Counselling

Specialist time-limited counselling

Since 2014 we have been providing a specialist trauma counselling service for women and girls aged 13+ across Somerset and Avon in venues in Taunton, Yeovil, Glastonbury, Weston Super Mare, Bath, Yate, Bridgwater and Minehead. We are also able to refer Bristol residents to access specialist counselling at our Bristol office via our partner agency The Green House

SARSAS is an organisational member of the British Association for Counselling & Psychotherapy (BACP) http://www.bacp.co.uk/ and all of our Counsellors adhere to the standards set out in the BACP Ethical Framework for Good Practice in Counselling and Psychotherapy

SARSAS Counsellors are fully qualified and experienced in working with survivors of rape and sexual abuse.

SARSAS Adult and Young Person Counsellors may use a variety of ways of working to help clients, but all work from a person-centred approach. This means they will treat all clients as individuals and offer a warm, non-judgmental and genuine professional relationship where you can safely talk about your thoughts and feelings.

Counsellors will work with you at your own pace and will not advise you on what to do, but support and empower you to find your own answers, in order to help you cope and recover from the trauma of rape and sexual abuse. We usually offer 12 sessions, for 50 minutes once a week, though you may need fewer than 12, or more than 12 in which case we can offer up to 24 sessions.

If you are accessing counselling at SARSAS for Pre Trial Therapy, we will explain that we will not be able to discuss any details of the incident(s) during sessions, but are able to offer support around the impact on your day to day coping. Pre Trial Therapy is also available at the Bridge.

If you would like more information on our Counselling service, or the group work that we also provide, you can contact our helpline on 0808 801 0456, our Taunton office on 01823 324944 or our Bristol Office on 0117 929 9556.

If you are a professional and a client you are working with would like a referral to this service you can download a referral form and email it to info@sarsas.org.uk so that we can contact your client directly to arrange an initial assessment.

By searching our Survivor Pathway website www.survivorpathway.org.uk for services across Somerset, Bath and North East Somerset, Bristol, North Somerset and South Gloucestershire you will also be able to find further counselling services in your area by other specialist organisations such as Womankind and Kinergy.

You can also search for private counsellors on the BACP website http://www.itsgoodtotalk.org.uk/therapists and the Counselling directory.

We also offer Solution-focused brief therapy in Bristol or over the phone in other areas. Find out more here.

New young persons counselling service available in Somerset:

The Phoenix Project

The Somerset Phoenix Project is a new specialist support service for children and young people aged 5-18 and their families, in Somerset, who have been affected by childhood sexual abuse (CSA).

It is a small service with 2 full time Specialist Project Workers covering the whole of Somerset. We will have a small resource to provide 1:1 support. However the service will mainly offer other.support, training and signposting information to families and professionals who are supporting children and young people affected by childhood sexual abuse (CSA).

For more information go to https://www.survivorpathway.org.uk/services/phoenix-project-somerset/