The Willows Centre

To find out more about the Willows click on the link below

www.willowscounselling.org.uk

In past years at Willows, summer has often been a quieter period that gave us an opportunity to “catch up”, however this summer we have remained steadily busy. Then as autumn begins, we see more people referring themselves for counselling, increasing the number of sessions and our general level of busyness. September also sees the start of our counselling training courses, filling the building once again with the buzz of students.

This summer we were delighted to welcome Nick to the team as Volunteer Handyman. He is helping Ron and Norman with maintenance of the building and grounds.

New website

In August we launched our redesigned website (still www.willowscounselling.org.uk), which now covers all aspects of our counselling and training. For a couple of years we had a separate training website (www.willowstraining.org), which is no longer used. If you access the website from a phone or tablet you’ll see the mobile-optimised version.

Highlights of the new website –

Details of our counsellor training pathway (starting from Level 2), including enrolment dates for each course and leaflets to download in pdf format;
An online shop to buy counselling resources designed in house – these are proving to be very popular;
The ability to book online for our 2020 CPD workshops will follow soon;

Do take a look and give us your feedback.

Friends of Willows – it’s a musical autumn

If your overseas trips have left you with foreign coins or notes, don’t lose them in a drawer! Willows will happily take these of your hands as part of our fundraising campaign this year. Can you read the message we found on the Zimbabwean bank note?

On Sunday 29^th September 2019 we were delighted to have another fun-filled musical evening with Sheila Hancock and the Kentwood Choir at Blundson House.

This is closely followed on Tuesday October 15^th by Geoff Walters and Encore at Immanuel URC Church, Upham Rd (7.30pm start). Tickets are £6 on the door and we’re really grateful that half the profits will be coming to Willows.

Then for those of us with a sweeter tooth we’re running our tasty cake stall Saturday 16^th November at the Christchurch Christmas Fair. It would be lovely to meet you there!
Finally, throughout December we’re running a raffle for Christmas Hampers – again tickets from the Willows Centre.

Training forges ahead …

In between this newsletter and the next we’ll be releasing details of –

The 2020 programme of CPD Training workshops;
A day conference with Mick Cooper on ‘Exploring Relational Depth in Therapy’ (Sat June 6^th);
Our flagship new Level 5 Diploma in ‘Trauma Counselling’, starting January 2020.

You’ll be able to find more details of these in the training section of our website, via our Facebook page and from specific training updates.

We have one remaining CPD training workshops this year –

Sat 9th November – ‘Personal Journeying: Exploring working more deeply in our personal and professional work with others’ (workshop 2) Speakers: Philippa Dryland and Mike Fisher (5 hours CPD £45 including lunch).

The above courses will be held at the Harnhill Centre in Cirencester and can be booked directly through them by calling 01285 850283.

If you received this newsletter by email you can choose to also receive specific training updates by clicking ‘update your preferences’ in the footer of the email or otherwise by contacting us on 01793-426650 / centre@willowscounselling.org.uk.

Fundraising success

Since our last update in early July we have received very welcome and essential grant funding from Wiltshire Community Foundation, Stratton St Margaret Parish Council and Zurich Community Trust. These grants have enabled us to continue subsidising the donations towards counselling for some of our financially impoverished clients and to maintain the receptionist role which has been such a blessing in releasing other staff from answering phone calls and greeting clients.

As ever, we deeply appreciate your support, whether through prayer, practical activity or financially. We’d love to meet you either at the Willows Centre or at a ‘Friends of Willows’ event.

Blessings from Tanya and the Willows Team

The Training department here at Willows has been very busy recently. Here are some of the things to look forward in 2020!
Level 5 Diploma in Trauma Counselling (CPCAB accredited)

We are thrilled to let you know that applications are now open for our brand new Level 5 Course in Trauma Counselling. This is a one-year part-time

course, running on consecutive Fridays and Saturdays each month, and will commence in January 2020.

You can find the details on the counsellor training page of our website, where you can download the brochure, application and a letter to applicants.

This course has been designed to equip counsellors to recognise, assess and work with trauma more effectively in their clinical practice, including single, complex and developmental trauma, and the effect of attachment injury.

Students will learn a range of trauma theory and associated skills based on the Three Phase Trauma Model. The course will provide opportunities to learn and develop skills using an integrative model of trauma, including working somatically and with dissociation.

The closing date for course applications is noon on Monday November 4th. We have already had strong interest in the course, so we encourage early application if it is of interest.

Save the Date – 2020 Conference and Workshops
We’re also pleased to announce the dates for our CPD workshops.

    Sat 29^th Feb – Autism – Lindsay Grant
    Sat 28^th Mar – Integrating our Shadow Self – Anne Solomon
    Sat 25^th Apr – LGBTG+ – Janey Templer-Milligan
    Sat 4^th Jul – Dissociation in the Counselling Room – Tanya Orr
    Sat 3^rd Oct – Working creatively – Pauline Andrew
    Sat 7^th Nov – Using Nature and the Seasons in Therapy – Briony Martin

Our conference for 2020 is on Saturday June 6th on the subject of ‘Exploring Relational Depth in Therapy’. This year’s speaker is Professor Mick Cooper who is an internationally recognised author, trainer, and consultant in the fields of humanistic, existential, and pluralistic therapy. He is Professor of Counselling Psychology at the University of Roehampton.

We will be accepting online booking for the Workshops and Conference via our website very soon!

If you received this update by email you can choose to also receive our general updates by clicking ‘Update your preferences’ in the footer of the email or otherwise by contacting us on 01793-426650 / centre@willowscounselling.org.uk.