See inside Worthing Counselling Centre's new premises and hear about the work it is doing as a small charity

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Transcript

00:00Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, welcome to South Street Touring for the official unveiling

00:11of our fantastic new premises for the Worthing Counselling Centre, which is soon to be unveiled

00:17by the lovely, she was her name, Amy!

00:19So welcome, welcome to the Worthing Counselling Centre, and as our shop line says, come and

00:29find a way forward with us.

00:35For our counsellors to do supervision, to do training, to chill, to talk to each other.

00:42Come on in, come on in.

00:48Worthing Counselling Centre started in 1983, and it was at Offington Church, and it was

00:55part of a pastoral offer with Offington Church, and we were with them for many, many years

01:01until Covid hit, and like many places, we weren't able to use that anymore.

01:06So we were in a position of what are we going to do, where are we going to be, and luckily

01:12we had a trustee from South Downs Leisure who went, I'm going to go and have a chat

01:17to the people over there, and they offered us, South Downs Leisure offered us two offices

01:22in the most beautiful grounds at Field Place.

01:25So we've been there ever since, and we've had an absolutely brilliant time, and I think

01:29we've forged some really, really positive relationships with South Downs Leisure from

01:33that, so thanks to you guys that are here today.

01:36And we've also got a few more trustees from them as well, so it's been really, really

01:40brilliant.

01:41But we did find that we were outgrowing them, we didn't have enough space, so it was time

01:46to look for a new home.

01:47And again, thanks to networking, I'm a big believer in networking, we had one of our

01:52members of staff, Annette, who worked for Relate, and Relate, this building, the part

01:57of the building on the right-hand side was actually built for what was called Marriage

02:02Guidance, which then became Relate.

02:05They left it in COVID, and so we were really, really lucky to be offered that opportunity

02:10by the church very, very recently, so thank you so much to the church.

02:16So that's how we've got here today.

02:19I think we offer around, this last year, we've offered over 2,000 counselling sessions to

02:24people in Worthing and the outer areas.

02:28And counselling is something that's actually quite hard to come by for people.

02:34I think I'm nodding your head there.

02:37There's a lot of private counselling, but for those people who can't afford private

02:41counselling, it's very, very limited in health services, unfortunately.

02:45So we do offer low-cost counselling to people in the areas of Worthing, and a little bit

02:50further out now, because we do offer online therapy as well as face-to-face.

02:56So we're always striving to get funding to try and offer as low-cost counselling as we

03:02possibly can, and we've forged some really fantastic partnerships.

03:06So we've been working with West Sussex Mind.

03:08We've got lottery funding to work with their 16 to 25-year-olds, and recently I've just

03:14got some funding to work with 16 to 25-year-olds who are neurodivergent.

03:18And again, so we have this really great partnership with Mind.

03:22Currently working with Andy's Angels, we're going to look into doing some work together,

03:26and that's for children who have suffered bereavement within their family.

03:31So I'm really, really excited about all the partnerships we've already got, and all the

03:36partnerships that we want to forge ahead with.

03:38So I'm aware we've got the lions here, so hello to the lions.

03:42Hi, we're over there.

03:44And we're really looking to start forging some new partnerships and new friendships

03:49in the community.

03:50And being part of this church, we've got Superstar Arts, who are already here, so hopefully

03:55we'll be able to forge some partnerships and working friendships with them as well.

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