Swindon-based charity organisation Willows Counselling & Training were the winners of this year's Charity of the Year category at the Wiltshire Life Awards 2023.
The team at Wiltshire Life Awards search the country for examples of creative endeavour, bravery, community spirit, business acumen, and young entrepreneurship and sportsmanship.
The awards scheme - organised by Wiltshire's leading county magazine Wiltshire Life - seeks to raise the profile and awareness of worthy profitable businesses and also charities and community groups.
The 2023 Charity of the Year category was sponsored by the local full-service creative agency GEL Studios.
Denise Brent and Amanda Cook Co-CEOs of Willows Counselling & Training said: "We are absolutely humbled and delighted to have won Charity of the Year at the recent Wiltshire Life awards. We are so proud of the work that we do, and so grateful and thankful for the support and recognition that we have received.
"We are passionate at Willows about providing quality and in-depth training for the counsellors of the future, as well as providing an affordable counselling service for the local community, especially in these recent difficult times.
"Thank you to the whole team at Wiltshire Life, and to the wonderful team at Gel Studios who sponsored the category."
Other Swindon finalists in this category were the organisations Doing it For Dan and IPSUM.
Willows Counselling and Training Service was founded in response to a request by local GPs to the ‘Churches Together’ partnership to set up a professional counselling service. In order to achieve this, training courses began in 1989/90 and in 1995 the first cohort of trained counsellors started working with clients.
Since then, the Willows team have continued to develop both their training and counselling departments.
The first counselling centre was based in Upper Stratton in a small, terraced house which was gradually outgrown. Training took place at various venues within Swindon.
Since 2009, the Willows Centre has been based 11 Prospect Place in Old Town, and houses both the training and counselling departments.
The training department offers courses from a Level 2 Certificate of Counselling Skills (with the next one due to start in September 2023) through the L3 Certificate in Counselling Studies and L4 Diploma in Therapeutic Counselling.
Additionally, Willows offers a post-graduate Diploma in Trauma Counselling, and a suite of varied Saturday workshops which are open to all.
A spokesperson for Willows explains: "The counselling department offers professional, quality, affordable counselling to adults who live in Swindon and the immediate surrounding areas. To date we have supported well over four and a half thousand clients who have asked for therapy for a wide range of issues.
"Clients have to refer themselves and many are signposted for counselling by their GP or another health professional, family or friends, other agencies or faith leaders. All counsellors already have a diploma or are on a supervised placement as part of their diploma training. Willows counsellors’ therapeutic modality is integrative – person-centred at its core but including insights from other modalities."
As a registered charity, Willows is dependent on various streams of financial support. Some comes from clients who pay towards their therapy on a sliding scale dependent on income, and some from churches and other Swindon organisations.
In addition, applications are made by the team to local and national grant awarding bodies to help cover the costs of providing counselling, maintaining the building, and investing in capital projects. None of the agency’s funding comes from the NHS or local authority.
More information about Willows Counselling and Training can be found online at https://www.willowscounselling.org.uk/
Those wishing to donate towards the organisation can do so at https://localgiving.org/donation/swindonwillows/start
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