Parents & Carers

Parents & carers

Parents & Carers

It’s a crucial service for families who are facing difficulties and are unable to fund their own counselling.

Parents & carers

How can we help?

Are you a parent or carer worried about your child or young person’s mental health?

Are you a parent or carer struggling with your own mental health or a difficult situation?

Do you feel you might benefit from some support?

Platform For Life is a Chester based charity, and the support service we provide for you is free and confidential.

Our services include:

What happens in your support sessions?

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 and/or 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 or your child’s or young persons’ 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 or your child or young person may have been diagnosed with ADHD / ASD and want to explore what that means. Your child or young person may be finding it hard to go to school or refusing altogether.

It might be that you or your child 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 or your child or young person for support

If you live, your child goes to school, or you are registered with a GP Practice in Blacon, Lache or Kingsway, and you are struggling financially or on a low income, then you are eligible for our support. All you need to do is complete our online self-referral or to refer your child or young person section please read this. 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, or the needs of your child or young person. Once this discussion has taken place, you will be placed on our waiting list whilst we match you or your child or young person 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, or in school or college if that’s easier.

This is what other parents and carers have said after receiving our support

Thank you so much for everything you have done. I am so grateful for all the support you’ve given us.

I have seen such a positive change in my daughter at home and am really grateful for the work you have been doing with her. Thank you.

I’ve never felt comfortable talking about feelings with anyone other than you and I felt really safe to do so in the sessions.

You can read more stories from the people who have had support from Platform For Life on our Stories Page.

IN NEED OF URGENT HELP?

If you are in crisis and need urgent help or support, don’t struggle alone, please see the list of numbers below:

NHS – 111 or 999 – 24/7

Samaritans – 116 123 or 01244 377 999 –  24/7

CALM – 0800 58 58 58 – 5pm – midnight

National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK – 0800 689 5652 – 24/7

Cafe71 – 01244 393 139 – 10am – 10pm

CWP Healthwatch / MyMind (CYP) – 0800 145 6485 – 24/7

SHOUT (text service) – 85258 – 24/7

SANEline – 0300 304 7000 – 4pm – 10pm

The Martin Gallier Project Chester – 0151 644 0294 – Weekdays 9:30 – 4pm

Skip to content