In the BSL community, people are often talking to a counsellor through a third person, interpreter. This is a wonderful accessible service across the UK, however you may want to be seen and heard yourself, rather being heard through the interpreter’s voice.
This service is a fantastic opportunity for you as BSL users to speak to our counsellors directly, in your first or preferred language as a fully accessible service where we are able to engage sharing the same language and culture.
You may be wondering, “what is ‘counselling’?” It’s where you want to get ‘self help’ and look to us to offer an ‘available specialised service’. It’s a place and space for us to sit down and discuss face to face or via video-call, where we will work with you throughout the sessions. It’s about ‘life coaching’ and improving your self-awareness, developing new learning tools for how to cope with your daily life. We are here to actively listen to you whatever stage of your journey you are in.
In this agency, we have two BSL counsellors: Matthew Shrine and Jay Thomas-Morton. They are both qualified in BSL and registered with BACP.
Matthew offers a chargeable service. Matthew’s fees are £40 per session. Jay is able to offer counselling free of charge. In order to be eligible for the free service you need to be over 18 years old and be on a low income or benefits. The free counselling is offered in the day time.
Matthew Shrine deals with all referrals, initial assessments and confirmations, and will then refer onto one of the BSL counsellors, Matthew or Jay, for you to meet with.
During the initial assessment, Matthew will identity your needs, what sort of contract we are able to offer, who you will be speaking with and the importance of confidentiality, boundaries and safe environment when working with us.
We understand the importance of confidentiality. We are aware of the shortage of BSL counsellors in the Midlands and also that we are bound to be familiar with one another in the BSL Community. This is where we will be discussing confidentiality within the contract, how we are able to identify and agree to keep our boundaries and ethics clear between counselling sessions and the community.
BSL counselling means we are able to offer the service to wider users in the community: Deaf and hearing BSL users, DeafBlind with BSL and international users within the UK.
If you would like to get help from us, you will only need to contact us by sending the email via our website and the centre will refer to us to arrange date and time for an initial assessment. Please let us know of your BSL preference in your email.
For more information, support or contact us, please visit: https://birminghamcounsellingservices.co.uk/contact-us-birmingham-counselling-services