The Project’s three core services are long term counselling, community-based mentoring and group work. Together these provide vital options for support that are not readily available within statutory mental health services. Carefully managed waiting lists mean that support is available at the time of need, helping to combat long waiting times that could otherwise exacerbate mental ill health or see individuals move into a period of crisis or at risk of suicide. Our pluralistic approach means that individuals have access to a range of different supports, which are more likely to contribute longer-lasting and sustainable benefits within the client’s everyday life beyond their period of contact with the Project.

Long-term Counselling

Long-term counselling provides an opportunity for clients to work at depth on a weekly basis over a period of one year. Our large team of volunteer professional counsellors offers a wide range of modalities, including person-centred, gestalt, humanistic and psychodynamic counselling, which means that we are able to achieve a good therapeutic fit with the specific needs of our clients. A smaller provision of twice weekly psychotherapy over two years is also available for our more complex referrals.

All of our counsellors are committed to ongoing training and individual and group supervision on a monthly basis to ensure continuing professional development. Typically they work with clients experiencing long standing mental health difficulties or trauma relating to life events, such as physical and/or sexual abuse. Counsellors offer regular, hourly appointments to their clients encouraging a reliable and trusted relationship, enabling clients the time and space to work at their own pace. This provision is available at our main premises in King’s Lynn, or one of our community outreach venues in Terrington St. Clement, Downham Market or Swaffham, where need is also heightened by the large communities that populate these areas.

Community-based Mentoring

The One to One Project also offers home-based mentoring and emotional support to clients who express more practical needs. The focus here is for the client to achieve realistic goals, collaboratively set with the Mentor, for example to overcome anxiety and leave the home or to use public transport to enable them to engage with additional support services. This unique Mentoring service embeds the support within the client’s daily life by meeting in their home, right where it is most needed. It encourages clients to overcome the many obstacles they can face when experiencing mental distress. The emphasis on setting and achieving personal goals empowers and motivates an individual towards further proactive steps on the path to recovery.

Group Work

Group Work provides an opportunity for up to 12 participants to work collectively towards gaining the tools and techniques to maintain personal wellbeing in their day to day life. The group process and dynamics afford a supportive therapeutic environment and differs from learning psycho-educational material, as is more commonly provided by other organisations and services. Each small, safe group has a specific focus; Self Confidence, Anxiety and Assertiveness, Anger – with sessions of two hours running for up to four weeks. These groups are also taken out into the community and have successfully partnered existing groups to offer emotional support to specific communities of individuals, such as female survivors of sexual abuse. Often the network of support endures beyond the sessions as clients continue to meet. We believe that by building up networks of support, communities begin to be self supporting leading to more cohesive and integrated places to live.