Swindon counselling and training service wins Wiltshire Life’s Charity of the Year Award

By Jessica Durston

Swindon-based charity organisation Willows Counselling & Training were the winners of this year’s Charity of the Year category at the Wiltshire Life Awards 2023.

The awards schemeorganised by Wiltshire’s leading county magazine Wiltshire Life - seeks to raise the profile and awareness of worthy profitable businesses and also charities and community groups.

The 2023 Charity of the Year category was sponsored by the local full-service creative agency GEL Studios.

Denise Brent and Amanda Cook, Co-CEOs of Willows Counselling & Training, said: “We are absolutely humbled and delighted to have won Charity of the Year at the recent Wiltshire Life awards.

We are so proud of the work that we do, and so grateful and thankful for the support and recognition that we have received.

“We are passionate at Willows about providing quality and in-depth training for the counsellors of the future, as well as providing an affordable counselling service for the local community, especially in these recent difficult times.

“Thank you to the whole team at Wiltshire Life, and to the wonderful team at Gel Studios who sponsored the category.”

Willows Counselling and Training Service was founded in response to a request by local GPs to the ‘Churches Together’ partnership to set up a professional counselling service. In order to achieve this, training courses began in 1989/90 and in 1995 the first cohort of trained counsellors started working with clients. As a registered charity, Willows is dependent on various streams of financial support. Some comes from clients who pay towards their therapy on a sliding scale dependent on income, and some from churches and other Swindon organisations.

In addition, applications are made by the team to local and national grant-awarding bodies to help cover the costs of providing counselling, maintaining the building, and investing in capital projects. None of the agency’s funding comes from the NHS or local authority.

More information about Willows can be found online at www.willowscounselling.org. uk. Those wishing to donate can do so at localgiving.org/ donation/swindonwillows/ start