Thank you to all that attended our first networking evening last night, we had a group of around 20 turn up, luckily there was enough biscuits to go round (which is most important).
The great thing about these events is giving counsellors and therapists the opportunity to find work or placements, advertise their own events or courses and discover what's on that might be of interest to them.This particular evening shed some light on what some of the more experienced counsellors felt was missing in the realms of support and connection locally...
It was put out there that there is a need for an online forum that delves into all aspects of mental health, primarily for local counsellors to benefit from, but also an access point for the public to ask questions and enquire from a large population of online counsellors. It would be the ideal site for counsellors to review courses, discuss ethical dilemmas, relay real life stories and experiences, advertise work, placements and volunteering roles, recommend certain services and find experts and specialists to refer to.
Therapy for Life will be looking into putting together such a site with advice and recommendations from our networkers, it would be beneficial to organise a brainstorming session with our web designer who can design the online forum for us.
We also discussed how so many of the interesting courses and CPD events always seem so far away and deter many of us in Essex from travelling there.
We shall look into this also, and utilise the conference rooms at Southend's University of Essex to run some interesting courses and hopefully get some guest speakers in.
So all in all a very productive evening, we shall run the next one in June, and see how we can really impact positively on mental health in Essex.
If you want to attend the next networking evening, just contact Sam at: sam.c@therapyforlife.net
www.therapyforlife.net
