Can Family Counselling help us?

What is Family Counselling

Think of family counselling as a safe, private space where the entire family can talk openly about their relationships, interactions, and challenges with a counsellor.

• It’s not about blaming one person for the problems; it’s about seeing the family as a whole, where everyone’s actions affect everyone else.
• The goal is to find ways for family members to help each other, improve how they relate, and find solutions as a team.
• The counsellor acts as a neutral guide, observing patterns and helping the family shift negative cycles into positive ones.

Why Do People Go? 

 Common topics include: 

• Communication Breakdowns: Chronic fighting, silent treatments, frequent misunderstandings, or difficulty expressing feelings effectively.
• Child and Young People Challenges: Dealing with a child or teen’s challenges, school refusal, or significant mood changes (like severe anxiety or depression).
• Major Life Transitions & Stress: Navigating the family impact of divorce or separation, blending families, moving house, the birth of a new sibling, or a significant financial change.
• Mental Health & Addiction: Supporting a family member who has a mental illness (e.g., anxiety, depression, schizophrenia) or is struggling with substance abuse—and helping the rest of the family cope and support them without enabling.
• Parenting Challenges: Disagreements between parents on discipline, setting boundaries, or general parenting styles.
• Chronic Illness: Adjusting to the challenges and emotional toll of a physical or mental illness in one family member.

How it works 

• You complete a self-referral; it’s really important the whole family decide to access counselling and no one feels pressured by someone else to come.
• Once the referral form in completed, you are automatically added to our waiting list; wait times vary but the more availability you give us the quicker your likely to be seen. Our team will stay in touch to keep you updated about appointments.
• You will be offered two individual appointment called initial assessments. These are not counselling sessions, but meetings with a counsellor to give you an understanding of what counselling is all about and how it may help you as a family, and for the counsellor to get a good understanding of what is going on for you all right now. Depending on what you share and what you would like to focus on, we will consider if we are the right service to provide the support you need.
• Once the initial assessment is complete, and if we are the right service for you, you will be offered up to 6 weekly sessions of counselling.
• If we feel there is a better service to support your needs, we will provide you with the information needed to access that service.

What this will look like

• Your weekly sessions will be on the same day and time and with the same counsellor. Check out our Meet The Team page here 
• You will have the same room each week
• Your sessions will last up to 50 minutes each week.
• You have the choice of face to face or online.
• We have counselling rooms in Leigh Park.

Important: Confidentiality

One of the most important things is that everything you say is kept private (confidential). Your counsellor won’t share your conversations.

The only time OTR would ever have to break confidentiality is if we thought you or someone else was in danger. We would discuss this with you first, unless we believed that this could increase the risk to you or others.

Parent Support

Support options to help parents/carers to develop the knowledge, confidence and tools needed to support young people