A YORK mental health charity which features counselling to women of all ages suffering from melancholy, nervousness, bereavement and domestic abuse claims the selection of periods it has offered in the past 12 months extra than doubled simply because of the pandemic.
York Women’s Counselling Support provided more than 1,000 counselling sessions in the very last 12 months. “That is a lot more than double the quantity in 2020 due to the mental well being effect of the pandemic,” said functions manager Charlotte Walton.
None of that would have been achievable devoid of the contribution of the charity’s hundreds of volunteer counsellors, Charlotte said.
To mark the conclusion of Volunteers Week right now, the charity is highlighting the contribution created by its volunteers. The charity works with gals for up to 20 months, delivering what Charlotte phone calls ‘compassionate and bespoke’ talking remedy. And the contribution of volunteers is crucial, she mentioned.
“We have 20 volunteer therapists, 6 trustees and a number of folks with specific skills these kinds of as IT, finance and authorized tips,” she said. “Together they are an unbelievable, devoted crew. We couldn’t do our perform without having them.”
Volunteer therapist Chloe thinks that all females need to be equipped to obtain experienced aid and that finance should not be a barrier.
“We give a array of therapies which suggests we can match just about every customer to a suited therapist,” she claimed. “I’m a imaginative therapist, particularly dramatherapy, which suggests I do the job with objects, new music, seem, visualisation and breathing to help shoppers really feel safe and sound to check out their trauma.
“Places like York Women’s Counselling are everyday living-modifying, and it is so critical that superior top quality, extended-term remedy is offered to absolutely everyone, and not just to individuals who can afford to pay out.”
For counselling volunteer Elizabeth, it is all about providing again.
“I like presenting my specialist abilities to a little charity like York Women’s,” she mentioned. “I can see 1st-hand the variation I am making and experience privileged to be portion of an organisation that is performing these types of awesome do the job.”
York Women’s Counselling Services was started in 2000 by Betty Harrison who, together with other concerned gals, recognised the need to have for a free of charge or small-price tag professional counselling support for females in York.
It has furnished extra than 6,500 hours of cost-free or low-value counselling to women enduring psychological wellness challenges thanks to earlier or modern trauma for the duration of the past 22 a long time
The charity has robe over the last 22 a long time, and now operates from the Priory Street Centre. But it continues to be accurate to its primary values, Charlotte claims – with about fifty percent of all customers donating only a small sum (or nothing at all), and counsellors supplying their time as volunteers.
Trustee Susie Braithwaite suggests Volunteers 7 days is a fantastic possibility to recognise how instrumental volunteers have been in shaping York Women’s Counselling Services.
“It’s great to search back again above our 22 12 months background and see that, in terms of our values and provider, very minimal has altered. We just do it on a significantly even bigger scale!” she explained.
l Donate at yorkwomenscounselling.org/donate