Stories
Open Minds Counselling Service
Who are Open Minds?
Open Minds is a social enterprise providing subsidised counselling, hypnotherapy, remedial massage and personal development workshops to adults and children aged 8 and over. Their aims and objectives are to provide a counselling service accessible to all as far as can be reasonably achieved with the resources at their disposal. To provide the best services possible they have male and female counsellors available, ground floor counselling rooms, and appointments are available both inside and outside of work and school time. Open Minds have 25 Counsellors currently working at different times over 5 days per week with 3 of those days extending into the evening until 7.30pm.
The philosophy of Open Minds is to 'fill the cracks of care' locally, making sure that people in distress who cannot afford private counselling but do not fit other organisation's criteria have a source of professional therapeutic support. All of their income is invested towards keeping the counselling service going. In order to sustain themselves they charge for their services dependant on what an individual can afford. They often find people want to pay for their sessions as they feel like they are giving something back and allowing other people, who may not be able to afford the service, an opportunity to access the same.
Open Minds receive self-referrals from individuals who want counselling for themselves or sometimes for their children. They also receive referrals from organisations such as Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services, DRI, Social Services, Families First, and the NSPCC.
Open Minds began providing services in 2006 and became full time in May 2008. Since then they have become popular throughout Doncaster. They have been able to develop with help from various funders including Doncaster Communities For Health, Key Fund Global Grants, SED at Doncaster CVS, and New Deal for Communities.
Open Minds have also received support from a number of organisations such as Doncaster Disabled People's Alliance, Key Fund Enterprise Discovery, Doncaster CVS and CEN Team.
Lottery Success
In March 2010 Open Minds were successful in obtaining Big Lottery funding - Reaching Communities, until May 2014. They secured £312K over four years which will allow them to set up systems, develop contracts, and free up time to look at things like CHAS and IS9001. They have already successfully entered into an arrangement with Identities CIC, offering their services on a satellite basis in Conisbrough. Training exercises are also being developed around personal development and self esteem in schools for both staff and pupils. The Big Lottery Funding has enabled the recruitment of an Admin and Finance Support Officer, which in turn has enabled them to improve their operational systems.
Volunteers Needed
Open Minds are always looking for more volunteers, both students training to be counsellors, qualified counsellors, listening mentors or befriending volunteers and people wanting to help out with other activities such as admin work.
They have a big need for volunteer or diploma Play Therapists particularly those who can work with families, and would also like to recruit a Cognitive Behavioural Psychotherapist who can work with children.
Contact Details
28 Christchurch Road, Doncaster, DN1 2QL
e-mail: admin@openmindscounseling.com
phone: 01302 344192 or 07765 224564
