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.