Adults
Adults
Your body holds trauma. Art therapy or play therapy can enable people to express anger. It's not about how good you are at art.
How can we help?
Are you struggling with the way you are feeling?
Are you struggling with your mental health or a difficult situation?
Are you feeling alone and finding it hard to talk to family and friends?
Are your worries too big to cope with on your own?
Do you feel you would benefit from some support?
However you are feeling, or whatever you are worried about, it is good to talk about it. We are here to listen and help you. Platform For Life is a Chester based charity, and the support service we provide is free and confidential.
Our services include:
Whether you’re struggling with a specific issue or problem, or you are generally feeling anxious or depressed, counselling therapies are a highly effective way to help you address those difficulties. At Platform For Life, we focus on long term healing, not just dealing with short term symptoms. There’s no need to feel pressured to prepare anything. Come as you are and be as open as you feel comfortable with. Â
What to expect in your session
Counselling/Therapy
During counselling/therapy sessions, you’ll be encouraged to talk 1-1 with our counsellor or therapist about certain aspects of your life, such as work and relationships. This will be carried out in a safe, confidential environment. You might explore what you’ve done in the past to try to address the difficulties or worries you’re dealing with. You’ll be supported with sharing the challenges you’ve faced and or/are facing right now, and identifying what the changes are that you want to make and deciding how you can make them.
Group Support
During group support you will join a group of people who like you have come to us for support. The people within the group may be facing similar challenges or experiencing similar feelings to you. Often within groups you can find support not only from our team, but also from the other people you meet.
Family Support Worker
Our family support worker can support you with accessing help with practical needs you might have. This could include support with food poverty, benefits claims, debt management, housing, children’s education and social isolation. By reducing some of these sources of pressure, it can help you engage more effectively with therapy.
Everyone’s situation and challenges are different, and you will be treated as an individual, and will receive the best support to meet your needs. People come to talk about many different things that are affecting them like family or relationship issues, difficult home situations, loneliness or anxiety, bullying, abuse, self-harm, addiction, low self-esteem, gender identity, loss or bereavement, depression, or difficulty making decisions. You may have been diagnosed with ADHD / ASD and want to explore what that means.
It might be that you just want to find a safe space to talk openly, where someone will listen, and you can make sense of the world around you.
Our service is free to you, easily accessible and available for as long as you need us, and if once your support ends you need further support in the future, we will be here for you.
Referring yourself for support
All you need to do is complete our online self-referral . If you need help completing the online referral, just call us on 07552 219806 and one of our team will be happy to help.
What happens next?
Once you have submitted your online referral, our team will text you to arrange a call to discuss your needs. Once this discussion has taken place, you will be placed on our waiting list whilst we match you with the relevant support and member of our team. The time you wait to receive support varies depending on the support you need, and your specific requirements, such as your availability. Generally waiting times for your first face to face meeting will be no more than 12 weeks. Although we don’t come to your home, meetings can be arranged in suitable places close to where you live.
Other people who have had support from us have said
You’ve changed my life, genuinely, I wouldn’t be where I am today without you, I never expected to feel back to a better version of the old me.
Amazing service would highly recommend.
“I felt welcomed and relaxed. You helped me see stuff that I couldn’t see. Talking things through gave me understanding and I could understand myself. I have learned so much. I was stuck with despair before and I felt trapped. Now, I feel like I know where I’m going. I know where I’m headed. I have felt so empowered by your support. My anxiety is much less and I’m more positive. I’m mindful of how I feel and I feel more in control. I know that I can always come back and that’s really good to know.
You can read more stories from the people who have had support from Platform For Life on our Stories Page.