Access policy

How to get support and what you can expect to happen

If you are a young person aged between 9-25 and you live, or attend school/college or are registered with a GP in Gloucestershire, then Talk Well could be the service for you.

We are a charity, so we work hard to raise funds to make sure that we see every child or young person who needs our help. Our vision is that every young person who needs support has someone to talk to so that they can get on with enjoying life.

We place YOU at the centre of what we do so we have designed our service to make sure that you receive free counselling when you need it, without judgment or discrimination. That means it doesn’t matter where you’re from, what colour your skin is, how you identify, whether you’re disabled, or whether you struggle to learn, we’re here for you.

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What is Counselling?

Counselling is a safe place to talk about things that may worry you, no matter how big or how small, separate from school and home life. If you’re having problems at school, with your family and friends, struggling with stress, low mood, generally not feeling yourself, or any other problems you may have talking to a counsellor about how you feel can help you get back to your best self.

A counsellor WILL:

• Listen to you and your concerns without judgement
• Help you to find ways of coping with your stresses and worries
• Help you to understand your thoughts and feelings

A counsellor WILL NOT:

• Blame you
• Tell your family or friends that you’re having counselling or tell anyone what you say (unless you want them to, or they feel that you or others are at risk of serious harm)
• Force you to talk about anything you don’t want to talk about.

When our counsellor is ready to see you they will text you to arrange a time to meet up.

During the first session you will have a chance to chat through your worries and concerns and you and your counsellor will together decide if counselling is the best type of support for you and how many sessions you might need.

You choose: your counselling, your way

You can choose to have counselling in the following ways:

• Face-to-Face or
• Instant Messaging or
• Zoom or
• Phone or
• At school/ College or at a community venue
• Male or Female counsellor

Sometimes there may be other organisations that would better suit the type of help you need or give you additional support. If so, we will first check you’re happy with this and we’d work with you to make sure this happens as smoothly as possible. The only reason we might need to speak to another organisation without your knowledge or permission is if we need to act quickly because you or another person is at serious risk of harm.

Get in touch

If you feel like you need someone to talk to, for whatever reason, there are lots of ways you can get in contact, just visit our contact page.

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Once you decide to contact us at Talk Well, you’ll speak to a friendly member of our Talk Well team. They speak to hundreds of young people each year so nothing you say will surprise or shock them.

You do not need to visit your doctor or tell anyone else before you contact us.

Once you’ve contacted us and we’ve agreed that Talk Well is the best service for you, we will ask you to fill in an online request for counselling form on our website. This will give us your details so we can arrange for one of our counsellors to get in touch. If you need help filling in the online form, someone from the team will help you.

You may prefer to ask someone close to you, like a parent, friend or teacher, to contact us for you.
If you’re under 11, then your parent or carer must do the referral for you. If you’re not happy for this to happen for any reason contact us to let us know why.

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Need support while waiting or not quite ready or don't want counselling?

Why not try our anonymous TalkWellChat service?

Any young person age 9-25 who lives (or attends a school/college or is registered with a GP) in Gloucestershire can use TalkWellChat, an anonymous, helpline service available over the phone or through text-chat.

There’s no need to make an appointment just drop in during our open hours:
Sunday to Thursday; 5pm until 9pm

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How quickly will I be seen?

We aim to match you with a counsellor within four weeks. Unfortunately, this isn’t always possible during busy times. We will give you an idea of how long you may have to wait when you first request counselling from us.

We’ll prioritise those who need help more urgently. It’s likely that there will be a wait before you see someone because there are lots of young people like you who want to talk to someone about their problems. But don’t worry, if things get worse and you’re struggling to cope, make sure you let us know so we can decide if you need to see one of our counsellors sooner or if our TalkWellChat telephone and online drop-in service can help you.

We will send you a text after every four weeks of waiting to let you know you’re still on our list.

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One at a Time Counselling

If you are aged 13 and above and want to be seen sooner, you will be given the option of having a ‘One at a Time’ (1@t) one-off counselling session within a few weeks rather than waiting for regular counselling. For many young people this type of counselling can really help and they only need one session. But if you need more support you can come back after four weeks for another 1@t session or you can ask for regular counselling.
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‍About our counsellors

• Talk Well is accredited by the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP). This means they keep an eye on us and make sure we give you the best service and care possible.
• Our counsellors are registered and are qualified to work with adults, children and young people.
• We have a number of student counsellors working for us who are in training with Talk Well. We make sure they have the right level of skills and experience before they can begin counselling young people.

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Keeping you safe

• Once we receive your request for counselling, a member of the Counselling Coordinator Team will have a look and see what service is best for you. They may give you a call just to discuss a few things to help make sure we match you with the best counsellor or to make sure you’re safe (don’t worry, that’s normal and they’re very understanding!) If the counselling coordinator team thinks you may be in danger, they may need to contact someone else to get you some immediate help, but they’ll never do that without trying to tell you first.
• We do various checks to make sure all of our staff are safe to work with you.
• Our special Clinical Governance Group and Board of Trustees also make sure that we do our job properly and keep you safe.

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Making contact with you

When our counsellor is ready to see you they will do everything they can to contact you trying all the contact options you have given us.

Unable to contact you

If we don’t hear from you, we will assume that you don’t want counselling at the current time. If you change your mind and contact us within three months, you won’t need to do another request for counselling form. But if things have changed quite a bit we may ask you to do another one so we have up to date information. If you do change your mind and want to see us within three months, you will be put back onto our waiting list.

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Changing your counsellor

You’re in control and if it doesn’t work out with the counsellor we match you with, we’re quite happy for you to change your mind and choose another one. To change your counsellor contact us to let us know.

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If you can't make a booked session

We understand that it can sometimes be hard for you to attend some sessions due to things that are out of your control (for example, if you are sick). Unfortunately, we won’t be able to replace sessions you cancel or miss if it’s for reasons that aren’t outside of your control (for example if you choose to visit your friend). We will always contact you to remind you about your appointment the day before using the contact details that you have given us. Please tell us if you can’t make a session so we can rearrange it – we won’t be annoyed! If you don’t come to a booked session and don’t let us know we will have to assume that you don’t want counselling anymore, but if you change your mind you can always return for counselling in future if you need it.

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How often can I return for support?

Once counselling has ended we will usually ask you to wait at least three months before returning for more support. This gives you time to think about what was discussed and try things out if relevant. If you feel you need to come back sooner than this for any reason, you can contact us to let us know.

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Keeping your information safe

We collect your personal information so that we can check that we provide the right service to the people who need it. Sometimes we’ll ask you questions about what you think of the counselling and whether it helped you. We only use this to help give you and other young people like you the best possible experience.

All the information we hold about you is kept safe and no one else gets to see it or has access
to it – this is called Data Protection. Data is stored for seven years or until you reach the age of 18 whichever is longer after that it is securely destroyed. You can find out more information about this by reading our Privacy Policy.

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Want to share some feedback or tell us your ideas?

If you think someone is doing a good job or if you have an idea about how we could do things better, we want to hear from you. We will make sure that your compliment or comment is passed to the right team and that we discuss all suggestions for improving our service. We may not be able to make every change people suggest but we will do our best. You can read more about how to give us feedback and how to make a complaint here.

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Times when it might not be possible to receive support from Talk Well

There may be times when, after a lot of careful thought we are not able to give support to a young person. For instance, we may have to refuse or withdraw services if the young person:

• Has needs that our team are not trained or skilled to support
• Is threatening, abusive or violent towards Talk Well staff
• Goes against the Talk Well Equality Policy
• Is involved in fraud or illegal activity Times when it might not be possible to receive support from Talk Well
• Excessively uses the service beyond what we are able to provide (we are a short term counselling service)
• Comes to the sessions under the influence of substances, drugs or alcohol
• Displays inappropriate sexual behaviour

In situations like this we would always talk this through carefully with the young person before a decision is made. If relevant we will recommend other services that may be more appropriate for you.