Counselling for Adults and Young People

When you first contact us, you will usually speak to one of our Admin team who will explain to you what happens next. You will be invited to enter some basic information on our secure online database and can then join our waiting list.  If you are not able or prefer not to use the database, our admin team can help you.

As soon as an appointment comes up that fits your availability, our admin team will get in touch with you. Your first appointment will give you the opportunity to find out more about the counselling we offer and discuss if the kind of help we are able to offer will meet your particular needs.  

If you decide to take up the offer of help, we will arrange an appointment for your first session with one of our counsellors at an agreed time.

Youth Wellbeing Service

Wellbeing sessions for young people are mostly arranged through the Safeguarding Lead or your Head of Year or tutor at your Secondary School. Some are also offered in community settings. Please see our page on Youth Wellbeing Service for more information and how to make contact directly with our team of Wellbeing Practitioners.

Usually, sessions are weekly and last 50 minutes.

Counselling sessions are initially for a period of 6 weeks, but with the possibility for more sessions in some cases where it’s needed, after discussion with your Counsellor.

If you are having CBT you will have up to 8 sessions in total.

Young people age 11-18

Although we don’t strictly charge a fee, we ask that you make a minimum donation of £10 for each session of Counselling and Youth Wellbeing Service if you are aged 11-18. These donations can be Gift Aided. If you or your parents/carers are able to make a larger donation towards the cost of your sessions, this will be much appreciated and will help to ensure Wellspring can continue to offer these services to local young people. The full cost of your session is £50 and subsidised thanks to grants, donations and fundraising events.

If you are not able to make this level of minimum donation, please discuss this with the Admin team and with your Counsellor at your first session.

Wellspring Counselling is a registered charity which relies on client fees and donations for its ongoing viability.

Young people aged 19-25

Although we don’t strictly charge a fee, we ask that you make a minimum donation of £10 for each session of Counselling if you are aged 19-25. These donations can be Gift Aided. If you or your parents/carers are able to make a larger donation towards the cost of your sessions, this will be much appreciated and will help to ensure Wellspring can continue to offer these services to local young people. The full £50 cost of your session is subsidised thanks to grants, donations and fundraising events.

If you are in full-time work, you will be asked to pay for each Counselling session on the adults’ sliding scale fees – see below.

If you are not able to make this level of minimum donation, please discuss with the Admin team and with your Counsellor at your first session.

Wellspring Counselling is a registered charity which relies on client fees and donations for its ongoing viability.

Adults 

To make sessions as affordable as we can for everyone, regardless of ability to pay, we operate a sliding scale of fees for adults.

Initial Assessment session – adults 
For an initial assessment session with a Counsellor at Wellspring we make a non-refundable charge of £35. For those in receipt of qualifying benefits this charge is reduced to £10.

Counselling Sessions for adults
The fee for ongoing therapy is worked out based on income. Our standard subsidised charge is £25 for people who are in employment and earning up to £30,000 per annum. For people earning between £30,000 and £45,000 the fee is £35, and above £45,000 we ask for a minimum payment of £40 for each ongoing session. For those in receipt of qualifying benefits* we may be able to offer a reduced fee of £10 per session. This is dependent on sufficient funds being available in our subsidy budget.

*Please provide proof of receipt of one of the following qualifying benefits:

• Income Support
• Income-based Jobseeker’s Allowance
• Income-related Employment and Support Allowance
• Pension Credit Guarantee Credit
• Universal Credit
• Disability Living Allowance

If you are receiving benefits and are unable to pay the minimum fee of £10 per session please discuss this with us during your initial session and we will do our best to help. This will be decided on an individual basis.

During the pandemic all sessions are being held by telephone or online.

Counselling services for adults are available by appointment only at the following times:

• Monday afternoon 1.30-4.45pm at the Methodist Community Church, Silver Street, Nailsea.
• Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday 9.30am-4.30pm at the Methodist Community Church, Silver Street, Nailsea.
• Monday, Tuesday and Thursday evenings 6.30-9.30pm at Tower House Medical Centre, Stockway South, Nailsea.
  
• Wednesday evenings 5.20-8.20pm at the Methodist Community Church, Silver Street, Nailsea.

During the pandemic, counselling sessions are being held by telephone or online.

Counselling services for young people are available by appointment only at the following times:

•  Monday afternoon 3.30-6.30pm at The Link, Nailsea School and Portishead Medical Group.
•  Monday evening 6.30-8.30pm at Tower House Medical Centre, Stockway South, Nailsea.
• Tuesday evening 3.30-8.30pm at Tower House Medical Centre, Stockway South, Nailsea.
• Wednesday afternoon 3.30-6.30pm at Backwell Medical centre, Portishead Medical Group and Methodist Community Church, Silver Street, Nailsea.
• Thursday afternoon 3.30-8.30pm at The Link, Nailsea School; 3.30-5.30pm at Backwell Medical Centre and 6.30-8.30pm at Tower House Medical Centre, Stockway South, Nailsea.

During the pandemic, all sessions are being held by telephone or online.

Early Help services for young people are available by appointment only at the following times:

• Monday daytime: Clevedon School, Backwell School and Nailsea School.
• Tuesday daytime: St Katherine’s School, Pill, Backwell School and Nailsea School.
• Wednesday daytime: Clevedon School, Backwell School and Nailsea School.

What is shared between you and your therapist is confidential. Nothing about you is told to anyone outside Wellspring Counselling without discussing this with you first. We would only break confidentiality if you or someone else connected with you may be at risk of harm from themselves or other people. Your privacy will be respected as fully as possible.

All therapists are required to speak to their Supervisor regularly about their work with clients, however, this is done anonymously. Supervisors are all experienced practitioners and make sure that our service meets your needs the best it can.

If you are seeing a Wellbeing Practitioner in one of Wellspring’s partner secondary schools, any concerns about a risk of harm to you or others will need to be shared with the School’s Safeguarding team, ideally after discussing this with you.

Let us know as far in advance as possible if you are going to miss your arranged session. If you miss an appointment without telling us, we will contact you to find out more. If we don’t hear from you within 2 weeks of a missed appointment, we will assume that you do not wish to continue. If you miss more than 2 sessions, we might be unable to continue working with you, due to our limited capacity. This would depend on the circumstances of your missed appointments. However, you are free to re-access the service in the future if you wish to do so.

Sometimes a client may feel that they are not comfortable with their counsellor, which is holding back the progression of counselling.

Please do not feel embarrassed or anxious as this is not uncommon, we ask that if you do feel this way to contact Wellspring reception where we can have a friendly conversation on how you feel and the various options for changing your counsellor.