"Improving Access to Counselling Services"
Life Changes Counselling
Life Changes is an independent community counselling service situated in central Southampton which is available to all individuals over 18. The counselling provided offers the opportunity to reflect on life and understand the issues troubling you. We offer time and space to explore personal change in a private, safe, non-judgemental and respectful environment.
Historically all Life Changes Trustees and Counsellors have been volunteers who have given their time free of charge. Our counsellors come to us in their final year of training. Since 2022 the Trustees have initiated a project whereby once our trainees have qualified, we pay them for their work and so rather than go off and seek paid employment elsewhere, they stay with us and the charity retains their expertise for our more difficult cases and give our counsellors a helping hand at the beginning of their careers. See “Plans for the future.“
Life Changes Counselling adopts an 'Integrative' approach to counselling. We support our counsellors in practising the approach which they feel is most appropriate. Clients refer themselves to Life Changes Counselling – they may be recommended to do so by GPs, Social Workers etc, but make the contact themselves by phone or email.
We encourage our clients to bring to counselling whatever issues they wish. We are not judgemental and we do not give advice or attempt to provide a "cure". We respect our clients' ability to develop an understanding of their own issues. Most of all we provide 'active listening', which allow clients to feel they are being truly heard, often for the first time, which can be an intensely therapeutic experience.
Life Changes Counselling also works with a number of universities and colleges to provide supervised training placements to experienced counselling students, typically in the final stage of a degree or diploma. All counsellors are interviewed and assessed as fully competent to offer one-to-one counselling. They are members of the BACP (The British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy) and carry personal professional indemnity insurance in addition to Life Changes own cover. Every counsellor receives supervision to at least the standard laid down by the BACP. In addition, Life Changes Counselling offers specialist training to its own counsellors and those of other counselling services.
Many of the counsellors have specific training to offer counselling to those who have experienced domestic violence. In this Life Changes Counselling has the support of the Hampshire Constabulary and the SCC Independent Domestic Violence Advisors.
Life Changes Counselling is an organisational member of the British Association of Counselling & Psychotherapy and supports and adheres to the BACP Ethical Framework for Counselling Professions.
All clients will be asked to make a weekly payment in advance towards the cost of their counselling. This amount will be discussed and agreed at the start of counselling and will take into account the ability to pay.
If you have any queries about Life Changes Counselling visit our Counselling section or thereafter please
contact us.
Plans For The Future
Over the last 4 years LCC moved from being a totally volunteer organisation to one which paid our best alumni once they qualified (the paid counsellor project - PCP) and then provided a commercial project (the GP practice counselling project) for them to move onto. This met our ambition to not only provide low-cost counselling, but to give our alumni support and a helping hand once they had qualified. Lastly, the small surplus made from the GP counselling project was able to fund more low-cost counselling, our core work.
Sadly, the PCP grant was not renewed, and the funding for the GP service ran out, despite rave reviews from the GP’s and their patients. In retrospect the mistake we made was that we concentrated on running a superb service but neglected the marketing that is essential from day one to ensure other contracts are generated because of the natural flux in commercial work.
Thus, we are now back to a 100% volunteer workforce. 2 other local counselling services have had to close in this time frame. Our response has been to adapt our business plan so that we can provide a core service (as now) and survive even in the absence of grants and fundraising. Any monies obtained will then go 100% into lowering our already low costs to the client and help to further achieve our stated aim of serving those who would not normally be able to afford counselling.
We still seek to set up commercial projects, especially CARE, our version of an EAP service, and perhaps another GP counselling project, but there is no doubt that the marketing required to get these services off the ground will challenge our trustee board who beaver away pro bono. With this in mind we would like to move to a more conventional situation with a paid project manager and the trustees becoming less hands on and taking more of an advisory role. This will require a major grant to get going, but learning from our previous experience the role could become self-supporting after a few years with a successful move into further commercial projects aided by an immediate emphasis on marketing our services.
Meanwhile we have taken on a Southampton university intern who will help us set up the marketing required , do some of the leg work in data collection to further increase our core service efficiency and quality , and help us learn more about designing the role of a project manager ready for the time when we are eventually successful in obtaining a grant for this move into a more managerially professional service.
