiency
* Naturopathic expectations from magnesium therapy
FOLDER 6
THE VITAMINS AT WORK IN NUTRITION
The vitamins are mostly micro catalysts just as the micro minerals are. Sixteen
of them are the subjects of this Folder.
We first explain their known effects in the body and then go on to set out the
ways that they may be used, either for direct therapeutic effect, or in support
of other components of nutritional therapy.
As in the cases of all the other nutrients, there will be both scientific and
naturopathic evidence presented. Good reference material will be provided.
Areas covered
* For each of the vitamins and vitamin-like substances where appropriate: Body
content; precursors; physiology functions; effects of deficiency or excess;
toxicity; factors promoting retention or loss; occurrence in foods; different
chemical forms; associated diseases; the use of the appropriate supplements.
* Vitamin A; beta-carotene; Vitamins B: thiamine, riboflavin, niacin,
pyridoxine, B12, folic acid, choline, inositol; Vitamin C, Vitamins D1 and
D2; tocopherols (Vitamin E); Vitamin K.
FOLDER 7
BOWEL FLORA AND THE MAINTENANCE OF HEALTH
It is possible to manage and manipulate the bowel flora – the bacteria that
inhabit the intestines – so as to produce optimal benefits to health.
Antibiotics and certain dietary errors appear to work in the opposite direction
and encourage a flora that will generate more toxins.
This Folder deals with both scientific and naturopathic facts and technique and
explains how to harness the potential that resides here for bringing better
health or maintaining health. It is a crucially important area of nutritional
management. Every case you will treat will need the possible prescription of
bowel flora products to be reviewed.
The other part of this Folder is about the maintenance of health. We provide a
general round-up of this pre-clinical part of the course with an overview of
nutritional requirements and wise practice in the design of those diets that may
be intended to be “healthy” but not necessarily therapeutic.
It includes examination of the special needs of vulnerable groups. You can
expect, of course, to meet patients of all ages and conditions and, often
enough, you will be asked merely to provide guidance upon what type of diet will
best maintain their health.
It also reviews the production of toxin-free food and the hazards posed by the
industrialization of food. Finally, there is an approach to the use of
supplements for health maintenance and a discussion of strategies for on-going
cleansing and toxin avoidance so as to assist in maintaining good health.
Areas covered
* The naturopathic view of the benefits of bowel flora
* Effect of diet on the bowel flora
* The putrefactive bacteria
* Balancing lactose fermenters with other types
* Toxic amines
* Benefits of the acid producing species
* Negatives associated with antibiotics
* Breast feeding and the bowel bacteria
* Bowel flora products
* Overview of the British diet
* Nutrient requirements for the population
* Higher requirements for the health conscious
* Special needs of children and the elderly
* Special needs of vegetarians and vegans
* The requirements of pregnancy and lactation
* Organic growing
* Industrial food processing and food additives
* Maintenance supplements
* Maintenance cleansing
FOLDER 8
DIAGNOSIS
This Folder is divided into two parts. The first gives a detailed understanding
of the basis of diagnosis, while the second gives direct instruction in
performing diagnoses.
These two parts, taken together, comprise a major step in your induction as a
naturopathic nutritionist. The induction into technique and approach is an
essential step, but even more than that, the moulding of your thought process is
so very important.
You have to move into the particular “observer” position, mentally, from which
the diagnosis is best carried out. The first part of the Folder both provides
the “nuts and bolts” of nutritional diagnosis but it also provides the mental
positioning to enable you to carry it out with confidence and expertise.
The diagnosis requires understanding of the “constitution”, defined both
naturopathically and genetically. An optional side book covers both the miasms
and the Chinese 5 elements in respect of their bearing upon diagnosis within
nutritional therapy.
Fundamental to the practical aspect is the technique for taking case histories
and then interpreting them along combined naturopathic and scientific lines.
This logically leads onto the next stage – treatment – in a rational sequence.
This Folder contains five “demonstration” case histories.
FOLDER 9
TREATMENT
This is in many ways the crux of the whole course.
However, being released into nutritional treatments – with their full power –
without having made the most thorough preparation, would be most unwise.
Absolutely every topic that has been covered before is required in one way or
another at this point. It is here that the interpretation of the case history
becomes translated into a prescription of diet and supplements that is honed in
a sensitive way to the patient as an individual.
We outline a number of “levels” of the diagnosis that feed into the treatment
decisions. There is a “whole person” level, a “weak organ” level, a “metabolic
imbalances” level, a “nutritional deficiencies” level and, finally, the lowest
in the hierarchy, a “named diseases” level.
We also introduce here the profound concepts of intensity, direction and level
as they apply to the very basis of Nutritional Therapy prescriptions. All these
contributions must converge to provide the best overall treatment.
The focus at this point is on defining the dietary guidelines and the careful
orchestration of the essential minerals and vitamins that are to be used.
However, this is also the point at which various named treatments are
considered, including bowel cleansing procedures, bowel flora treatment and some
of the contributions towards Candida treatment.
These options are set out here and then developed more in the later Folders of
Part Two. Special approaches such as the liver cleanse are also considered here
along with amino acid therapy, antioxidant therapy and the anti-inflammatory
prescription.
We also provide guidelines on how detailed analysis of the composition of diets,
and the design of special diets based on such analysis, can contribute to
treatment. This Folder provides the “core” of all this, with various
modulations and variations being available from the subsequent Folders for “fine
tuning”.
FOLDER 10
STUDY OF CASE HISTORIES
There is nothing quite like practice where case histories are concerned. To be
able to study them with great facility and insight and then discern the routes
by which they lead towards exact treatment – that is to be your aim here. The
Folder provides the challenge of “interpreting” a number of case histories, with
help and with feedback. This is an approach that can lead you towards confidence
and competence in this task, which is at the centre of practitioners’ daily
work. Approaches and solutions are presented. This Folder gives 11 abridged
case histories and 20 fully detailed case histories for analysis by the student,
31 case histories in all. These are selected to provide a variety of different
types of treatment situation including some that are special or unusual.
FOLDER 11
ADDED OR SPECIAL NUTRIENTS AND HERBS
In covering the prescribing of supplement programmes in Folder 9, you will have
been focused primarily upon those that rank in orthodox nutrition as “essential
nutrients”, particularly minerals and vitamins.
However, Nutritional Therapy is enormously enriched by a wide range of other
biochemicals that cannot be classified as “essential”. Life does not stop
without them, yet they can be extremely helpful, especially to individuals with
compromised health.
These are more often metabolic intermediates than recognised nutrients, but they
can be extraordinarily valuable for organ-directed therapy. Many of these
involve up-to-the minute discoveries.
We teach about phytonutrients in foods (eg carotenoids, flavonoids,
proanthocyanidins, isothiocyanates, organic sulphides and curcuminoids) and
about the possibilities, when necessary, to provide them in supplement form.
Herbs are covered too in their special role of support-therapy to Nutritional
Therapy, usually in an organ-directed or system-directed role. Echinacea,
silymarin, aloe, ginkgo, bromelain and St John’s Wort are just examples of these
herbs.
We also teach the use of herbal combinations for specific purposes. This wide
choice of “extra” items is the subject of specific instruction in this Folder.
FOLDER 12
TREATING NAMED MEDICAL CONDITIONS - PART 1
Folder 9 makes it plain that, because this is a holistic discipline, the named
medical condition is generally low on the hierarchy of treatment criteria.
Although that is generally the case, the extent to which it holds good may
depend upon how advanced is the particular disease condition. At all events,
the practitioner does need a degree of disease-related training, which is
provided in this Folder and the next.
Some 180 different medical conditions or classes of conditions, mostly chronic,
are addressed. Special space is provided to cover fully selected topics that
are of key importance in an alternative medicine practice, such as obesity,
alcoholism, allergies and the menopause.
We also provide you with specific treatment guidance with the proviso that
whole-person treatments and organ-system related treatments either take priority
or are provided alongside.
Where appropriate some insights are given into the prior allopathic treatments
and environmental and social conditions that may cause or exacerbate the listed
conditions.
This provides for the patient’s circumstances and lifestyle to be adjusted in
rather specifically apt directions.
The main categories in this Folder are: circulatory, rheumatic and digestive
diseases, along with obesity, alcoholism and immunity states including
autoimmunity and allergies.
All the disease conditions addressed are closely studied from the standpoint of
orthodox pathology as well as their Nutritional Therapy treatment.
Hence Folders 12 and 13 in their own right amount to a course in the medical
science of pathology and this represents a substantial expansion over earlier
versions of the course.
These Folders will constitute invaluable reference material for use when you
have set up in practice.
FOLDER 13
TREATING NAMED MEDICAL CONDITIONS - PART 2
This Folder continues the work started in Folder 12.
Here included are diseases of the nervous system and brain, skin, reproductive
system, urinary system, endocrine system, liver/gallbladder, respiratory system,
eye, ear, mouth, nose and bone. Also included are psychological and systemic
diseases (including ME), infectious diseases and some directly nutritional
diseases. The detailed attention to pathology is maintained throughout.
During the course of Folders 10-14 inclusive, students undertake no less than 12
cases on their own, covering full data-collection, analysis and interpretation,
with prescription of diet and supplements.
Together with the 36 case histories studied in earlier Folders this gives 48
case histories studied
FOLDER 14
MONITORING TREATMENT, THE THERAPEUTIC RELATIONSHIP AND PRACTICE MANAGEMENT
Having got the treatment going, there is a need for specific instruction in the
on-going task of monitoring the patient’s condition and reacting accordingly
with adjustments to the therapy.
Patient and practitioner alike have to be aware that the first prescription is
likely to be just the start of a process. Reading the signs of change looms
large in this instruction and familiarization. Responding to them is the second
part. Here there is a need to understand the terms “intensity” and “direction”
in therapy. “Intensity” refers to the degree of healing and naturopathic
pressure being applied and “direction” refers to the aims of the particular
choice of treatment being applied.
You will learn to distinguish between situations that call only for a change of
“level” and those that call upon you to rethink and change “direction” when the
patient’s progress levels off as this may then initiate a new burst of healing
changes.
Another way to break out from the “plateau” situation is to assess the exact
nutrient composition of the whole diet – an action that is too detailed and
time-consuming to do with every patient and usually not needed.
A part of the Folder is about drugs, when and when not to encourage their use,
and how to manage the drug-dependent patient. You need to acquire at least a
passing familiarity with the main classes of prescription drugs, which are
explained in this Folder.
This Folder also provides information on Laboratory testing procedures that may
be recommended to patients.
Finally we offer subjects of crucial importance to working practitioners, namely
a study of “The Therapeutic Relationship” and “Practice Management – Running The
Practice as a Business”.
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TESTIMONIALS
Here's what students have to say about the course
GRACE KINGSWELL, NUTRITIONAL THERAPIST
UK
"I was recommended Plaskett by my own functional medicine practitioner. I knew
that if she was recommending it, it would be worthwhile. I wanted a full body
overview and not a “match the supplement to the symptom” approach, and that is
certainly what the Plaskett Dip;oma in Nutritional Medicine course delivered. I
wanted to be qualified to run my own business as a practitioner afterwards, and
it is the most complete and highest level course that the Plaskett College
offer. My knowledge of naturopathy and nutritional medicine was pretty solid
before I started due to personal experience, but I’ve really built on this now
and feel confident that I know how to help others. I’ve also learnt a lot more
of the biochemistry behind the science too. The study experience was really
good, but it’s a lot of self-motivation, and if you don’t have that then it
might be touch to finish it, as it’s completely self-driven".
BEN C ALBERTS, DIRECTOR SOUTH AFRICAN INSTITUTE OF BEHAVIOURAL NUTRITION
South Africa
The Plaskett Nutritional Therapy Diploma was one of the most rewarding
programmes of my life. Apart from the media hype around healthy living it is
only after the completion of a proper programme that one truly start to
understand the intricacy of the human body and what healthy living really is.
Within the Plaskett programme the combination of nutrition, pure science and a
naturopathic view provided me with a completely new perspective on health
management. Against a fairly orthodox background it took me some time within the
programme to understand the true principles, and once realized fundamentally
changed the way I view personal health management. Throughout the programme the
support from my tutor was phenomenal with concise and very valued feedback, and
certainly at exceptional detail. The course content was of a high standard and
must not be underestimated in both volume and complexity. For me personally, the
programme delivered immense value and I will recommend it to any of my peers and
clients.
DIANE BROUGH, NUTRITIONAL THERAPIST
Canada
When I first started thinking about taking a course in nutrition, I was living
in Botswana, in Africa. I was looking for a college that would offer me the
support and guidance that is so important for long distance learning. I’m
probably one of the college’s longest registered students because my family
moved to five different countries during my studies! I am very thankful for the
college’s patience and continued support.
Plaskett College impressed me with their personal approach to the course and the
fact that all modules were composed by Dr. Lawrence Plaskett, a medical research
biochemist and the college’s Founder and Principal.
I studied the Diploma in Nutritional Medicine because my plan was to have my own
practice. I practised at a herbal clinic as a Nutritional Therapist and
Iridologist after I completed my diploma, but then decided to study massage
therapy, so put my practice aside while at school. I recently established
Revitalife Therapeutics and offer massage therapy, manual lymphatic drainage,
nutritional therapy and iridology.
VITTORIA VIGLIETTI, NUTRITIONAL THERAPIST & FOUNDER OF NUTRIWILD
Namibia
I chose Plaskett College because I really wanted to make a difference where
natural medicine was concerned. After losing my father to Cancer, and
experiencing malpractice with all the orthodox medicine we followed, this pushed
me even more to pursue an in-depth education in nutritional medicine. I chose
Plaskett College’s, Nutritional Medicine Course, because I found this to be very
informative for anyone interested in perusing a future in the field of Natural
medicine and Nutritional Therapy.
My studies have been such a memorable journey for me. I started studying just
over 2 months, after losing my father. A very difficult time in my life. The
course I chose to do with Plaskett would take me 4 years to complete. I am in my
5th year (nearly my 6th year), doing this particular course and I have only
experienced encouragement, understanding of my situation and support from the
college to continue to complete the course in my time. I could not show more
gratitude towards them for this. I did not expect that after losing my father my
life would hit lots unforeseen hurdles, causing my study time to suffer greatly.
Yet, through all this, Plaskett College only showed me more support and
encouragement to persist with my studies.