Friday, 15 October 2010

Parent Support - will anyone get in touch?

So, about 5 years ago I was a Samaritan.  I tell you this because it was the beginning of my journey towards parent counselling.  We used to sit in small cubicles in a run down area of London, each of us with a phone, headset and paper and pen. Sometimes we heard tales of such sadness and despair that we wondered if there was anything positive left in the World. Sometimes we listened while life ebbed away slowly on the other end of the phone.  We never really knew the outcome...we could only imagine.  Sometimes, surprisingly frequently, we answered the telephone and could only hear panting, a great deal of panting.  Distress or self pleasure?  We had to ask the question and 'direct' the call accordingly - phone down if pleasure, carry on and support if pain.
Moving on from the Samaritans I moved into parenting support. At first I started on a 24 hour helpline and progressed to managing a team of one to one parent support workers. 
I loved it! The endless variety of parents, kids, trauma, joy, tears, laughter. 
Over the years I had often thought about starting a parent counselling service. A really high quality and discreet service that could cater to those parents for whom privacy and one to one service would be important.
Last week, along with one of my fantastic colleagues, we started this service and I am waiting nervously for our first call........

http://www.parentconfidential.co.uk/

2 comments:

  1. Sounds very exciting, hope you get that first call soon to get things moving, I am sure you are right and there will be a market out there for your service, meanwhile I have enjoyed reading about your journey to this point. Let us know how it goes and good luck!

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  2. Absolutely delighted you are out there in the world helping people who need help,and wish you all the very best with it! And I am quite sure that the 'phone will ring very soon. Huge luck and love,
    Livvy x

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