Counselling

Woman wearing hijab indoors near to window Everyone experiences times in their lives when emotionally things become challenging, difficult or even completely overwhelming.

Whether you’re dealing with stress, anxiety, abuse, bereavement or any other distressing issue in your life, it can be easy to feel alone or that everything has moved beyond your point of control.

Counselling provides the opportunity to talk with a trained counsellor about how you’re feeling in a wholly supportive, confidential and non-judgemental environment. While a counsellor will not be able to give you advice or tell you what you ‘should’ do, talking things through with someone who is trained to actively listen can help you see things more clearly, help you cope better, or differently, with the situations you’re dealing with and support you in making your own choices about the way forward.

Our counselling approach is integrative and we take a trauma informed approach to everything we do at the centre.

What we can offer:

Diary on table with flowers and sweets At Luton All Women’s Centre, professional counselling is an ongoing and vital part of the holistic support we offer to our clients.

Following an initial assessment for suitability, we can offer you up to 12 weeks of weekly counselling sessions, each one lasting 50 minutes. Our counsellors are staff or volunteers who have completed, or nearing the end of extensive training. They work to the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy (BACP) Ethical Framework and receive regular, professional supervision. You will be matched to a counsellor who we feel is most suited to support your individual needs.

Confidentiality

Whatever takes place in a counselling situation is confidential to you, the counsellor and if appropriate a supervisor. There are a few exceptional circumstances where this may not apply and these will be explained at your initial counselling assessment.

Cost and eligibility

Our counselling service is free for women over the age of 18 who are registered clients of the centre, often referred to us by other professional agencies.

Before a client can embark on counselling there is, however, a one-off counselling assessment fee of just £10.00.

Get help

To find out more or enquire about accessing counselling at LAWC, contact the centre on 01582 416783 or email [email protected]. You will need to be registered as a client at the centre.

Please note our counselling service is in high demand, so there is a waiting list.

Support this work

While we run our counselling service with the support of volunteers and staff, it costs us around £60,000 per year.

If you are a trained counsellor could you volunteer some of your time to support this service?
If you are a LAWC supporter, could you help us keep this service funded? A £50 donation would help us run 1 session for a women who needs this type of support.

If you believe you could help in any of these ways, please contact us.

Latest

International Women’s Day

March 8th, 3.00 - 4.30 pm on Zoom. Join us on this celebratory day as we reflect on how women have been affected by the events of the last year and consider the key issues for women right now and what we need to focus on in the year ahead.
Introduction to the new Domestic Abuse programme Own My Life (For Women)

March 9th, 10.00 – 11.00 am on Zoom. A short introduction to the 12 week programme run regularly by Luton All Women’s Centre, for any woman who is having relationship problems, is feeling uncomfortable with a partner’s behaviour or where something isn’t right at home.
Honour Based Abuse and Forced Marriage – an introduction (Professional Training)

March 11th, 10.00 - 11.15 am on Zoom. An informative session where you’ll learn more about these two forms of harmful practices which are abuse or violence that mainly happen to women and girls.
Introduction to Luton All Women’s Centre (Professional Training)

March 12th, 9.30 – 11.00 am on Zoom. Sign up for this session if you’re a professional seeking to familiarise yourself about the work that we do at LAWC.

Domestic abuse

Almost 30% of women in England and Wales say they have experienced domestic violence/abuse since the age of 16. If you are affected by this issue, Luton All Women's Centre is there to help.
Harmful practices

‘Harmful practices’ is a term used to describe things like forced marriage, honour-based violence (HBV) and female genital mutilation (FGM), all of which disproportionately affect women/ girls. Luton All Women's Centre's specialist harmful practices service provides educational measures to prevent such practices plus help for those affected in Luton and Bedfordshire.
Health and wellbeing

The importance of maintaining good physical health, mental health and general wellbeing cannot be over-emphasised. For the women we support at Luton All Women's Centre, such things aren't always easy. Our centre provides a wide range of services which aim to help vulnerable women in Luton with this area of their lives.
Other groups

Luton All Women's Centre offers a range of support groups for women whose health and wellbeing have been affected by various life-events - including childhood sexual abuse, bereavement and menopause.
Women's academy

Luton All Women's Centre has created the Women’s Academy to provide education, training and skills development activities specifically designed to help women who are escaping/recovering from abuse to move forward with their lives and improve their long-term employment prospects.
Other sources of help

Links to various other sources of help for vulnerable women living in Luton and Bedfordshire.