Counselling – CCAWS

Counselling.

All of our counselling services are confidential, non-judgemental and client led.

Free Counselling

Paid Counselling

Culturally Sensitive

Diverse Ethnicities

Multi-lingual

Free Counselling

Our main counselling service at CCAWS is a free service, where we provide 6 sessions of counselling free of charge, followed by a donation of £10 per session for additional sessions. We are not intended to be a long term service, and provide a maximum of 16 sessions per client. On average most people access the 6 free sessions, followed by 4 additional sessions at a cost of £40, making it 10 sessions in total.

At CCAWS we are proud to provide a free counselling service to the community. We recognise that therapy is costly and want it to be accessible and sensitive to people of all backgrounds.

We have a diverse team of counsellors, both male and female, speaking a range of community languages, including Urdu, Punjabi, Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, Bengali & Gujrati.

We also have a team of trained interpreters who have been recruited and trained by us internally to interpret in a counselling session. These include the languages Kurdish Sorani, Farsi, Somali & Polish.

If you are looking for counselling in a language that is not listed, please enquire with us, as our volunteer language team is expanding daily, and we will try our best to meet your language and cultural needs.

Please note there is a waiting list for our free service, this can be between 6-8 weeks on average.

Paid Counselling

We recognise that some people may wish to access counselling sooner and do not wish to be placed on a waiting list. We therefore also run a paid counselling service, by employing a team of sessional counsellors.

This is charged at £35 per session, slightly more affordable than most private therapists. If you’d like to access this service, please call the office to discuss.

Get In Touch

Our helpline is open from 10:00 AM – 5:00 PM, 365 days a year.

What is culturally sensitive counselling?

Counselling that is sensitive and understanding of an individual’s cultural and/or religious background.

Culturally sensitive therapy is an approach to psychotherapy that emphasises the therapist’s understanding of a client’s background and belief system as it relates to their race, gender or other important elements that make up someone’s culture and/or identity. (Psychology Today)

Multi-lingual Counsellor Insight 1

"I feel it’s very important to have cultural and religious understanding whilst working with individuals from BAME groups. The research has shown that individuals from ethnic minorities are more reluctant to seek psychological help and are more likely to underutilise the mental health services. There are several reasons for this and these are; stigma, lack of knowledge, trust in professionals, religious and cultural beliefs, language barrier, and not being able to recognise their emotions and feelings. Through my experience working with clients from BAME groups, it has been noticed that due to cultural beliefs they perceive emotions differently and struggle to recognise or identify many emotions. Having cultural understanding has helped me to build up the therapeutic relationship with my clients and to be able to guide them with their emotions."

Multi-lingual Counsellor Insight 2

"In my experience, a counsellor experience and humanity can overcome several cultural barriers. However, when English is not the client's first language, breaking the barriers to access therapy becomes more complicated. Clients with reduced capacities to express themselves in English are already struggling to find their way in their daily lifes and this adds a layer to their current mental health. Clients often feel released to hear, finally, someone who they can talk to in their mother tongue. If, in addition, that person shows empathy and acceptance; the healing process has already started. Similarly occurs with those clients when the counsellors shows sensitivity towards cultural differences. In my case, my training and experience on working with diversity helped to establish bridges with clients with very different backgrounds (including age and gender) from me."

Counselling & Trainee Placement

We provide counselling placements for trainee counsellors. We have close partnerships with the University of South Wales (USW) & Bangor University. Places are limited. We particularly welcome counsellors with language skills or experience of working in a culturally sensitive setting.

To apply please enquire by email to info@ccaws.org.uk and return a completed application.

Contact Us

All of our services are confidential, non-judgemental and client led.