The Leicester Counselling Centre provides vital long-term counselling to adults across Leicester, Leicestershire and Rutland who experience complex and enduring mental ill health. The Centre’s free/donation-based support ensures equal access to all, regardless of ability to pay, enabling it to reach disadvantaged individuals that otherwise could not access the support they need. The Centre is unique in its offer of face-to-face clinical assessment leading to long-term, face-to-face support, setting it apart from short-term or remote interventions that rarely achieve the same depth that is needed for sustainable change to take place. Because it achieves lasting change, its work contributes to reducing demand for GP appointments, A&E presentations, and hospitalisations, and, given that it can be offered in a timely way, prevents deterioration of health, crisis, or suicidality that can happen with long waiting times. 

The Leicester Counselling Centre has a professional reputation for delivering a high standard of service. It is an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy, and as such abides by their Ethical Framework. It has a large established resource of 68 volunteer counsellors, who offer a diverse range of experience and approaches that can accommodate individual client need. We are currently responding to a large increase in demand for mental health support by considering ways in which we can use our existing resources most effectively and expand to keep pace with this demand. 

Our trustees play a critical role in strategy, planning and operational oversight. We are looking for people who

• have an interest in mental health and wellbeing, and a commitment to providing an effective and affordable service to individual clients, 
• who can work as a member of a team, 
• live in or have connections with our area, 
• can commit time to working on specific initiatives, as well as the wider business of board meetings
• have local connections that may support our fundraising efforts,
• may have skills and experience in governance, safeguarding, fundraising, change management and mental health service management,
• may have been a service user of a counselling service

Many trustees find that their charity board experience enhances their CV in relation to career opportunities in their field.