Talk-in-Herts’ new home

About the project

We are a Community Interest Company based in Hatfield and serving Welwyn/Hatfield, St Albans and surrounding areas. Our counsellors have a wide range of experience, training and skills. We want to expand and improve what we currently offer to our local community by taking on volunteers and forming partnerships with other agencies.

We believe that counselling and other therapies should be available to everyone, regardless of gender, age, ethnic origin, sexual orientation, financial status or disability. In order to facilitate this we require larger premises which we have already located and funding would help us secure the lease and furnish it. Once we have our new home, with our volunteers and using other initiatives, we plan to offer sliding scale rates, starting at £5 for those on benefits or very low income, who otherwise could not afford to pay for therapy.

Why help fund us?

Whilst continuing to offer private counselling, we also believe that disadvantaged people who find it difficult to access counselling at present, should be given the opportunity to access these services. With a shortage of such services in the area, we hope to fill that need.

All we ask is that you please give what you can afford. All funds are very gratefully received.

Our History

As small group of counsellors we set up our company in late 2011. Our experienced counsellors have diverse backgrounds, training and experience which includes – working with children and young people; families; couples; drug and alcohol abuse; domestic violence; bereavement; working online; therapeutic writing; running groups; training and mindfulness.

From 2012 to 2014 we received short-term funding from Herts County Council in order to offer counselling and other therapeutic support to families who were affected by a family member’s alcohol or drug misuse. During this time we were able to help a number of local families identify coping strategies or make positive changes to their situation.

In September 2014 we became a Community Interest Company and have since been planning how to implement a low cost counselling service, take on volunteers and offer other therapeutic interventions, such as group-work and workshops. This project is part of the result of that planning.

Throughout this time we have outsourced our services to Vista St Albans to provide counselling and mentoring in local schools.

In collaboration with Herts Youth Connexions and Westminster Drug Project, we have also produced a DVD and training workbook based on young people’s experiences of living with a parent or sibling with alcohol/drug issues.

You can get more of a flavour of who we are from our website: https://talk-in-herts-counselling.co.uk

Source: ICNW