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Counselling & Therapy

Safeline has a large team of counsellors and therapists who work with adults and children aged five upwards.  We offer counselling sessions free of charge and do not put a limit on the number of sessions that you have.  If you have questions about our counselling service then please contact us.

Counselling and how can it help you

If you have experienced rape or sexual abuse at any time in your life or if this has happened to someone close to you, it may feel very difficult to talk about it to the people you see every day.  This may be because your reactions are overwhelming or confusing or because you want to protect others.  Coming to counselling  gives you a private and confidential space where you can talk to someone you can trust about your reactions, your thoughts, your feelings and your experiences.

After counselling many clients report an improvement in their health and wellbeing and feel more in control of their lives.  Clients say that they feel hope for the future, discover an ability to move on from what happened or are able to become the person that they would like to be.

Having counselling at Safeline

If you think you would benefit from counselling at Safeline then you can self-refer to us by contacting the Safeline office on 01926 402498, email office@safeline.org.uk or fill in a self-referral form.  Our main office is in Warwick and we see clients at centres across Warwickshire and Coventry including Nuneaton, Leamington Spa, Kenilworth and Stratford-on-Avon. We work with adults and children aged five upwards and clients come from all backgrounds, races, classes and cultures.  They have different gender and sexual identities, religion or belief systems, disabilities and life experiences.

We may be able to offer you counselling by telephone or online if you live in England or Wales, are aged 18 or over, and are not able to travel to one of our centres.

Different counselling and therapeutic approaches

When you come to Safeline for counselling, one of our Assessments Managers will meet with you to talk about your goals and expectations for counselling and discuss the type of counselling approach that is right for you.  We can offer:

One-to-one therapies

We have a large team of counsellors and are able to offer a range of different counselling approaches.  Many of our counsellors are person-centred and give you space to explore your thoughts and feelings. Others are cognitive behavioural therapists and take a more structured approach. Some therapists work creatively with toys, writing and drawing. We also have several qualified art therapists who use art-making alongside talking.

Sessions for families

Some of our counsellors will invite you to work with another member of your family, for example a parent may want to have sessions alongside a child who has been abused.

Other services

Our assessment manager may also tell you about the other services at Safeline, such as ISVA (Independent Sexual Violent Advisors), or our Support groups.  It is your decision to use as many or as few of the Safeline services as you like.

Our counsellors

Our counsellors and therapists are all fully qualified or in the last year of their professional training.  We make sure they work to high professional standards set out by Safeline and to the codes of ethics set out by their professional bodies, such the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) or the Health and Care Professions Council (HCPC).

All counsellors who join our team complete our specialist training course in working with survivors of rape and sexual abuse.  We make sure counsellors keep their skills and knowledge up-to-date by running additional professional development sessions at least four times a year on topics such as eating disorders, self-harm, and other issues that affect survivors of sexual abuse. If you are a counsellor, you may like to find out more about joining our team.

Telephone and online counselling

We offer telephone counselling and online counselling via video (similar to Skype), instant messaging or email through a secure encrypted platform called VSee.

If you decide to have online counselling with us we will send you all the information you need to get started and our telephone and online team can talk you through the set up process. You will need:

* To have a private and confidential space for your sessions

* To be a confident computer user

* To have good reading and typing skills (for using email or instant message counselling)

* Internet access on a computer that you can use privately for the duration of your session

* A headset (if you are having voice or video sessions)

* A webcam (if you are having video sessions)

Confidentiality & Data Protection

All the information you give us will be kept confidential within our organisation unless:

* You give us permission to share information

* The information is requested by a court of law

* There is serious risk of harm to another person, for example, a serious crime being committed such as terrorism, fraud, or a child protection concern.

* There is serious risk of harm to yourself, for example, a plan to take your own life.

To ensure good practice, all our counsellors have regular management and clinical supervision where they discuss their counselling work on an anonymous basis. Safeline keep counselling notes of each counselling session, these are kept securely for a minimum of 7 years and these notes are kept separately from personally identifying information.

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