Counselling Service
When a child or young person acquires a brain injury, the emotional impact can touch every part of family life.
That’s why our counselling service is here to provide a safe, understanding space for families to talk, reflect, and begin to heal.
Our counselling service is available to all registered Child Brain Injury Trust families, including parents and carers, children and young people aged 11 and over, and siblings aged 11 and over.
Each person will be supported by one of our qualified counsellors, all of whom have specialist training in understanding childhood-acquired brain injury.
Who is the counselling service for?
The Child Brain Injury Trust counselling service is available to all registered Child Brain Injury Trust families and can be accessed by:
- Parents and carers of a young person with an ABI
- Children and young adults with an ABI (aged 11 years and over)
- Siblings of a young person with an ABI (aged 11 years and over)
What does the counselling service do?
Individuals will be offered six to eight, fifty-minute counselling sessions (one session per week) via telephone or video-call.
This will be with one of our qualified counsellors, who have also completed training on understanding childhood acquired brain injury (ABI).
How do I access the service?
Simply download a referral form (available below in PDF or Word document versions) and please email it to office@cbituk.org or post it to:
Child Brain Injury Trust
3 Field View
Baynards Green Farm Trading Estate
Baynards Green
Nr Bicester
Oxfordshire
OX27 7SR
Once we receive your completed referral form, your referral may be placed on a short waiting list. When your referral reaches the top of the list, we will direct it to one of our counsellors. The counsellor will then contact you to make an initial appointment.
For more information or if you need support completing a referral form, please email office@cbituk.org and a member of the team will get back to you.
In A Crisis:
The Child Brain Injury Trust Counselling Service is not a crisis service.
In a crisis:
- Call 999 if it is an Emergency (if someone is at significant risk of hurting themselves or another person, or of breaking the law).
- Call NHS 111 if you need urgent help, but it is not an emergency.
You can also call a crisis hotline or text a crisis messenger:
- Call your local NHS urgent mental health helpline. Find your local helpline HERE.
- Call Samaritans on 116 123 (or for the Samaritans Welsh Language Line, call 0808 164 0123)
- If you are under 25, call The Mix on 0808 808 4994 (3 pm–midnight every day) or text THEMIX to 85258
- If you are over 25 years old, text “SHOUT” to 85258 to contact the Shout Crisis Text Line
Meet our counsellors:
Rachel Johnston
Counsellor
Ruth Gillespie
Counsellor
Catherine Miskimmon
Counsellor
Frequently asked Questions
Feedback from counselling sessions
Thank you so much…. Your listening ear, suggestions and support have helped me so much and in turn I’ve been able to help other family members You really do know your stuff.
I’m so grateful to of had this service … and I will forever remember how [MY COUNSELLOR] helped me. I felt I was listened to, valued, respected and she really focused on what I was saying to help me through my problems… I feel like I’ve been saved, and I feel like I’m ready to face the world… Thank you so so much, the service saved me.
I recently finished my 10th session … and I honestly can’t thank you enough for putting everything in place – [MY COUNSELLOR] has been an amazing and, as it turns out much, a much needed support.
… I was nervous, apprehensive and doubtful that just talking to someone would help in anyway. I remember [MY COUNSELLOR] telling me that our sessions were a “safe space”” to talk, and it was okay to feel sad. Fast forward 10 weeks and I am in a much better place – [MY COUNSELLOR] has helped me put in place a range of strategies to cope how much life has changed.
What did you learn in counselling?
So many things, I could write a book. I learned how to be ME, I learned how to deal with situations, I learned the value of life and my life, I learned strategies to cope, I learned how to live again.
That its ok not to be ok. To talk about how I am feeling.
Tools and techniques for dealing with stressful situations and also how to think about events in a different way.
Having had counselling before I’m aware of using strategies to help. Kind of like tools to fix something. This was a whole different level…. A whole new toolbox with new and different strategies. Unique and totally appreciated and they work.
Your Donation Changes Lives
Acquired brain injury can happen to any child, at any moment, and when it does, it changes everything for the whole family.
The Child Brain Injury Trust is here to make sure no child or family faces the journey of acquired brain injury alone.