A £25,000 grant has been awarded to Lincoln family counsellors to help young people whose lives have been blighted by sexual abuse or rape.
The Naomi Watkins Counselling Hub (NWCH) off Crofton Road, which has been awarded the money by the Bromhead Medical Charity, will use it to provide free counselling to more children and young people.
It is hoped that the chance from them to access professional help will allow them to fully explore their traumatic experiences and put them on the road to recovery and a brighter future.
NWCH’s co-founders Naomi Watkins and Alex Parkin said they are delighted to have been given the boost within the first six months of setting up their Community Interest Company and they are excited about making a difference to more young lives.
“We were massively thrilled to receive this grant. It will be used specifically for our Acorn Project. This means many more young people will have the opportunity to benefit from our help and hopefully start to feel better about themselves.
“We will offer these young victims a mix of pet therapy, sand tray therapy, play and counselling to help them to process their emotions, regain their confidence, feel safer and part of their community again,” said Naomi.
Lincolnshire Police recorded 738 sex child offences against young people (up to 18 years old) in the period April 2015 to March 2016 – that was a rise of 23% on the 598 recorded for 2014/2015.
Statistics also revealed 558 of the 738 offences (recorded for April 2015/March 2016) related to youngsters in the 0 to 14-years-old group. Of those, 88 out of a total of 112 were affected by “cyber-enabled” activity.
When looking at the overall statistics, around 50 crimes were perpetrated against children who were not old enough to attend primary school.
NWCH will use this grant to support children and teenagers between four and 18-years-old and will provide a minimum of 12 counselling sessions for each child/young person.
Alex Parkin added: “We were aware that there was a serious gap in free help for children and teenagers, particularly at the younger end of the scale and we knew that we were ideally placed to make a difference to those people’s lives.
“We have a team of 13 counsellors and we anticipate helping about 57 people a year.”
The Bromhead Medical Charity Secretary Steve Taylor said: “The trust was supportive of this application because this project is going to give assistance to children who have undergone traumatic experiences at a very early stage in their lives.
“Increasingly, this support is not available from the State and our Trustees felt it was very important that children, who have gone through dreadful experiences, should receive this counselling to give them the best chance to make the most of the rest of their lives.”
The NWCH also provides training for new and existing counsellors. As a not-for-profit organisation, it ploughs any “profit” from these sessions into a variety of projects to benefit the local community.
The Hub also provides support for both training and qualified counsellors, allowing them to both network and get supervision.
The Hub is having an open day on Tuesday, September 26, from 10am to 4pm.
People are encouraged to drop in and check out the facilities and talk to Naomi and her team about its wide range of services.
RECENT POSTS
I don’t think I could recommend NWCH enough! My counsellor is great, I feel understood and hopeful and never judged. Thank you!
Young person Accessing NWCH Counselling Service
My son is opening up to Wayne about all aspects of losing his Dad - happy memories and the painful truth that he won’t be coming back. Wayne has taught him to acknowledge the pain but also remember the many happy times. The counselling he has had with Wayne has been invaluable.
Mum of her young son Accessing NWCH Counselling Service
Coming in for couples counselling, we were both nervous about how the session would work having not done anything like this before.
He listened to each of us and made it feel very light-hearted and easy. We were able to share our feelings and thoughts and Ian gently guided us to explain our views to help us see each other’s views and gave us things to think about for next week.
Couple Accessing NWCH Counselling Service
Personally, I was a very sceptical individual and initially attended as a good Will gesture to my family who had encouraged me to do so……. that being said I found myself to be able to talk to (let’s be honest, a stranger) about my life and its difficulties in an open and comfortable fashion……. don’t get me wrong I’m no soft touch! But I found it genuinely comforting to be able to do so! …. it makes me ask and look for answers from myself ….. rather than someone with a title telling me what’s wrong……,
Adult Accessing NWCH Counselling Service
The match of counsellor has meant my husband looks forward to his sessions & already is feeling happier & we as a family are seeing a difference. It is detail like this that makes asking for help via the NW Counselling Hub stand out – plus the reassurance all counsellors are qualified.
We cannot recommend the NW Counselling Hub enough and thank them for all they are doing for our family.
Adult Accessing NWCH Counselling Service
“We want to support our team when ‘life happens’. We asked NWCH to be our ‘go to’ support service for counselling and emotional support to help members of our team, if they need it, get them through some difficult personal issues such as bereavement and anxiety. The team at the hub are incredibly supportive and have provided a lifeline to our team”
Lincoln Employer referring employees to NWCH Counselling Service.
“NWCH have been providing counselling services to our employees for a few years now and I can honestly say that they have made a significant difference to many of their lives.
We are a company that believes in investing in our staff, and it is great to see when that investment is so profound and has such a positive impact, especially when it comes to people’s wellbeing.
Thank you NWCH, for enabling us to offer our teams such fantastic support and help to feel better when they face challenging times.”
HR Manager at Micronclean Ltd
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