The counselling foundation (A guide)
In this brief blog, we will be talking about the counselling foundation, the things that are addressed by the counselling foundation, the benefits of being a member of the counselling foundation, and more information about the counselling foundation.
What is the counselling foundation?
The counselling foundation is a charity that is serving people who have mental health concerns and giving training to people who want to be in the counselling service.
You can get affordable counselling services once you get in this kind of foundation.
You can use this kind of foundation at your advantage to help you relieve yourself from mental health concerns.
This kind of foundation is concentrated in several places to know if you can get some mental health services from this foundation.
The following are the objectives of this kind of foundation based on its mission:
- ease of suffering from mental or emotional complications by the provision of therapeutic counselling
- education and training of persons in the practice of therapeutic counselling to help increase the professionals who will be helping people get eased from mental health complications
- the promotion of better mental health and psychological well being in people by using the services of this foundation
This kind of foundation is the largest counselling centre that is concentrated outside of London in St Albans, Luton, Stevenage, Broxbourne and Bedford.
This kind of foundation has 150 staff members and counsellors providing over 30,000 counselling sessions a year in order to improve the wellbeing of the communities.
This kind of foundation has professionals that are working to minimize the prejudice surrounding mental health that might have worsened the mental illness.
The professionals in this kind of foundation have different clinical experiences which you can get access even if you have a mental illness that might not be easily treated in public hospitals.
Your symptoms will be managed thoroughly through proper care by the professionals in this kind of foundation.
You can also get online help via Kooth, which provides online mental health services.
And if you’ve faced issues regarding confidentiality in the past, University of Manchester Counseling is the best as it promises full confidentiality and privacy of the patient with effective treatment.
Kinds of counselling services in the counselling foundation
The following are the counselling services in this kind of foundation
Online counselling and phone counselling
This foundation has been adjusting to the recent rules during the pandemic.
This will help people to get the psychological support they need when they are going through something in this struggling time.
You should know that this foundation is here to listen to your troubles in this pandemic.
This is also why the online counselling in this foundation is getting widely used.
You can get this counselling service by getting in touch with its centres at Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire.
You can also email them if you are not in one of these areas which you can get in touch at foundation@counsellingfoundation.org.
In this case, you will be able to receive the advantages of counselling in your own home.
You will also be given the same confidential and supportive service from the counselling service to help you feel psychologically supported in every way.
This counselling service can help you with the following concerns such as:
- Abuse
- Addiction
- Anger
- Anxiety and stress in affected people
- Bereavement and loss in affected people
- Carer responsibilities
- Depression
- Divorce
- Eating disorders
- Health issues
- Major life changes in people’s lives
- OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder)
- Phobias and fears in affected people
- Redundancy and work concerns
- Relationship difficulties
- Sexuality
- Trauma
- Violence
- Worry
Bereavement counselling
You can talk to this foundation if you have any more questions about this counselling service.
You can try the email addresses below and some might take a long time for you to receive an answer.
The foundation thanks you for your tolerance during this time.
- Bedford@counsellingfoundation.org
- Broxbourne@counsellingfoundation.org
- Luton@counsellingfoundation.org
- StAlbans@counsellingfoundation.org
- Stevenage@counsellingfoundation.org
You might know that bereavement is a common time that we might face when we lose someone we love.
Although most of us are not exactly prepared when this time comes.
Death is a universal occurrence but our grief process is quite individualized.
This means that we have our own way of feeling grief in our lives and some have it worse than others.
This process is a natural response that we have to go through in our bereavement periods.
This is why there is this counselling service in this foundation to help you release your grief by letting someone listen to you.
This counselling service is crucial since you have the time of talking about you.
This counselling service will help you feel that you should accept this time and let you have the time to talk about your grief.
This counselling service is only available to people who are over the age of 18 who are going through the grieving process.
You can be given a confidential service if it means it will get you to release all your pent up emotions from the loss.
You can have a confidential counselling session by getting in touch with a counsellor by calling 01727 868585.
Assessments and counselling sessions with the counsellor are all self-funded in the foundation.
This counselling service is special since this is part of the charity work of this foundation where the client can get 30 counselling sessions if they can’t pay the minimum fee of £25 per session.
There is also extra financial support when the client is over 60 years.
This counselling service will help you to regulate your reactions to the grieving process that might be overwhelming for you if you are left alone in this process.
There typical reactions to this period in adults which are the following:
Emotional
• Depression, sadness, sorrow, despair in affected adults
• ease where that suffering has ended or the role of carer has ended in the professional
• Low self-esteem and feelings of insecurity, failure, incompetence, helplessness
Behavioural
• Fatigue like apathy and poor concentration
• Changes to patterns of life such as sleeping, eating, libido in some people
• Preventing or finding situations that may arouse grief
Cognitive
• leaning or pining for deceased, pre-occupation, hallucinations, an idealisation that revolves around grief
• Hopelessness which means loss of objective loss of hope for the future
• Anxiety which means having complications in making decisions, fear for one’s health, fear for the future
Social
• Relationship complications where is the feeling of being misunderstood and unsupported
• Feeling lonely
• Managing various grief reactions with family and social network in this process
Physiological
• Loss of appetite and weight change in grieving individuals
• Physical complaints such as tension, muscular pains, indigestion, shortness of breath, a lump in the throat, palpitations, panic attacks where some of these symptoms might appear in some grieving people
• enhanced use of antidepressants and other medications such as alcohol and tobacco
Free NHS counselling
This counselling service is also available as a webcam service so that clients can talk to therapists in the comfort of their homes.
You can do this by contacting the counsellor in this counselling foundation to get you this counselling service.
You can have the face-to-face counselling in this foundation once the pandemic is over.
You can get your general practitioner to get you to a counsellor in this foundation for free.
Your general practitioner will tell you what counselling service is accessible for you.
The professionals in this counselling service are highly qualified in the counselling service they will be providing for you.
Hertfordshire
When you are at the age of 16 and above, you can get through counselling services by going to this service called Any Qualified Provider (AQP) or in most Hertfordshire areas, which gives you up to 8 sessions of 50 minutes with a highly experienced and licensed counsellor.
This foundation is accredited with this service and highly qualified in giving high-quality services.
This service is very wide-ranging in different centres in the places of St Albans, Stevenage and Broxbourne and practices of general practitioners and other locations in Welwyn Garden City, Ware, Hatfield, Borehamwood and Radlett.
You can have these counselling appointments on Saturdays and some holidays.
This counselling foundation will be asking you on where you want to be seen before going through the counselling sessions.
You can only get this service once you have been referred by your general practitioner.
When your general practitioner agrees that counselling services will be good for you, this is the right time to ask him or her to refer you.
Bedfordshire (except Luton) in this foundation
This foundation has a partnership in the counselling service with East London Foundation Trust (ELFT) and the Bedford Wellbeing Service (BWS) to give counselling for patients registered with a North or Central Bedfordshire-based general practitioner.
The referrals will have to go through the BWS to assess if you really need counselling.
You can also ask your general practitioner to help you apply online for this assessment which is on this website: https://bedfordshirewellbeingservice.nhs.uk/get-started/.
When you have sent your referral, you may receive your counselling sessions in the location of Luton or Bedford Centres or at one of the other alternative sites spread out throughout the wider Beds area such as Bedford, Newport Pagnall, Milton Keynes, Luton, Dunstable, Ampthill, Biggleswade, Shefford, and Letchworth.
This foundation can’t warrant you a specific day that the counselling session will occur but the location will be the preferred site for you.
Counselling for crime victims
This foundation has also been working with Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Bedfordshire to provide victims of crime in Bedfordshire affordable emotional support through confidential counselling and trauma-based therapy.
A grant has even been awarded to this counselling foundation to help victims of crime to get the support they need in the course of having experienced a traumatic event which is crime in this case.
This foundation is helpful towards who have faced the following:
- victims of chronic crimes, constantly targeted victims, and sensitive or intimidated victims
- family members who have been immediately affected
- support services for victims of sexual violence and domestic violence whether recent or a past criminal offence
This counselling is available to everyone even if he or she has the following:
- Disregarding the residence status, nationality or citizenship of the client
- whether or not a crime has been reported to the police in the client’s circumstance
- disregarding when the crime occurred in the client’s circumstance
This foundation takes referrals from the following:
- Individuals or self-referral
- Health professionals
- PCC partners and Bedfordshire Signpost services that are partners to this foundation
This counselling service provides the following:
- Confidential counselling sessions which can last up to 6 sessions for these clients
This counselling service can give a safe and confidential for you talk about your present circumstances and how you are dealing with them.
You can also prolong your sessions in this counselling service if you are assessed to need them.
You can also be given Eye Movement and Desensitization Therapy (EMDR) which can help get through your trauma from being a victim of a crime.
This therapy can help you distract yourself from the traumatic event and help you be able to calm down when you are reminded by some things in your environment that might remind you of your trauma.
You can get in touch with this counselling service by calling this foundation on 01582 732450.
You can also email your needs for this counselling service by sending a message at luton@counsellingfoundation.org.
You can also finish the application form to help you get this counselling service for you on luton@counsellingfoundation.org.
Couples counselling
This counselling service is available for troubled parents as a result of this foundation working with Families First.
Children who are living in families where there is always conflict are potentially vulnerable to behaviours that might harm others or themselves.
Hertfordshire County Council has authorized this foundation to give free counselling service of this kind to families who are having parents who are troubled with their relationship.
Families will be working with support workers in the midst of this counselling service.
Partners can have these counselling sessions in 8 sessions in either St Albans, Harpenden, Welwyn, Stevenage and Hatfield.
This counselling service is only accessible to parents who have taken services in the Families First service.
This counselling service will have the following:
- Provides parents the space and organisation to work with the concerns that are impacting them and their children
- Help clarify the problem areas in their own conditions and help the couple choose what steps they want to take next
- Concentrate on how the parents can enhance structure in family life, increase communication, minimizing anxiety in themselves and family members and conflict resolution that will be taught during counselling
- Both parents are required to participate and they will be able to avail 6 to 8 counselling sessions.
This foundation also has useful guidelines that parents should follow if they are in a troubled area in the relationship:
- Relationships are all about opening up to each other but it’s not just what you say to each other but how you each comprehend what’s being said.
- Share to your partner the way that you are feeling is crucial but can trigger friction if they feel that you are placing blame on them in the present situation
- One method to prevent this is by saying how you are feeling using ‘I’ instead of ‘you’. A certain instance of this situation is to substitute (You just don’t understand me) with (I feel I’m not being understood and it’s making me upset)
Side Note: I have tried and tested various products and services to help with my anxiety and depression. See my top recommendations here, as well as a full list of all products and services our team has tested for various mental health conditions and general wellness.
Conclusion
In this brief blog, we have talked about the counselling foundation, the things that are addressed by the counselling foundation, the benefits of being a member of the counselling foundation, and more information about the counselling foundation.
If you have any questions about the counselling foundation, please let us know and the team will gladly answer your questions.
What we recommend for curbing Anxiety
Below are some of the services and products we recommend for anxiety
Online Therapy
- Online therapy is another thing we should all try. We highly recommend Online therapy with a provider who not only provides therapy but a complete mental health toolbox to help your wellness.
Anxiety Weighted Blankets
- Anxiety Weighted Blankets are by far the number 1 thing every person who suffers from anxiety should at least try. Anxiety Blankets may improve your sleep, allow you to fall asleep faster and you can even carry them around when chilling at home.
Light Therapy
- Amber light therapy from Amber lights could increase the melatonin production in your body and help you sleep better at night. An Amber light lamp helps reduce the amount of time it takes you to fall asleep and increases overall sleep quality.
FAQs: the counselling foundation
What do family counsellors look for?
Family counsellors look for basic competencies in the counselling practice, professional credentials needed in these kinds of mental health professionals, trust and respect in the counselling relationship, financial flexibility in the counselling practice, and therapeutic communication in the counselling relationship.
When should you seek family counselling?
You should seek family counselling when you have conflicts between family members, mental illness in one of the family members, substance abuse or addiction, financial complications, complications between siblings, complications in school, and behavioural problems in children.
Is family counselling a good idea?
Yes, family counselling is a good idea.
This kind of counselling is a good idea when family members are facing complications in life such as addiction, medical issue or a mental health disorder.
You need to make sure that you and your family members will participate in this kind of counselling.
Can you see two therapists at once?
Yes, you can see two therapists at once.
This can occur depending on your current circumstance that might warrant you to have these therapy sessions that you might need.
For instance, you might need to get individual therapy and relationship therapy that might be helpful for you to deal with mental illness.
Can a therapist see two members in the family?
No, a therapist can’t see two members in the family since this may bring mistrust in the counselling relationship.
You can only do this kind of situation when you are going through couples counselling will allow both partners to attend this kind of counselling.
Citations
The Counselling Foundation. About Us.
The Counselling Foundation. Bereavement Support.
The Counselling Foundation. Free counselling for crime victims in Bedfordshire.
The Counselling Foundation. FREE Couples Counselling for parents.
The Counselling Foundation. FREE NHS Counselling.
The Counselling Foundation. Online Counselling.