Help service needs new meeting place

SIDE by Side counselling service at the Link Centre has been serving the borough for 10 years and is now, in the face of cuts, appealing for anyone with rooms the service can use

A COUNSELLING service which has offered Oldham's vulnerable people support over the past 10 years is appealing for rooms to hold itssessions.

Side by Side, which offers counselling to clients aged 17 and over and also trains future counsellors, currently hosts sessions at the Oldham Link Centre, but is now facing an uncertain future.

While it has been supported by Oldham Council, which leases rooms at the centre free of charge, the need to find savings has meant that could end. Side by Side was founded by three counsellors, Luke Entwistle, Lyn Renn and Paula Gregg, in 2007 and has since worked with 1,359 clients from Oldham and the surrounding area.

Their aim is to provide local people with a safe, peaceful environment where they will find support.

It currently receives some limited funding from the Ancora project but otherwise relies upon voluntary client donation and fund raising events which it uses to provide training for its volunteers as well as covering all overheads - excluding individual insurance - which all volunteers must take out.

As well as helping people, Side by Side offers trainee counsellors a facility to acquire required counselling hours and a place to enhance their counselling skills. New trainees are eased into counselling, at first taking one client and then, as they gain experience, are given a second client to work with.

Luke Entwistle said: "Our aim is to provide local people with a safe, peaceful haven in which they can access confidential, therapeutic relationships. We wish to facilitate self-discovery within the client in a non-judgmental, person centred manner, whilst encouraging each individual to develop and gain the ability to make his/her own life choices.

"Our role as a counselling organisation, is to offer support and unwavering acceptance to our clients during this process and to improve local access to counselling through providing a service that welcomes counsellors in training and supports their development."

He said: "Our service is 10 years old this year and looking to secure rooms for the continuation of our service. Since opening in 2007 we have worked with 1,359 complex and diverse clients from Oldham and the surrounding area. We offer free, open ended counselling and take referrals from across the Oldham district.

"We have supported 61 trainees to qualify as counsellors in this time and have worked with Oldham Council as a part of Oldham's Women's Link as well as working alongside the Ancora Project since August 2016 to work with people in crisis.

"Through the life of the service Oldham Council has always been supportive and have provided us with rooms at no cost but we are currently facing an uncertain future and are hoping to appeal to the people of Oldham for rooms to continue the good work we do with the most vulnerable in the community. We currently offer counselling on Mondays and Wednesdays, 5pm - 9pm, with four rooms available per hour.

"We hope to continue this service within one location but are open to working any two evenings in the week."