You may be feeling down or anxious. You may have lost someone you love or are feeling uncertain about the future of a relationship. Perhaps you are trying to recover from past trauma or struggling to find a way out of a current challenging situation. Perhaps you simply feel that you aren’t living the life you want to lead?
Counselling can offer support for a range of different needs and challenges and provides a safe and confidential space for you to talk to a trained counsellor about your difficulties and concerns. You and your counsellor will work together to explore your thoughts, feelings and behaviours so you can develop a better understanding of yourself and others. Counselling can be a process of growth and self-discovery and our counsellors will support you in finding ways to make constructive changes in your life – whether that’s making effective life changes or learning helpful ways of coping with your problems.
You do not have to be in crisis or on the verge of one before choosing to seek counselling. Counselling is for everyone who feels they would benefit from a safe and confidential space to talk.
Some of the concerns we often work with are:
- Abuse
- Anxiety
- Bereavement
- Depression
- Relationships
- Stress
- Trauma
Our counselling centres provide an affordable counselling service to people in our local communities and beyond. We aim to make counselling accessible and affordable by offering a reasonable fee structure. All of our counsellors are professionally trained and their work is supported by accredited clinical supervisors.
If you do not live within proximity to one of our centres or are unable to access support for health and other reasons, telephone and video counselling will allow you to attend counselling in a space of your choosing. Whilst the remote experience will be different to the traditional counselling setting, the work is done under the same robust ethical and clinical standards.
Once you have made contact with us, you will be sent a Registration Pack. This is for you to provide your personal details and any information that is important for us to know such as medical conditions or previous experiences of mental health issues.
As soon as we receive this information back, we will invite you for a first appointment, known as an assessment session.
During the assessment, the assessor will explore your needs, expectations and reasons for seeking counselling. An assessment helps us to understand what you are having difficulties with and what support you require. It also helps us understand if we are the right service for you. An assessment session lasts between 60-90 minutes and can take place in person or via telephone or video.
If, after the assessment, you choose to continue with counselling and we feel we can offer you support, you will be allocated a counsellor for your ongoing sessions.
Ongoing counselling sessions will take place on the same day and time each week unless agreed otherwise by you and your counsellor. It is important to consider your ability to maintain an ongoing weekly commitment when seeking counselling.
In the first session, you will meet your counsellor for the first time. Your counsellor will discuss the Framework for Counselling with you including issues of confidentiality, length and timings of sessions and payment. This framework provides a secure and confidential agreement between you and your counsellor.
Whilst your counsellor will have been provided with information gathered from the assessment session, this first counselling session is for you to start building a therapeutic relationship with your counsellor and begin exploring in more depth your concerns and difficulties.
We offer weekly sessions of 50 minutes each. The type of counselling we offer is one where the relationship between the client and counsellor is central to the counselling sessions and where a deeper understanding of your concerns can be achieved. It is hoped that weekly ongoing sessions will benefit you by allowing you to begin to trust and open up to your counsellor more effortlessly.
We operate a sliding scale of fees according to your annual household income, from as little as £5 a session. This enables us to offer low costs to those with more limited income. The below table is a guide and if you are struggling with the fees please speak to one of our centre administrators.
Some sessions will have their fees subsidised with the help of funding such as grants and donations.
1 College Yard
Lower Dagnall Street
St Albans
AL3 4PA
Tavistock Yard
58 Tavistock Street
Bedford
MK40 2RD
Bishops College
Churchgate, Cheshunt
Waltham Cross
EN8 9XQ
Hilde Eccles House
70 – 72 Princess Street
Luton
LU1 5AT
Springfield House Community Centre
24 High Street
Stevenage
SG1 3EJ
Locations
