Life Changes Counselling

"Making counselling available to people who might not otherwise have access to it"

Fundraising

Here you can keep up to date with what Life Changes Counselling supporters have been doing to raise much needed funds for the exceptional organisation and we provide you with possible ways you can help.

Challenging Times

The last 18 months have been difficult for all of us. Life Changes have had to move to provide a totally on line service. We lost our premises and pretty much every aspect of our organisation had to change to match the circumstances of the pandemic.

Looking Forward

A major challenge is to find (and pay for) new premises as we move to a new blended approach of on line and face to face services. We would also like to retain our more experienced counsellors by being able to pay them for their work. This, and the running of the organisation will cost more money.

How can you help?

Below are some great stories of those who have fundraised, and some who are are about to. The simple thing to do is support them in their efforts, but more exciting would be for you to organise a fund raising event of your own. Take a look at possible activities to do this.

Amazing achievement...

The Great South Run

The October 2022 Great South Run was the furthest I have ever run, and I was nervous as to whether I’d be able to complete the run at all. In the 6 weeks running up to the event I had been suffering with a lingering cold which did not help my preparation. However, I felt good on the day and was able to run the 10 miles in 1 hour 40 minutes. I was over the moon with the result, although that later felt slightly reduced on learning an 80-year-old managed the task in 1 hour 30…putting me to shame!

Although I could hardly walk the next day, I was delighted to raise £1,120 for Life Changes Counselling - making the endeavour completely worthwhile. Our organisation is completely dependent on client donations, therefore any additional funding really helps.

I will be doing the run again next year for Life Changes (this time with the intension of a better finishing time than my 81-year-old fellow runner!)

Ed Kennedy, Trustee

Edinburgh Marathon

May 2022 - Update

Our congratulations to Emily Clark who has completed the Edinburgh marathon.

As those of you who have been following her training - things haven’t always been going to plan, with recurrent shin splints being particularly troublesome. Luckily, she started training early so was able to complete a decent preparatory schedule despite time out for recovery from time to time.

The weather on the day was perfect; sunny but cool. The marathon course leaves Edinburgh and heads for the coast and by mile 18 she was running well and enjoying the scenery. Soon after this the dreaded shin splints made an unwelcome appearance and the last 10 miles turned into a bit of a nightmare - finally hobbling back into the city and over the line in 5 and a half hours. The time, effort, pain and sheer grit that Emily put into this event is awe inspiring, as is the fact that she has raised more than £1000 for Life Changes.

We will have to see how her injuries impact her plans to complete the London marathon for us as well - but meanwhile let’s take inspiration from her and set up other fundraising events. Life Changes has a robust financial model, but this sort of initiative makes the difference between just scraping by , and being able to confidently go the extra mile for our clients. Emily’s efforts will pay for six 1 hour sessions for 12 hard up clients.

Well done Emily and thank you.

Read Emily's story

A moment of madness...

I’m a full time creative Artworker, Mum to Ellie & Harriet and wife to Gary a retired police officer. We live in a village just outside of Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire. I’m also daughter to my Mum, Janet and my late father, John who is the main reason I got into this crazy world of marathons!!!

Back in 2014, my amazing, lovely Dad passed away from Mesiotheloma. During this horrendous time, we had support from our local hospice. They were fantastic, so I wanted to do something to say a big thank you. I raised money abseiling down a water tower with my then aged 16 year old daughter but wanted to do something else and after going to support my sister-in-law the 2017 London Marathon I thought, ‘if she can do it - so can I!’

I managed to get a ballot place through the hospice and thought, ‘Yikes, what have I let myself in for !’ I followed a plan, joined a ladies running group and started my training. I didn’t even think about what weather I would be training in….rain, wind, ice, snow…not pleasant, but when you have a goal you just get on with it. Hate it at the time…love it after!

I unfortunately had rather a lot of niggles and pain in my hip and I had to pull out and defer my entry. In 2019, I got through the training with a lot of aches, pains, tears and many visits to the physio. Someone said to me, ‘the challenge is not the race, it is the training’ and my goodness he was right!

I completed it (with much help from my supporters and a physio at mile 17) in 5hr 25mins. I didn’t want to put pressure on myself by wanting to complete it within a certain time, I just concentrated on getting over that finish line, receiving my medal and being be able to give the hospice some sponsorship money. I raised £3,552.

So how come I am doing it again? A moment of madness, I’d say! While recovering and being on cloud 9 after London, I re-entered through the London ballot for April 2020, then with a couple of friends decided to enter for Edinburgh, May 2020 as well.

Due to Covid, I decided I really didn’t want to run them virtually, so I deferred them to this year. I’m pleased to say my training has begun! I am now up to 6 miles! I already have some niggles, but I’m looking after my legs and just doing it slowly. I’ve joined a new running group in my local town, which gives me the support and confidence that I can do this. My training consists of a couple of midweek short runs with the running group, this gives me company, a bit of chat and some giggles, but also keeps me at a steady pace…which is great as I do speed up when running on my own!! A couple of solo runs before work in London and then a quick faster run around my village. Then the dreaded long run at weekends which increases by a mile each week.

So why Life Changes? I really wanted to

have a chance to raise money for a smaller local charity. After visiting my Auntie & Uncle for lunch one day, Philip mentioned Life Changes and was explaining what fantastic support they are to Southampton. Even though I am not exactly local I have the connections with Philip being Chair and my daughter attends Southampton University. On a personal note, after hearing Philip speaking passionately about the charity, it’s a ‘thank you’ to him and my Auntie for being so caring and supportive towards my Dad in the last few days of his life.

Who knows if I will be successful and get 2 lots of sponsorship for LCC, or if it will only be 1 (and if I will be able to walk!) ……but I’m gonna give it a blooming good try!

And please stop me entering any more marathons!

(Posted: February 2022)

Slide title

Write your caption here

Button
Slide title

Write your caption here

Button
Slide title

Write your caption here

Button

Liz, Imelda & Joanne

Watch this space for updates on a preparation for next year. You can also still make a donation for our efforts. The South coast’s biggest running event took place on the 16th October in Portsmouth over a fast and flat 10 mile route, a 5k run and a Junior Mini Great South Run on Saturday.

Liz tell us about there experience on the day...

The three of us signed up to run (walk) the Great South Run on Saturday 16th Oct 2021 (5K). Joanne is an LCC clinical supervisor, Imelda and myself are LCC coordinators.

In not the best of conditions we finished the 5k in 1 hour 6 minutes and 48 seconds. We didn’t run we walked but we walked together. Jo and Imelda supported me (Liz) and walked at my pace, and we did it!

Though the three of us came in last we finished which was the target. This allowed us to raise £505.00 to support the great work of Life Changes Counselling does

Next year we will be back Jo says "we need to do the 10 mile Run." Imelda and myself said "yes!" She won’t let us back out.

Watch this space for updates on a preparation for next year. You can also still make a donation for our efforts.

Thank you...

(Posted: January 2022)

Shop @ Smile.Amazon.co.uk

If you shop at Amazon then you can donate to Life Changes Counselling when you buy online. Just follow the steps below:

Go to Smile.Amazon.co.uk
Go to the yellow button "Get started"
Go to Sign In using your existing Amazon account
you will then be sent a verification code to your phone
Confirm by pressing the approve button
Returning to your computer on continuing on your phone use the Search facility type in Life Changes Counselling.
Select Life Changes Counselling Bursledon
Confirm and start shopping

How to Support Life Changes

Do you or a family member work for a corporate company. Many have a charitable trust and they

donate a percentage of their money pot to charities.

Some ideas...

Cook a meal for friends and ask them to pay, substituting their Friday night takeaways for your lovely food. You could always throw in a raffle.

Cake auction or sale

Quiz nights online or face to face

If you are back at work Krispy Kreme donuts do fundraising donuts:

https://www.krispyk reme.co.uk/fundraising-doughnuts-how-it-works

Latest News

AGM 8/1/2024 at 7.00pm

19 Dec, 2023

You are invited to attend LCC’s AGM on the revised date, Monday 8th January at 1900 hrs. on Zoom. We promise to pass rapidly through the boring bits and concentrate on giving all who have a stake in the organisation the opportunity to tell us how we are getting on from your point of view. Do you have any ideas how we can improve our service to our clients and /or our trainees. Are there any opportunities for the future you can inform us of. Or would you just like to meet the people who run the organisation in the (virtual) flesh? Maybe you would like to pick our brains about where we are going in the future? Perhaps best of all, would you like to join us in helping run the organisation? Whatever your position or point of view , we would certainly like to see you so drop Liz Rose an e mail at coordinator@lifechangescounselling.org.uk and we will send you a Zoom link for the meeting. In the meantime, may I wish you all the best for the festive season and a happy 2024. Philip Meakins Chairman

22/23 Chairman's Report

by PH947486 • 18 Dec, 2023

22/23 Chairman's Report

Good News!

10 Nov, 2023

LCC is pleased to announce that our Paid Counsellor Project (HiWCF) has successfully entered its second year on target. We currently have 6 of our alumni (counsellors who have worked with us and subsequently qualified) working on this project and by the end of next year, this is planned to be up to 8. Not only does this extra workforce help us keep our times from referral to treatment nicely low, the additional expertise and experience they represent is helping our ambition to constantly improve the service we offer to our clients. On a separate issue, our venture into providing a service to the NHS has now also been running for a year. The PCN (GP consortium) for whom we provide the service is very pleased with it and has extended the contract for another year. Well done to all involved for making such a success of this venture.

Annual Report 21/22 and Financial Update Nov 2023

by PH947486 • 10 Nov, 2023

Annual Report 21/22 and Financial Update Nov 2023

Life Changes Counselling has provided low-cost counselling in the Southampton area for 17 years. We

November 2022 Statement and Funding

28 Nov, 2022

Life Changes Counselling has provided low-cost counselling in the Southampton area for 17 years. We charge according to ability to pay and until recently have been able to run the organisation with clients paying between £0 and £30. Our target for seeing clients is 6 weeks from referral (currently significantly less than this). Since the summer the number of clients unable to pay anything at all has overwhelmed our business model and we have begun to run through our reserves in an unsustainable way. In August the trustees, with deep misgivings, decided that in order to balance the books we would temporarily stop taking new clients unless they were able to pay £35 a session, reducing it to a minimum of £15 if there was significant financial stress. Grant applications were made to fund those who were unable to afford these revised fees. To put these fees into perspective private counselling costs £50 and upwards, whilst NHS and large charities cost out at £100 to £150 a session.

Great South Run - Oct 2022

07 Nov, 2022

Ed's amazing achievement in the Great South Run - October 2022

AGM 27/11/2022

10 Oct, 2022

The Trustees of Life Changes Counselling invite you to the Annual General Meeting to review the year April 2021-March 2022 and onwards. It will now take place on Sunday 27th November @ 7.00pm on Zoom After the formal business of the meeting, we would like to turn this into your opportunity to contribute your ideas as to how we can continue to improve our organisation. To allow us to plan, please RSVP to: coordinator@lifechangescounselling.org.uk

Affordable Counselling

26 Aug, 2022

Our routine financial audit over the last 3 months has revealed that the average donation being received has reduced significantly below that required to continue to fund the work of the Charity. We will continue to see existing counselling clients however the trustees have decided in order to enable the charity to maintain its counselling offering to the community, for the next 3 months we will set a minimum of £20 - £30 per session for new clients who are in financial stress and set a revised payment of £30 - £35 per session for those who are not. The trustees are acutely aware (and very uncomfortable) that there will be some clients who will be financially impacted by this decision and consequently be excluded from our service; the coming winter may well exacerbate this further. As a result, we are currently actively in the process of applying for grants in order to revert to our Charities mission of offering affordable counselling to everyone in the community. We are also looking at ways to increase throughput and thus achieve economies of scale. In the medium term we have plans for new income streams which will also help us return to a consistent and sustainable financial level offering counselling to all. We would like to emphasise this is not a decision we have taken lightly. To put this into context similar services provided by the NHS are charged to the taxpayer at up to 10 times this amount - and may have waiting times of a year or more. We plan to be back to normal in a far smaller time scale.

An exciting change for LCC

06 Jun, 2022

Life Changes Counselling has for 17 years provided counselling for the Southampton area using voluntary counsellors in their final year of training. On qualifying many of our alumni leave us to set up their own practice or for paid employment. Increasing demand, complexity of presentation and a knock-on effect of increased wait times has meant that we have for some time been looking at ways of expanding our work to meet these challenges by paying our alumni. That way we hope to retain our more experienced counsellors for longer and help their transition to the world of paid employment - a win win situation. Best of all, our clients will benefit from a more experienced and stable work force. Expansion of a predominantly voluntary organisation is potentially a risky undertaking, risking overextending a limited budget and that other, equally important budget - the goodwill and energy of those that work within the organisation. We are thus thrilled to announce a successful bid for a 3-year development grant from the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Community Foundation which will enable us to make this transition to paying our alumni in a planned, financially protected way without breeching either. The plan is to introduce 2 paid counsellors every 6 months until we reach a maximum of 8. In this way these experienced folk will not only be a resource to help with more complex presentations but should help with our drive to get our waiting times back down below 6 weeks.

New Base/Counselling Rooms

06 Jun, 2022

Life Changes has a new base in Southampton. One of the dilemma’s that we have struggled with here at Life Changes is when and how to return to face-to-face counselling. The pandemic has yo-yo’d back and forth, and various offers of “free” accommodation have eventually come to naught. Entering into a commitment for rented rooms before the pandemic “allowed’ us to utilise them would add an unacceptable financial burden on our ultra-low-cost charity - but we have finally taken the plunge and rented three rooms in Carlton Crescent in the very centre of Southampton. Let’s hope the pandemic has indeed reached the stage where this investment is justified. This does not mean that we won’t continue to offer online counselling. The ability to talk and see each other from the comfort or security of our own dwelling, despite being many miles apart, has been a revelation, and for many reasons there will always be people who would prefer to access their counselling in this way. The choice will remain with our clients, but for those who would prefer to work across the room with their counsellor, we hope these rooms will provide a pleasant environment which will help the process along.

"The way she seemed to get me, understand me and then help me see. I’d just like to say thank you. It’s a great service you provide."
"Being able to manage my anger. The counsellor was brilliant at understanding and helping me move on."
"Your service has really made a difference, I feel so much better. I would recommend Life Changes to anyone suffering depression as it really works".
"Being able to talk about things (past experiences). I felt safe to talk about things that have been upsetting me for years. "
"My counselling is a stepping stone to a longer term recovery, and it was nice to NOT be set endless paper exercises after each session. I would like to thank my counsellor and all the staff, words are not able to express how valuable and helpful these sessions have been."
"Being listened to, challenged on core beliefs. Thank you so much for your help, I’m extremely grateful. "
"Understanding how my thoughts and feelings impacted my life and developing coping strategies. My counsellor added some additional sessions to help with my return to work. I would thoroughly recommend Life Changes to anyone going through a difficult time. "
Hello! I wanted to say thank you for everything LCC did for me. I am doing so much better now and I attribute it to you, I am in an undergraduate course and I’m doing well so far and I’m hoping to go on to do a masters here. I’m still on the autism wait list but the uni is aware and has good resources. I never thought I'd be able to do this, what you are doing is very impactful and I’m not sure where I would be right now if I hadn’t had our sessions - Thank you again. Kind regards, P

Excellence

We take pride in sharing the experience we’ve acquired.

Quality Guaranteed

The interests of our clients are at the forefront in everything we do.

High Expectations

Strive for quality, that's our motto, and our mission

Life Changes Counselling is a Registered Charity offering

short-term, affordable, one-to-one counselling to meet needs that would not otherwise be met in the communities in which we operate.

Contact Info

Southampton

07444 001845

Find us on the

Counselling Directory

Registered Charity no: 1114553. Company limited by guarantee no: 05750613.
Organisational member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy no: 118563
Privacy Policy

Call Us : 07444 001845

Life Changes Counselling

"Making counselling available to people who might not otherwise have access to it"

Fundraising

Here you can keep up to date with what Life Changes Counselling supporters have been doing to raise much needed funds for the exceptional organisation and we provide you with possible ways you can help.

Challenging Times

Looking Forward

How can you help?

Amazing achievement...

The Great South Run

Edinburgh Marathon

May 2022 - Update

Read Emily's story

A moment of madness...

And please stop me entering any more marathons!

Slide title

Slide title

Slide title

Liz, Imelda & Joanne

Thank you...

Shop @ Smile.Amazon.co.uk

How to Support Life Changes

Some ideas...

Latest News

"The way she seemed to get me, understand me and then help me see. I’d just like to say thank you. It’s a great service you provide."

"Being able to manage my anger. The counsellor was brilliant at understanding and helping me move on."

"Your service has really made a difference, I feel so much better. I would recommend Life Changes to anyone suffering depression as it really works".

"Being able to talk about things (past experiences). I felt safe to talk about things that have been upsetting me for years. "

"My counselling is a stepping stone to a longer term recovery, and it was nice to NOT be set endless paper exercises after each session. I would like to thank my counsellor and all the staff, words are not able to express how valuable and helpful these sessions have been."

"Being listened to, challenged on core beliefs. Thank you so much for your help, I’m extremely grateful. "

"Understanding how my thoughts and feelings impacted my life and developing coping strategies. My counsellor added some additional sessions to help with my return to work. I would thoroughly recommend Life Changes to anyone going through a difficult time. "

Excellence

Quality Guaranteed

High Expectations