Face to Face Counselling is an independent, non-profit-making organisation run by volunteers. It is geared towards clients aged 18 and over, on no income or low income (up to £25,000 per annum), resident in the Greater Manchester area and registered with a GP based in a Greater Manchester metropolitan district or borough, i.e Manchester, Trafford, Oldham, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan, Tameside, Salford, Stockport or Bolton.
Clients contribute £5 - £20 per session, based on a sliding fee scale. We are based in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, South Manchester and offer 1:1 counselling for adults (18 & over) on low income with sessions available in person, by telephone and online. At present, we do not offer counselling for children & young people.
Please note you are likely to be offered an appointment sooner if you are flexible in terms of your availability, willingness to see a trainee counsellor, preference for mode of accessing counselling (phone/online/in person) and therapist gender. Requests for in person counselling are likely to incur longer waiting times.
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To access our service, download our Jan 25 referral form, returning to: [email protected]. This is the most effective way to join our waiting list.
- For information on placements for trainee counsellors, see here.
Is Face to Face the right service for you?
You can access our service if you are:
- aged 18 years and living in Greater Manchester.
- requiring emotional support from person centred talking therapy, with a willingness to attend regularly and be ‘ready, willing & able’ to fully engage with therapy. registered with a GP at all times. We will not be able to offer counselling if you are not registered with a GP or are unwilling to provide your GP’s name and contact details.
Our service is not/may not be suitable if:
- You are having therapy from another service
- You have had therapy either with Face to Face Counselling or another organisation within the last 9 months.
- You have an alcohol/drug issue that is at a level which is highly likely to interfere with your ability to engage fully with therapy.
- You are currently in crisis requiring immediate support, Face to Face Counselling service is not a crisis service. Please see our ‘Who Can Help’ list for details of organisations that may be able to help.
More information about our service
How to join our waiting list:
Download our Digital Referral Form:Jan 25 referral form, returning to: [email protected] or, Email: [email protected] and you will receive an autoreply detailing the information that we require in order to add you to our waiting list.
For those without internet access only, you can join the waiting list by calling 0161 881 1535, leaving your name, phone number and confirming if it is OK for us to leave a message on your phone. We will then call you back to take further details. It may be some time before you receive a call back as this is dependent on volunteer availability, but if you have not heard from us within 2 weeks of your call, please do call again.
Other important information:
Our policy is that for all clients that have been in receipt of a counselling interaction through ourselves (or through other providers), we require you to wait at least 9 months before we will consider requests to be placed back on our waiting list for a further counselling interaction.
Furthermore, as we are an organisation that has limited resources and which strives to offer support to as many individuals as possible resident in the Greater Manchester area and on a low income, we are unable to provide access to further counselling support in instances where any of the following apply:
- The client concerned has received more than 2 counselling interactions (series of counselling sessions) with Face to Face Counselling Service in any given 7 year rolling period.
- The client concerned has a presentation whose needs cannot be appropriately met by Face to Face Counselling Service.
- Where it is deemed that the limit of what Face to Face Counselling Service can offer has been reached through previous counselling interactions.
Young People - please note: this service is not available at this time.
Counselling for young people aged 13-18 years.
Find out more